![]() So, what do you guys think would be good career options for me? I like having autonomy, being treated with respect by bosses or clients, and having a flexible schedule or enough time off that I can have appropriate amounts of time for exercise, sex, and media consumption. (I think that I’m somewhat better at not marking people as OUTGROUP ENEMY than most people are, which I guess is part of what makes me unorthodox.) I have fairly strong, but unorthodox leftist political beliefs which probably wouldn’t be too hard for anybody to dig up. I’m bisexual, and tend to ping people’s gaydar. Things which could be either pros or cons: (Although I expect I will get better at this with practice.) I’m still not great at speaking in front of large groups. My alcohol tolerance is shockingly low for a tall man whose ancestors are northern Europeans. My circadian rhythms are owlish, and I tend to function well below peak in the mornings (although a bit better if I get breakfast and coffee.) I also lose function much more quickly than most people do if I can’t get enough food (at the right times) and sleep. I’ve never had a “real job.” I’ve just had a research internship at a pharmaceutical company in high school, REUs in college, and some TAships at my grad program (where I’m fully funded and earn a fairly generous stipend). I used to be a fairly good programmer, but I haven’t written code in years. I have fairly good social skills in small-group and one-on-one settings, and I’ve gotten praise from my students for communicating effectively on those scales. I would say that I’m also a fairly good writer, and I have a lot of experience editing others’ work (as both a peer and a teacher). (I have expert-level knowledge in my actual domains of study.) I’m good at autonomously developing plans of action and following them through with minimal supervision (indeed, anybody who gets a PhD in my field has to have that skillset), and I’m fairly good at navigating unfamiliar environments. I have a remarkable associative memory, which has allowed me to acquire a nigh-encyclopaedic knowledge of history, literature, the arts, politics, philosophy, and the social sciences, as well as a fairly strong layman’s grasp of the physical and life sciences. I speak and read French and Spanish fluently, speak and read Arabic well enough to effectively do archival research in the Middle East (and am getting better at it all the time), and I am currently learning Turkish and German. In a few years, I’ll also have a PhD in history. I have a BA in both pure mathematics and history from a top-20 American university. When you pursue a high-risk career, you’ve got to come up with a good plan B, something else you can do if your ideal doesn’t work out. So, I’m an academic historian who’s doing pretty well, but I acknowledge that there’s still a pretty decent chance that when I reach the end of my PhD program, I won’t be able to get a decent-salary-and-benefits academic job, or be unable to get such a job that doesn’t make me miserable. ![]() I suspect this may get buried, so I might need to post it again next week, but here goes: It’s important for her to find a job that would provide her with health insurance, or at least pay her enough to be able to afford it, because she has an autoimmune disease which needs regular medication. She has more experience editing than I do, and with teaching writing at the collegiate level (which involves editing a fuckton of student papers.) She can read Middle English, Medieval French, and Latin, and she’s also a domain expert in literature, the history of Renaissance England, medieval and Early Modern European medicine, witchcraft, opera, and horror film. She has a gift, unusual among academics, for writing really funny and vivacious prose. ![]() She’s previously worked in arts administration, serving the New York’s Metropolitan Opera, where she did a lot of coordination and event-planning type work. Both her undergrad degree and the PhD she’s currently pursuing are in early modern English literature. ![]() Oh, my girlfriend is asking the same sort of question that I’m asking above. ![]()
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