Post-academic life

Recovering academic problem: It has been slightly disconcerting to realize how unnerving it was NOT to go back to school this year.

I've done the 9-5 job thing a couple of times now, if only for relatively short periods of time, and so far, I've really liked it; I liked that home was home, not the place where I lived AND worked, I actually really liked heading to and from work when most other people in the world are also heading to and from work for a change, and weekends and evenings take on an entirely new meaning when you can leave work AT WORK.*

But I hadn't realized until this year that I have never once not "gone back to school" at the start of the school year. I started pre-school at 4, and have been going back to school, in one capacity or another, ever since. (There were about 2 fall semesters in there when I was off teaching at the start of the school year, but I was still a student/prof those semesters, so I figure, they count.)

It's a surprisingly disorienting feeling. For one thing, I keep thinking that because I haven't started school, no one else has, either (at my law school, I mean, not at other schools; it's like I keep thinking school hasn't started yet, but it's going, to, really), and so keep getting surprised at references to classes etc. on FB and so on. For another, I've just felt completely adrift - unable to accomplish anything (mostly because I haven't really had much of anything I have to do, just some vague general goals). It has felt very much like limbo.

Of course, that all ends when I start my new 9-5 (or whatever) job TOMORROW. Which means that just like going back to school, I get to spend today stressing about what the hell I should wear on the first day.

 

 

*I realize this isn't always the case in law, of course. I had an amusing conversation with a prof once who had become an academic because she found work-life balance impossible as a lawyer; I said I found work-life balance in academia impossible because you never got away from your work, and at least with a non-academic job you left your work at work at the end of the day. She said, Not if you never go home. Which is true, but honestly, I'm not likely to get one of those kinds of jobs - not winning the pie-eating contest means you don't have to eat more pie. Moreover, it doesn't quite make sense to me that the only option other than working at a firm that wants 80-hour weeks from you is...to go into academia? Anyway. Here's hoping for a humane government job sinecure!

Comments

[Janice]

I think that there have to be lots of different work options along the continuum but dang if I know of any other one except for academia. My father was a professor. I'm a professor. My husband works in the nearby college library on an academic term schedule, now, too!

[devinemissk]

Dude. My first two jobs post-college were in higher education, and I went straight from those jobs to law school, so I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND. The weird part was the May one year after I graduated from law school when I realized that it was summer break for, well, everyone, EXCEPT FOR ME. My work didn't change just because it was summer (which had always been the case when I worked at the university).

[Laura]

I'm still on a school schedule, but since tomorrow is also our first day, I, too, am stressing about what to wear, especially since it's also picture day! Yikes. I went shopping this weekend, which netted me exactly one outfit. Parts of which can be mixed and matched, but still. And I just feel like everything I own is so blah. I hate that I worry so much about it. I think there's just this feeling I have that as a teacher, I know everyone is looking at me. Sigh.

Good luck with the new job. Your the new kid again! It's going to be cool seeing what happens as you progress. And look at it this way, maybe you'll be on vacation at times when there's no way we could take vacation.

[Bardiac]

I hope your new job is wonderful and that you love it!

[Anthea]

Good luck with your new job and I hope that you're happy with what you're going to wear tomorrow.

[Kellen]

I started work a year ago, after doing my undergrad and masters degree straight through. Even with long hours, it is nice that your day off is your day off. I refuse to hook my work email up to me phone, which I find helps make my time away from work be truly away from work.(I found a nice neutral way to do this was to switch from owning a smart phone to not having an email plan at all. Also cheaper.)

I can see how after a few years work might follow me home though, once more responsibility starts growing on me.

Good luck today!

[joy]

I love the equation of getting a big-firm job to winning the pie-eating contest and getting more pie.

And of course, one's options are not either/or Biglaw/academia, but for certain very high-achieving, prestige-oriented folks in the legal profession, that's what it looks like. With maybe impact litigation at the ACLU or organization of similar heft and repute thrown in as a wild and wacky third way.

[Rev Dr Mom]

It's been six years since I finished my last degree, and when it hits me is May...I'm waiting to be DONE when everyone is getting out of school, only I'm not. Even when I taught summer school, the routine was different. I miss that.

An I miss going back in September, too.

Good luck with the new job!

[What Now?]

I hope everything went swimmingly in your first day today. So you still had a new beginning right after Labor Day, even if it wasn't an academic new beginning!

[susan]

Hope the new job is going well!