Sometimes on Lemmy these seem like the only jobs that actually exist, but I’m sure there’s a lot of people here with different and unusual lines of work.

  • Anamnesis@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I’m an endlessly adjuncting philosophy professor. Going back to law school in the fall at age 38.

    • DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      It’s the correct move. I know a few Phd pro Ph who went this route in their 30s.

      Instead of just listening to U1 students with the same bad takes/logic, they now help people with actual tangible problems in the real world.
      They also went from “maybe I can afford name brand beans” to “maybe I shouldn’t eat out every day this week”.

    • OceanSoap@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      You got this! I went back to school in my mid-30s, and now 2 years after graduating, my life is immensely better. :)

      Of course, I went from no degree to an associates, so a bit different in terms of degrees, but it definitely helped.

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      that’s pretty rad. i have a friend who teaches in chicago, the stuff he tells me he has to go through just to secure his place in the field is just ridiculous.

      all the emphasis on new publications, new ideas, new this and that – what if we already got the important ideas down years ago and now the work of philosophy is in putting it to practice? why demand that scholars demonstrate their capacity for new ideas instead of demonstrating a capacity for outstanding pedagogy of existing ones? it drives me nuts… we say all of modern philosophy is a series of footnotes to plato and yet expect our professors to focus on advancing the field rather than focusing on principles of quality education and mentoring

      gah this is why i left academia to do therapy

      • Anamnesis@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Yeah dude the grind to try and get a tenure track job is soul-crushing. I put out over 1000 applications over the course of four years. I had about 15 interviews, 2 second round interviews, and at the end, no job. I can get adjunct work fairly easily, but it comes with no health insurance or stability, and it’s paid pretty badly. The adjunctification of higher ed has meant that a lot of otherwise good people have no future in academia, me being one of them. It sucks because I worked for fifteen years studying, teaching, and publishing on very some absolutely esoteric shit, and ended up with less job security and benefits than a Walmart employee. It took a lot of therapy, because this is the one thing I wanted to do with my life. But I know now that it’s time to move on, and that I can do good somewhere else if I get the right skills.