English 9217
Working Within and Beyond the University
Instructor: Professor Kate Stanley.
Fall Half Course.
This seminar will consider what kinds of work that graduate students in the humanities learn to do as they progress towards their degrees, and will explore the varieties of paid employment that might be viable choices going forward. We will investigate how and why higher education and the economy as a whole are changing in ways that make it increasingly difficult for students to secure full-time tenure-track teaching positions. We will then focus on what students might do while in graduate school to become plausible candidates for different kinds of positions, both inside and outside the university. We will experiment with diagnostic tools towards discerning the preferences and priorities that govern what forms of life and work will best suit us. We will also invite guests who offer a sense both of work we might be interested in and of the soft and hard skills employers seek when looking to fill specific positions. Students will leave the class with a strong resume (and/or academic CV), a fuller understanding of how and why to cultivate professional networks, and improved wherewithal for identifying possible jobs and writing cover letters that will garner interviews. At the same time, we will develop skills for successfully (and sanely) meeting the conventional requirements of a humanities graduate program, cultivating the kinds of habits that help balance writing, teaching, and others forms of work. No single piece of the work-life picture can be considered in isolation from the others, and this course will encourage and employ a broad, complementary, and practical rubric for thinking about how career and life choices intersect.
*Course may be taken as a credit or non-credit (Audit) option.
