Academic Advice

“One of my new tenure-track colleagues asked me for advice, and I only gave her three pieces, but someone else said it was really good advice, so! If you’re new or new-ish in an academic full time job:

1. Show up. A lot of people manage to mess things up by not making their work visible.
2. Try to get at least one CV line a month during the academic year; if you keep your teaching/research/service balance, you should be golden (This one is from the Professor is In, and it was my strategy).
3. Go to conferences while you have startup funds (if you have them, obviously). Likely go to 6ish a year. This is a lot. It’s exhausting. You only need to do it for 2-3 years, though, to figure out how to find your academic people and start building a network. Then you can scale down.

These aren’t perfect, nor are they totally true in all cases, nor are they going to work for everyone. But, if you (like me) need very basic concrete goals … well, there you go. (And for what it’s worth, this got me to tenure a year early, which has material benefits.)

@schwbby.bsky.social: This is both a recipe for success and burnout. And the fun part is only finding out at the end!”