I live my life waiting for the other shoe to drop. If something good happens, I expect something bad to follow. Well, at the risk of jinxing myself, lately that’s been happening in reverse.
Exhibit A: I wanted to secure a summer job early, so I interviewed in early March for a position as a reader/scorer of standardized test essays. It pays decently for part-time, temporary work, but it is entirely project based (meaning readers will work on one state’s tests for a few weeks, then not work until the next state’s tests arrive). About two weeks after I interviewed, I got a call letting me know I qualified as a reader and offering me a chance to work on a project in April. I had to turn that project down because I knew I’d be busy with school. My plan was to wait for the next project, which I figured would start in mid-May or so.
Having heard nothing from this place since late March, I called them last Friday to find out when they expected their next project to start. They told me they didn’t know if they would have anything for the summer. That was NOT the impression they gave me when I interviewed there. So now not only don’t I have a summer job, but I’m way behind on a job search because I spent almost two months not looking because I thought I had a job already.
But get this: last Thursday, the day before I found out about this place screwing me over, I was talking with friends and colleagues and they mentioned that my school is still looking for grad students to do academic advising for incoming freshmen. I filed that away under ‘maybe’ at the time, but as soon as I learned I was out of a job, I immediately jumped on it. I interviewed for the advising gig today and I think there’s a pretty good chance I’ll get it. It’s also quite temporary, but it pays pretty well.
Exhibit B: Part of the reason I enrolled in grad school is to become qualified to teach writing at the college level. So far, that hasn’t happened. While some of my friends have done instructional assistantships (grading quizzes and helping professors run their classes and whatnot), I’ve spent this year doing some mind-numbing and pointless research/office work.
With this in mind, I was not overly optimistic about what kind of work I would be given in the fall. They asked us to list our preferences and I put down a teaching assistantship. Well, yesterday, they told us what we would be doing for our assistantships next year and I did not get teaching.
However, it turns out I ended up with something even better. They named me to the staff of the literary magazine. This is a fairly prestigious professional publication (in that it’s extremely difficult to get published in) and the grad students who get added to the editorial staff tend to be the department’s favorites. Plus, the program director told me I can still end up with some classroom experience regardless: he typically lets grad students serve as guest lecturers for his undergrad lit classes. So it looks like I’ll get a cool job next year and some classroom experience without having to take a stupid pedagogy class or teach English 101 at 8 a.m. to a group of kids who don’t want to be there.
Just thought I’d share.
