Why Me?

I've spent the last few days celebrating the fact that I've landed a tenure track position with some really great friends of mine. More than anyone, my fellow grad student friends have been excited for me, largely because they know just how painful the process of applying is and how badly the odds are stacked against a person who pursues this profession. While I was certainly riding high from the loads of congrats being thrown at me, I was saddened by the fact that, out of my cohort, I am the only one thus far who has landed a job this year.

So why me? I really don't know. I honestly don't think I'm any smarter than all the really smart people I go to school with. I do work hard (you can't make it through a PhD program without doing so), but considering the time I spend buying shoes, playing Rock Band and stalking people on Facebook, I doubt that I work any harder than most other graduate students do. I don't come from a family of professors, so I haven't been able to rely on some insider connection. I feel good about my project (more on that later), but I couldn't say that I knew how to strategically cultivate a topic that was going to be in vogue. I certainly received a lot of help from really fantastic advisors-- Perhaps more help then some receive, but perhaps less than others do, too.

I don't want to attribute my good fortune to, well, my good fortune. Or luck. Though I confess I do check my horoscope fairly religiously and play with Tarot cards. I use these things as psychological tricks to assure myself, but I actually don't believe in attributing outcomes to something beyond our control. A good friend of mine just wasted her time applying for a TA-ship with a woman who ended up just drawing a name out of a hat. When things don't go the way you want them to, shitty luck is never a consolation. It just makes you feel like shit.

But since some friends have asked me what is it that I've done to get this position, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to share that information. Perhaps I'll devote some future posts to discussing How To Become A Professor (subtitle: When You Don't Know What The Hell You Are Doing).