Academe

R stopped by my office the other night.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, he rarely stayed in school pass 7 PM.

"I have experiment to run. Hey, have you looked at that teaching position at NCSU?" He said.

From then on, he did nothing but encouraged me to apply.

"I'm not smart, I'm a hardworker, but I'm not smart." Self-proclaimed honesty hurts.

"You have two advantages, of being a woman and being a minority." He said. "You are gonna be OK."

So with that, he has opened my eyes. I am geared towards seriously thinking about life and work in the academia. It was just never the options before.

One thing that I realized when one pursue a career in the academia is that the pool of applicants is smaller. It has comparably different requirements and works in a different way than the jobs in the industry. At the very least, the application file has a bigger chance to be reviewed by someone on the other end, unlike the online application for big wig industries I've been applying to but have never heard back from.

The biggest problem is to work on ideas for research plan and teaching plan. Thinking about them already giving me a feeling of authority and independence. I'm planning to finish up things tomorrow and submit the resume, cover letter, list of reference, list of publication, and the planned research + teaching activities at night.

I'm having a high time working on this application set.

Wish me luck?