I couldn't believe the news about Lehman Brothers. Poof, gone. After a century and a half. Same with Bear Stearns a few months ago.
It's made even more surreal because once upon a time, I was one of those bright-eyed, bushy-tailed college graduates thinking I wanted to do investment banking. I actually had job offers with both Lehman and Bear coming out of college. I turned them down for my current gig.
Why did I want to do i-banking? Honestly, because it was a job I knew I could get and that I knew I could do. They try to scare you, talking about 100-hours work weeks. But what did that mean to me at 21, 22? It was almost a challenge. Me? Of course I can stay up all night every night. Of course I am hard core. She can do it, so can I. I want to be a rat.
Such naivete.
Which is something to learn from for my current job search now. Yes, I will definitely leave my current position and get a new job. In finding something new, I don't want to fall into the same mindset I had coming out of college: get a job because I know I can. I want a job that motivates me, something that gets me excited to get out of bed every morning.
I have a lot of choices, I think, and it's job search season.
And here, I have a confession to make about my current job. I talk about it as a job because, well, it sort of is, and I wanted to stay as anonymous as possible. But when it comes down to it, calling it a job is misleading. It's not a job.
I am a graduate student, a PhD student. I work in a lab on a thesis project and no longer take classes, so my thesis is my job. I get a stipend, like a salary, though it's pretty low-paying. I interact with my lab (my office, division, colleagues, whatever else I've been calling it). I interact with other offices and labs within my school.
I've been calling my school my company, and my thesis advisor my boss. I originally thought it would be easy to translate problems in lab and at school to problems at work to talk about in this blog, but it's actually been pretty difficult. I often want to write about sentiments and perspectives and difficulties I encounter, but then realize that they are unique to a student mindset. So I end up writing nothing because it's hard to "anonymize" my grad student experience. And times when I do anonymize and try to adapt the events and happenings to a more work-relevant situation, I feel fake, and I feel that it's not believable.
I feel like some of you may have already guessed that something wasn't quite right about my job? Did you? Things like office mates talking openly about looking for other jobs just aren't things that people in actual jobs experience, right. Taking time off from a job is not usually a viable option for a reagular 9-to-5, but of course, I was talking about doing a summer internship or taking off a semester to work. I felt like you guys must have wondered why my job was so weirdly flexible and knew that something was off.
So which school? I don't think I'll reveal that explicitly, but I'm sure those of you with IP-enabled visit trackers can figure that out quite easily. Which program? Well, it's just say it's science and engineering related.
Anyway, back to jobs. Our big fall job fair was this week, and I walked around, handing out resumes, and I actually got an interview straight from the fair. Problem is that it's one of those jobs where my motivation is unclear. Do I really want to do it? Or do I just want it to say to people I work at a well-known prestigious place?
5 comments:
I personally didn't think twice about it. I was a grad student for five years (two different programs) and now work in a field where not only do we TALK constantly about other jobs, but we celebrate those who go on interviews and might move to some practice area they love. A lot of the high-level professional world has become more flexible, more work-from-home/work-life balance oriented.
I do agree that having a job and paying to do your job (I.e. Grad student) are worlds apart, but I see the similarities too.
That being said, so what about the job search? The field is one in demand (presumably) and your degree will have the prestige behind it. So where is the fear coming from?
That required a confession? Koshka, there are loads of grad students in the world, and if you're getting paid for it, it's a job.
But that does explain my visitor from Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education.
Even if the job isn't quite what you're looking for, is it one of those that might be a short-term stepping stone to something better?
I have the same question as geekhiker, is it something that might be good to just get on the resume for a while? That will help get you further down the road? If it is, I say go for it.
daisy - The problem comes from not wanting to do what I'm getting my degree in. It's not so much a fear, but rather a difficulty with convincing people I can do something that I wasn't specifically trained to do ...
GH & sitcomgirl - It's not short-term, unless I make it short-term. It's a bit more complicated b/c it's with the government, and I would need security clearance. So it's unclear how well it would set me up for something else b/c it's unclear how much I would even be able to talk about my job. It'd be perfect if I wanted to stay in government, though.
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