Handling career regrets

[Mobius]

Many searches are failing in rural America because folks don't want to make a meager living with poor benefits many of these places offer. Part of the "Great Resignation?" I don't know, but it does seem searches are failing more these days at my institution.

[Ruralguy]

We have competitive, blended over all disciplines, salary to offer, but obviously not tops for a number of disciplines. Our benefits are excellent actually.

The problem is location, and it goes beyond being rural. Let's just say there's a lot of  painful reminders of the injustices associated with this chunk of the US. Then some schools have quirky missions.

I think it is part of the resignation, even though that was mostly very young switching jobs and very old retiring. Still, we do slightly more faculty resignations and definitely more failed searches and reneges.

[Wahoo Redux]

I was offered a job as a PR writer and copy editor at our first university out of graduate school.  I was in the final stages of the dissertation and working part time for the uni's PR department and teaching on the side. 

PR writing and PR in general have their drawbacks...but I have begun to wonder what I could have done with the experience now that academia has come down with a wasting disease.  Instead, I took a job as a writing center coordinator, which went very well overall, but it did not carry as much weight as I had hoped down the line...

I also turned down a FT TT job in my state-of-origin so my wife could keep her tenure track job and we could care for a sick family member.  I figured it was a good sign that I had been offered a job at all and that there will be others...and then 2008 melted down...and then COVID hit...

And now I will be nonrenewed in May (I got the official letter a couple of weeks ago) and our enrollment drops every semester and our admin is flailing.

I don't know if I have *regrets*, exactly (since it has been a good ride in many respects), but I do wish I had started this journey much earlier in life and done much better overall.

[mamselle]

You could probably still parlay your writing/PR background into something interesting...there's more interest in written work now that it's online and paper doesn't have to be involved.

Second careers are a worthy thing...so are third, and tenth, and...

M. 

[Wahoo Redux]

You could probably still parlay your writing/PR background into something interesting...there's more interest in written work now that it's online and paper doesn't have to be involved.

Second careers are a worthy thing...so are third, and tenth, and...

M.

Thanks mamselle, I have actually thought of that, and I have been doing some journalism over the last couple of years. I have a fairly good portfolio, actually.  I will be looking for some freelance writing work as soon as the semester is over.

I'm going to work on several other writing projects as well, give it a couple of months to see how it goes.

[apl68]

Library school is not the answer.  Every year numerous American MLS programs churn out scores of new grads, most of whom will not get the sorts of professional jobs they are looking for.   It is almost as bad as the academic job market for most humanities PhDs, and, since it is much easier to get an MLS than a humanities PhD, this problem is easier to prolong and increase.

I've always urged people considering a library career to start working for a library first, then get the MLS degree if they find that they like the work and have become established at it.  Professional-level library positions always require years of relevant job experience in addition to the degree.  If you start working for a library first, then you can be paying your dues, so to speak, while getting the professional education.  This puts you in a far better position as a job candidate once you graduate.  Still no guarantees, but you'll definitely stand out from all the freshly-minted MLS's out there who still have years of gaining actual library experience ahead of them before they can be taken seriously as professional candidates.

You'll also be in a position to get far more out of the MLS program if you already have significant library experience to build from going in.  In my MLS courses I noticed three distinct groups of students--those of us who had been working in libraries for years and had already moved beyond entry-level work, those who had some entry-level experience, and those who had been inside a library at some point.  Those of us who had the experience were able to hit the ground running once we were in school.  We learned a lot, and were able to teach each other a lot.  The students with no experience were at a disadvantage (And some of them gave the impression that they really weren't academically up to grad-level work, either).

[apl68]

Many searches are failing in rural America because folks don't want to make a meager living with poor benefits many of these places offer. Part of the "Great Resignation?" I don't know, but it does seem searches are failing more these days at my institution.

Institutions in rural areas often find it necessary to take somebody who is already there and wants to stay there and then groom that person for the position.  That's obviously a problem if you want somebody with a PhD or other high-level degree, but it can be quite doable if it's a matter of helping a tried-and-proven staff member to get a professional Masters' level degree or other certification.  That's how rural libraries tend to get their librarians.  It's how my alma mater turned my mother from a burned-out high school Spanish teacher into a long-serving MA-level faculty member.

[apl68]

I spent some years bitterly regretting my decision to go into a PhD program in hopes of starting a career in academia.  I regretted the six "lost" years in the program, and feared that I had ruined my prospects in life by taking the wrong career path.  It's hard not to feel that way when you see people your own age starting careers and families while you're still trying in vain to get started in life.  Then my alternate career took off, and I was able to find congenial work in a place where I wanted to live, and I was able to start seeing how my grad school education and experiences had prepared me for what I ended up doing.  So I no longer have regrets involving career decisions.

I've had other regrets involving disappointments in life that stemmed from things over which I had no control.  Some were pretty devastating disappointments.  I'm now making a concerted effort to stop feeling that way about these.  Regret of that sort does nobody any good, especially somebody who believes in the sovereignty of God and wants to place trust in God.  Trusting God involves accepting that what he wants us to have and experience is best, even when it is very different from what we wanted for ourselves.  The only way to enter the kingdom of God is to pass through much tribulation.

And then there are some things I regret because I should regret them--because I did them out of selfish motives and without taking what I knew to be right or what was best for others around me into consideration.  That regret is part of what prompts us to turn from what we're doing wrong and start doing right.  The word translated "repentance" in the New Testament literally means something like "a change of mind that leads to regret and a change of conduct."  Once the change is made, though, it's best not to hold onto the regret too tightly.  Just enough to remind me of where I came from, and where I don't want to go again.

[mamselle]

From Corrie ten Boom's "Each New Day," for October 13:

"I once visited a weaver's school, where the students were making beautiful patterns. I asked, "When you make a mistake, must you cut it out and start from the beginning?"

A student said, "No. Our teacher is such a great artist that when we make a mistake,  he uses it to improve the beauty of the pattern."

  (She then continues the analogy, with transformation and transcendence as the primary themes.)

Remember, too, that the tapestry weaver only sees the pattern from the back. And while the back of a well-woven piece is expected to be of expert quality as well, it does not look THE SAME as the front. What looks like an error from that side may also make the visible side more coherent.

M.

[pink_]

My sister switched careers and got her MLS at age 47.

It's never too late!

M.

One of my colleagues got her MLS online while working at my university (she earned it from another institution since we don't offer an MLS). She has recently retired and has been picking up shifts at various library branches in whatever the librarian equivalent to substitute teaching is. She loves it.

[kaysixteen]

Random observations:

1) Library schools do not tell applicants that merely acquiring an MLS (which is after all a *graduate degree* is usually not enough to obtain professional librarian employment in most places/ subfields today, unlike, say, getting a teaching degree (which comes of course with student teaching) or a law degree (which allows one to work for oneself, amongst other things).   Also, library schools generally do not provide such opportunities for their students.

2) Around here, at least, the sorts of paraprofessional positions a library school student or potential MLS student might seek to get, and could realistically obtain, won't really provide much useful experience that could translate to that post-MLS job down the road.   There really is 1) too much competition, 2) too much deprofessionalization and 3) danger of being seen as overqualified.

[apl68]

Random observations:

1) Library schools do not tell applicants that merely acquiring an MLS (which is after all a *graduate degree* is usually not enough to obtain professional librarian employment in most places/ subfields today, unlike, say, getting a teaching degree (which comes of course with student teaching) or a law degree (which allows one to work for oneself, amongst other things).   Also, library schools generally do not provide such opportunities for their students.

2) Around here, at least, the sorts of paraprofessional positions a library school student or potential MLS student might seek to get, and could realistically obtain, won't really provide much useful experience that could translate to that post-MLS job down the road.   There really is 1) too much competition, 2) too much deprofessionalization and 3) danger of being seen as overqualified.

I've found that faculty members in library programs, when they think to address the issue of needing more than just the degree, are pretty honest about it.  But yes, the school's recruiters don't bother.  They're selling a product for the benefit of the school, not for the benefit of the customer.

I don't doubt that there are places where there are just too many MLS holders available for local needs.  I would not encourage somebody who has his or her heart set on living in a such a place, or is for some reason unable to leave the area, to look into a library career.  Not unless that person already had serious experience and connections in the profession and simply needed a degree to rise above the glass ceiling.  I'd especially do this if that person belonged to an under-represented minority.  Some years ago I suggested to a black staff member here who was considering a move to the state capital that she might try getting her degree, as she'd have an excellent prospect of getting hired.  She chose to do something else instead.  Which was fine, but I still think she would have been good librarian material.

[mamselle]

I know a little library in the upper part of lower Michigan that hasn't been able to keep a lead librarian since my sister retired from the position a year ago--they've called her back three times to cover temporarily, because the people there keep getting better jobs in bigger places elsewhere.

So there are some jobs, in some places...

It's a beautiful little town, one could truly be happy there, I think, but people keep looking to far horizons. She said it was never hard to run it well (and, well, given the previous lead librarian's penchant for embezzlement, the bar started out pretty low), but it does depend on one's career ambitions and ability to be satisfied with a more stable (if slightly more conservative) population--NYC, it's not.

Anyway, she made a 20-year second career out of it, after being a tour agent for the 20 years before that (and, the poor dear, having to travel all over the world on familiarity trips, so she'd be able to advise the well-off patrons they served--in the same town--which hotels to visit...).

M.

[Ruralguy]

There are definitely librarian jobs (I mean degreed positions for people running the place) if you don't mind living in small midwestern or southern towns.  Many people mind, but that's a different problem than not having jobs at all.

[paddington_bear]

I love the continuing conversation! I think I need a book or career counseling that specializes in academic transitions.

Also, as if NPR was reading my mind, today's episode of their Life Kit podcast is about regrets. https://www.npr.org/2022/03/16/1087010308/the-power-of-regret-how-examining-regret-can-help-you-live-a-meaningful-life