Blog — Toddler on the Tenure Track

Oh. My. Gosh. People love to give advice about the academic job market in general. Add in the fact that you’re also pregnant and the desire to impart wisdom goes through the roof! And of course if you don’t follow their advice there are dire consequences (i.e., you won’t get the job). That being said, I got a whole lot of advice, and to the best of my memory, only one of those people had been pregnant while searching.

Academic LifeJillDecember 8, 2018job search, pregnancy, reflection, top postComment

12 Things I Learned After Having a Baby During the Final Year of my PhD

I started graduate school in 2011, right after Mike and I got married. We knew kids were in our future and we knew that grad school and our geographic location were temporary. We figured the next place would be for the long haul so it made sense to wait until after our next move to have a kid. The original plan was that I’d finish school in 4 years, but life happened and I tacked on an additional year.

Academic LifeJillDecember 5, 2018pregnancy, graduate school, reflection, top post Comments

11 Tips for Creating a Schedule that Works for You

In my last post I shared a random daily schedule. Today I thought I’d share some basic principles that I try to keep in the forefront of my mind when I’m thinking about how the work day/week will play out. This list is certainly not exhaustive, but it does serve as a nice foundation on which my work schedule (and to some extent our personal schedule) is created.

Planning and ProductivityJillDecember 4, 2018scheduling, goal setting, calendar, trial and error, consistency, expectations, reflection, planning, top postComment

A Day in the Life of an Assistant Professor (October 2018)

I love a good schedule... something about seeing how people plan out their days is so interesting to me (perhaps I need more exciting things to do with my life)!

Academic LifeJillDecember 3, 2018behind the scenes, a day in the lifeComment

Weekly Update: 11/26 - 12/2

One of the things I plan to do on the regular is share what I’m working on each week, progress made, and challenges faced. I do this for myself, so why not add some additional accountability?

A Little Bit of Context

Before I delve into our how of academic life with a toddler, I think it’s important to give you some context about what life looks like for us (so you can decide whether or not our experiences are similar to your situation).

Academic Life, Tenure and Life UpdatesJillDecember 2, 2018behind the scenes, about toddler on the tenure trackComment

Toddler on the Tenure Track: It Begins!

I vividly remember my first official day on the tenure track. I was sitting in a colleague’s office, trying my best to make it seem like I had it all together, while on the inside I was 100% convinced my brain had been replaced with mush.