Elder care is hugely difficult.
Nurses often work shifts. Some of the ones at the hospital I work at often aren't able to schedule their own doctors' appointments much less those of a child. I think that this varies a lot by the role.
It is hugely difficult, but presumably there's a range, and it's steady.
Oh, what about support staff for people working with kids with special needs? You already know the system fairly well.
If you wait it out at your current job for 10 years will your kids be grown and out of the house? Obviously it'll be harder to make a shift of career at that age, but the increased options for your schedule might be enough to counterbalance that.
Would there be any sort of administrative position at your university (eg coordinating some program) that you could maneuver into and would give you a better chance of being able to jump schools?
Math teacher. If you have a PhD in humanities you're smart enough to teach grade school math and the market is better for math than humanities.
I think 4 and 5 is right. The suggestions in the OP, and I mean this with the greatest respect, are like somebody on crack would suggest.
Are right. I should check my grammar when I compare people to drug users.
If going back to school to pick up an additional degree for a career change is an option, and it sounds like it is with people suggesting nursing, than consider an MLS. It's an easy degree and with your PhD in a humanities discipline you'd have a good chance at landing a job at an academic/research/special collections library. I don't know what discipline you're in but an MLS combined with a PhD in a related collections area stands a very good chance at landing a good job. Most of the Middle East studies librarian jobs I see now are going to PhDs, some with MLS degrees and others getting them after landing the job. Good luck.
Let me add that you'll have the additional satisfaction of being able to do something that's related to your past PhD work and drawing on your no doubt considerable body of knowledge and resources you've developed over the years and it won't feel like you've completely abandoned it.
And library school is very easy.
If you have a PhD in humanities you're smart enough to teach grade school math
In this state anyways, what the state is willing to certify you to teach is based off your coursework on your transcripts and not "I have a PhD and am smart enough to teach anything." Unless that humanities Phd did their undergrad in math or physics it's likely that person is going to be quite a few course short of a math cert.
than consider an MLS
Noooooooooooooooooooooooo! Ok, maybe. But almost all the things you're likely to do with the degree are year-round fields. You could possibly get a part-time position, and you may not need the extra MA for it. Flexible part-time positions in a library are unlikely to pay 40k/year, 30k might be findable.
You could also not work in a library, but then you get back to the question of whether it's worth it to get the MLS. The degree can be useful for other types of information organization/design work, but you might also be able to get into things like web design without it.
This sounds a bit like "don't just do anything, stand there" to me. You haven't lost your current job yet. I'd sit tight and keep jobhunting in your field.
Teaching high school or gradeschool sounds like your best fallback, though, if your current job falls through and you don't have a replacement -- I'd listen to gswift, and check out certification requirements in your area, and meet those requirements on the side. Take one course at a time, or whatever you need.
Nursing or library school both sound implausibly expensive and time-consuming to power a career shift under the circumstances. And hoping for a $40K part time job sounds like dreaming to me -- like what everyone with an etsy store thinks is going to happen but won't.
Also, I meant 3 and 4, not 4 and 5.
If you're otherwise OK with your job except for fears about its future, I'd say stick it out at the college and take classes there (maybe an MLS, maybe I dunno "coding," maybe whatever requirements you'd need for a HS teaching credential, whatever sounds appealing and not too hard). It's not like it's impossible, and I obvs know nothing about your own school, but it's generally very difficult for even a struggling SLAC to just straight up go out of business and fire everyone. The number of colleges that have somehow kept muddling on vastly outnumbers those that have shut their doors, at least in the past 100 or so years. And the death pangs would probably be very long. So why not take the opportunity to take free classes and get some kind of more generally employable qualification while also having the option of protecting your job-security guarantee and summer schedule if the SLAC pulls through?
Things to think about:
Would you be able to earn enough money working a non-academic 9-5 so your partner could stay home? He doesn't make enough so you can, but if your skillset is such that you can earn more if you work the sorts of hours he does, then you wouldn't need to worry about flexibility.
Are there things you can change about your lifestyle or where you live to allow you to live on one income in the future, if your fears are realized and you're out of a job before you want to be? And/or can you aggressively save now to make that sort of early or partial retirement viable?
GO TO LAW SCHOOL
BECOME A BIG SHOT ATTORNEY
14 is wrong. SLACs are going out of business and shutting down. Not the uber-prestigious ones, but the other 80%, especially if they're in the middle of nowhere.
That's what, two schools? That's still better job security than 99 of 100 other jobs.
Also, how mobile are you guys? I think of the academic job market as requiring cross-country moves.
Do I understand right from the OP that you have no useful language skills? Not even Latin? Teaching a language in high school seems like a plausible career shift for many humanities PhDs.
Thanks for the advice so far! I am already working on some--I am in a faculty administrative position--division chair--and I am looking for those kinds of jobs as well. I think that probably taking Ed classes at my current institution (for free!) to get enough for an alternate licensure might be my best fallback. I can do that while I wait for things to get better or fall apart, but we've had a good six years of decline.
Is the market for MLS degrees good? I thought library positions were being cut left and right.
I cannot earn enough for my husband to stay home and he is not inclined to. If I found a decent part time job, even less than 30,000, we could make some adjustments.
Law school is out because I don't want to go into debt and my husband is already a lawyer.
Compare that to non-faculty jobs doing statistics. I have been one grant decision away from being laid off three times in nine years. And I've seen plenty of other people go because of that.
20: we're constantly getting these little tidbits, "You know Aorta University in the Heartland where so-n-so's cousin went to undergrad? Similar to Heebie U? They shut down." It's not a deluge, but it's something that Heebie U is watching very, very closely. If the San Antonio/Austin area wasn't growing so enormously right now, we'd have gone out of business. As is, we're marginally okay but need to do better.
24: Aren't statistics people needed in corporations? Ancillary to their accountants or marketing department or that kind of thing?
We're mobile enough to move if I got a solid academic job, if there is even such a thing anymore.
My phd languages are Spanish and French, but I don't think I'm qualified to tech either at the high school level, and my colleagues in education tell my the market for high school Spanish teachers is terrible. We just dropped out licensure for it due to there being so few jobs.
Wait for your SLAC to actually shut down, and then parlay that into an academia-screed-journalism role as the next Rebecca Schumann. Coming from a school that actually shut down would give you a lot of cred that's hard to compete with. Prepare for this by starting to write some freelance pieces about the future of academia now in which you actually predict that your (anonymous) SLAC is likely to shut down, and then if it does you'll look like a prophet and people will be more likely to hire you. If the prediction fails, well then you'll still have your old job!
14: Yeah but 'muddling through' when they do often involves dropping the less "ooh shiny" disciplines (usually in the humanities) and replacing them with ones where they students don't have to learn things. So if they were in the physics or math department or something (or Computer Science or Business or whatever) then it'd be less of a worry (but still more of a one than you think). But you totally see philosophy/classics/religion/anything-studies/etc. departments just vanishing.
28--yes! I have thought about writing a case study type book about a Slac on the brink!
27: Not without degrees and/or experience. And certainly not flexible without those.
23.2 It depends on the sub-field. But I'm in a special collections area and I think things are definitely picking up from when I first started seriously looking around 3-4 years ago. With a PhD in an even tangentially related field I think you would have a very good shot.
There are also a lot of tech type positions in libraries involving UX and web design that fa alluded to above but the private sector also employs for those things and is much more lucrative.
Can you talk to librarians at your institution? They may have some ideas.
I'm also curious as to your answer to heebie's 21. I'm as mobile as mobile gets and look where I ended up.
Here are some actual numbers on colleges that have closed down. They don't have the denominator but I think there are about 2500 four year colleges in the US and about 125 total have closed in the past 25 years (all years combined, with a max of 10 per year). That's more than I would have guessed, but I think it's fair to say that unless you know that the doors are actually closing very soon tenure at an even struggling college is more job security than you'd get almost anywhere else.
Unfoggetarian is so right in this thread that nobody else needs to say anything.
But I'm going to. I can't think of any better sign that you should keep your current job than that it has allowed you to think that flexible, part-time jobs for people whose main qualification is the ability to think and write well pay $30-$40k a year.
That seems about right. But there's a lot of buzz and fear about it.
One thing that happens, mentioned in the link about the bottom of that link, is that for-profit colleges acquire traditional, failing non-profits, so that they can hop on their accreditation (at least for a while). Those aren't included in the 5 closings/year stat.
Being a division chair and writing a study about a SLAC on the brink seems to me like it would really well position you for a jump into higher administration (either at your school if it is still hanging on, or at another worried SLAC if yours went under). Of course moving up in administration would likely mean worse hours, but it might be enough in the future that the load with kids would be less.
Gotta say 37.1 is a very good point.
35.1: The library field is doing better than the post-2008 collapse nightmare years, and it's probably better than most t-t humanities job markets. I think it's difficult to be more positive than that. If you can get an MLS without debt, it might be worth it.
I have to say that daydreaming about switching careers in your late 30s sounds a lot better as a daydream.
You have a well-established career that isn't in actual jeopardy; think of options that allow you to make the most of that rather than things that would have you start at an entry level salary in your 40s. Moving into admin preserves some flexibility; an MBA might not be a bad idea if you're inclined to further study.
From talking with friends who have left the academy, what's maddening about academics is our insistence that we can just walk in and do a daydream kind of job (I taught; I'll write education policy!) with no sense at all that other people might have worked years to develop expertise on these things.
28: Is your French good enough that it seems worth polishing into something you could teach? You've probably got at least years to do it in. Only if language teaching sounds attractive, but it's plausibly worthwhile.
UPETGI has it right, I think. Higher admin or another professorship are your best bets, I think. I can't imagine you really want to give up tenure and go through that promotion hoop-jumping again. Is there anything on your CV that can be polished right now? Are you weak in any area that would be evaluated? Have you shown you can publish/bring in grant money/whatever you need to do to be valuable?
High school teaching is not going to be an easy move, even if you do pull together credentials. Your PhD and lack of teaching at that level make you an expensive gamble.
The other area you might be able to move into easily is probably assessment development (think: ETS and test prep companies). i understand flexibility is important, but I'm wondering how much you really need vs how much you could expect in a "normal" job. I'd imagine you could do things like working 7-3:30.
So writing a book it is! I can definitely look into MLS stuff. Not going into debt is key. Alas, my French is terrible; Spanish would be a better bet. I am very aware that I can't walk into another job, which is why I am thinking about career shifting now and doing whatever preparation I need, but I would not say my career is not in jeopardy--I've seen the numbers and they ain't pretty.
Basically, I needed suggestions about what was possible so I can think about whether it is worth it to totally change jobs or see whether I can sit still for the next 10 or so years, and you guys have given me a lot to think about! Thanks!
While I've come around to UPETGI's views on this, and fa has some good caveats feel free to contact me if you have any questions or anything. I've gotten a lot out of the Mineshaft's job advice on and offblog in the last few years and I'd be happy to give back to the community.
P.lyzd - puzzling through some of the same stuff myself though different variables; can I ask what you like/don't like (besides flexibility)/are good at/not good at at your current job? I mean it seems you've gotten some actionable and resonant suggestions here but I'd like to think about it.
Community colleges would be a very good place to look. An experienced and reliable teacher is just the sort of person we are typically looking for, rather than some wunderkind fresh out of grad school.
You may have to do some hunting around, because they don't always advertise in the standard places for academics. The people in HR at Last Chance Community College seem to think that hiring an academic is just a matter of taking out an ad in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and being sure it has a lot of corporate speak in it.
They may figure nobody from outside will move there.
An experienced and reliable teacher is just the sort of person we are typically looking for, rather than some wunderkind fresh out of grad school.
Why is this, exactly? I applied to the Austin CC when I was graduating, because I was interested in staying in the area, and it was a genuine application - I wanted to teach, I could have stayed in Austin, sounds great. I don't think I was a wunderkind exactly, but I had six years of teaching under my belt, so I wasn't being naive. They had a lot of open positions, too. About eight months later I got a terse rejection letter in the mail.
Seven years and you could have gotten a verbose rejection.
50.2: I hear that they're trying to keep Austin weird. Were you weird enough?
47-- I really like teaching, and I am good at assessment and big picture things like curriculum revision. What I don't like is instability and low pay. Also, I like writing but I'm slow at publication. Frankly, I don't have the publication record I need. I am currently working on improving that.
46--thanks for your generosity! I will try to contact you personally after I look a little more into mls stuff.
48--yes, I think in the current climate, community colleges will be a good place to start looking.
So writing a book it is!
This really is a terribly bad idea. Don't do it. If you actually value the things you say you value -- job security, scheduling flexibility, etc. -- stick with your current job or look for work at a community college.
"Death of a SLAC: A Graphic History"
"If I Know I'm Being Laid Off, Why Not Sleep with the Undergrads?"
47 - does education policy/consulting with a strong hands on component appeal at all--like not just a think tank or research institute, a think tank (I am using the wrong word here) that conducts ongoing trainings with instructors/administrators? I know there's some of this work going on in the prison-college bridge program setting; pay is probably shit but it must be happening other places.
50: Wunderkind with a PhD is likely to have research interests they can't support, or view them as a fallback. Those I know who went the CC route usually adjuncted at one first.
I thought the book idea was that it was something that's plausibly within the kind of book that Paralyzed might write as part of her normal scholarship, not a replacement for her job.
50: They weren't sure you'd stay? Austin is a prime place to be, so they had a lot of great applicants? They weren't sure you were ready for a 5/5 load? You would upset the balance of power between the faculty with Ph.D's and the faculty who just have MAs? Sexism? They didn't like your lip ring?
57: "Getting Laid (Off): My year of sleeping with undergraduates because I know I'm going to be out of a job soon anyway."
Is teaching undergrads at a state flagship school good prep for teaching at a community college? I have no idea but I wonder.
63: I have a friend who did make it to Austin's community college, but the path he took was a PhD from UT with some teaching, then a lecturer at UT for about four years, after which he was able to network his was into one or two classes at ACC, which he then parlayed into a full-time gig when they removed someone senior in his department. I think they tend to assume anyone with a just-printed PhD from UT is going to be taking a position at a community college as a fallback or because they just aren't ready to move on with a "serious" job.
61: I don't think I got through HR, actually. Thinking back to the experience.
66 Fucking HR. Ever figure out why that might have been the case?
I just got a temporary job offer that I did not even apply for in the mail today.
Anyway, I'll be briefly moving to work in the legal field.
68: yeah, I didn't have my PhD at the point of application, because it was still the spring semester, and they were somehow unable to work with that. IIRC, Austin cc is the largest cc in the country and has a beaurocracy to rival any small nation.
I haven't read the whole thread, but there's also private school teaching to consider, which often has less onerous certification requirements, and private schools love to boast about PhDs on the faculty. You might have to do some networking to get in line for a job like that.
Ultimately, I think what Paralyzed should do is stay at her current job while doing something to make her less worried about the chances that her school is going to shut down. That "doing something" could be any number of things like making connections with a local community college, or setting up the option of moving into administration. I think "a Slac on the brink" could work in several directions: it might make you less worried, it might make your more sellable to another SLAC, and it might make you more sellable as an administrator. All of those might make you more comfortable sticking it out in your current job, which ultimately is probably more likely than not to still be around when you retire. (That is, school closure rates being what they are, even a high risk is probably less than 50%.)
How's your typing skills? I've read that there is a huge need for court reporters. It's hard to pass the test, but it pays well and you essentially call your own hours. Maybe Spanish is useful there, too. I don't know.
In education, consider becoming an ESL specialist.
Court reporter requires serious training -- it's not just typing fast.
Yes, that's a whole different thing.
Also, I think you usually have to work your way up in a civil service system before you make good money.
Those little keyboards are the shit. I used to get to mess with them.
74--you have excellent advice and that's probably what I will do, as well as investigating library stuff and possible education options. I'm just glad to have some different paths to think about.
Thanks! Hopefully it's good advice, Von Wafer's response has me worried.
80: Jumping the jury box and grabbing the keyboard is probably a guaranteed way of getting excused.
82: I think Von Wafer might be worried that writing a book would lead to having your life consumed by book-writing until one day you wake up, next to a prize or two, in a house in central Pennsylvania not sure how you got there.
Oh hey, as it so happens our local community college is taking apps for tenure track Assistant Professor of Spanish Language and Latin American Studies.
https://jobs.slcc.edu/postings/31114
83.1: And less horrible than claiming racism.
Last time they did a cheap trick to get out of paying me. If you wanted your $10, you had to wait in a big line. If you wanted to donate it to help hungry people, you got to leave right away.
I feel like I could write a book pretty easily if I didn't have to write most of it. But how to get it published in a professional-looking (or actually professional) form?
My new job and location has not afforded all the free time for this project yet. But in the winter, maybe.
Technical writing is very portable across industries and pays pretty well.
Not just anyone can do that many drugs.
I'm not sure what the problem is with the Spanish teaching market at the moment. My sister teaches Spanish at a private high school and has been the department chair there for years; I could ask her what her view of the market is. Long-term, though, I would think the demand for Spanish instruction would be pretty high - between NAFTA and working with the Hispanic community in this country, there are a lot of jobs where being bilingual in Spanish is a real plus, as opposed to almost any other language.
I was considering trying to make a transition to teaching high school math at one point during a period of self-employment, and I spent some time substitute teaching in our local public school system. The thing that put me off about it was how regimented everything was, compared with teaching at the college level. That, and even at the community college level you get to teach students who really want to be there, while at the high school level there are a bunch of students who are only there because they have to be, and it's a struggle to keep them from disrupting the class for those students who really want to learn. That may be something to think about if you are considering that transition. I'd agree with UPETGI that you probably should stay where you are while developing a backup plan.
ogged is right about private school teaching -especially at boarding schools, but they are often less flexible. Andover for sure, but if you're husband's a lawyer (unless it's Federal tax law, or plaintiff's bar stuff that he can do remotely), you may want to stay in your state for his work.
apparently the Snake People extension turns "Grea/t Recessi/on" into "Time of Shedding and Cold Rocks". (That's extension-proofed, not google-proofed.)