Goldsmith, Abstract

Goldsmith, John A., John Komlos, and Penny Schine Gold (2001),The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career: A Portable Mentor for Scholars from Graduate School Through Tenure, University of Chicago Press

Is a career as a professor the right choice for you? If you are a graduate student, how can you clear the hurdles and position yourself for academic employment? What's the best way to prepare for a job interview, and how can you maximize your chances of landing a job that suits you? What happens if you don't receive an offer? How does the tenure process work, and how do faculty members cope with the multiple and conflicting day-to-day demands?

With a perpetually tight job market in the traditional academic fields, the road to an academic career for many aspiring scholars will be a rocky and frustrating one. Where can they turn for good, frank answers to their questions? Here, three scholars talk openly about what's good and what's not so good about academia, as a place to work and a way of life.

Written as an informal conversation among colleagues, the book is packed with inside information, about finding a mentor, avoiding pitfalls when writing a dissertation, negotiating job listings, and much more. The three authors' distinctive opinions and strategies offer the reader multiple perspectives on typical problems. With rare candor and insight, they talk about such tough issues as departmental politics, dual-career marriages, and sexual harassment. Rounding out the discussion are short essays that offer the 'inside track' on financing graduate education, publishing a first book, and leaving academia for the corporate world.