By John Louis

In June of 2008, I was laid off from my position as a chemist for a pharmaceutical company after 17 years in the industry. Suddenly untethered from my high salary and benefits, I started asking myself what I wanted to do next.

I knew that I wanted to go back to academe someday, but I had always envisioned that would happen when I reached retirement age. Yet here I was at age 44, with a decision to make. I knew from recent experience that I enjoyed passing on knowledge to others more than actually using that knowledge to do the same type of work over and over. All things being equal, I realized I would rather teach than find another job in industry.

But what about the salary? Academe pays substantially less than industry, and with a family to feed, could I afford it? And would any chemistry department hire an industry refugee?

At that point I talked at length with my graduate adviser and several friends who worked in academe. They convinced me that (a) I could make enough money by moving somewhere with a lower cost of living, working in the summers for extra income, and consulting; and that (b) while the odds that I would find a job at a research university were low, if I applied to undergraduate colleges, I had a reasonable chance of finding a position. The second point was fine with me, because I wanted to teach, and running a research program focused on teaching undergraduates how to do research sounded satisfying.

In the early fall of 2008, I began applying for teaching jobs. I also began looking for temporary industry positions to pay the bills. My early academic applications were not very good, at least in regards to the cover letter. Fortunately, some of the professors at the department I applied to were nice enough to offer advice on how to present myself better on paper.

I churned through the process all through that fall, getting nowhere. Although I felt that my industry experience gave me a lot to offer, I had not taught a class since graduate school, and that hurt. So I began applying for local adjunct positions, mainly at community colleges.

Then one day in January of 2009, the phone rang. It was the chair of the chemistry department at a community college, asking if I would be available to teach a general chemistry class in the spring semester—which started in five days.

A day or two later, I visited the chair at the campus, who, without conducting any real interview, handed me a textbook and wished me good luck. Frying pan, meet fire. I locked myself in my office for the weekend, pulled together a syllabus, and prepared for my first classes. I taught the first half of the semester by the seat of my pants, in the sense that my preparation never got much ahead of the next lecture. But I knew this was probably as difficult as it would ever get for me, and I told myself that if I could succeed, even modestly, under these circumstances, then I had what it took to be a good teacher.

And so I scrambled through the semester, trying to keep up and suffering through the weekly campus infrastructure disaster. And you know what? It was wonderful. It never felt like work to me. And I found that I was really good at it, good enough for students to notice and offer me helpful feedback. It was fabulously gratifying.

Meanwhile, I continued applying for full-time academic positions and started getting some nibbles. My adjunct job seemed to have two positive effects: It gave me current teaching experience, and it showed people that I was serious about changing careers. I felt all along that, eventually, some search committee would see my CV as the ideal one, and things would just fall into place. As September, and the beginning of a new academic year, crept closer, though, it seemed clear that it wasn't going to happen this year. So I planned to continue my adjunct teaching and keep looking for a full-time position for the fall of 2010.

Then suddenly one August day, I received a phone call from one of my academic friends. A chemistry professor had suddenly resigned at another campus of his university and the department had an immediate need for a one-year replacement. Was I interested? You bet. So he passed my name on. An hour later, the head of academic affairs contacted me. The next day, I had a telephone interview. Six days after that, I interviewed on the campus, got an offer the next day, and took it the day after that.

The position was for one year only, but the department members planned to conduct a search for a tenure-track replacement, and I could apply for that. They liked me, I liked them—it all fit together easily. Did I mention that classes started in only 10 days? That sounded familiar.

The first few weeks of the semester were stressful. Once again, I found myself scrambling to keep up. It took several weeks for all of the hiring paperwork to go through, which meant I could not access the university e-mail system and other technologies. It also took a few weeks to get teaching materials such as instructors' editions of the textbooks. On the plus side, I got a lot of help and resources from my new colleagues, and that made it possible for me to throw things together sufficiently.

In the end, the fall semester went well. I enjoyed the teaching, my colleagues were friendly, and the campus facilities were good. Somehow, I had not only come up with a full-time job out of the blue, but it also had turned out to be an excellent place for me.

Meanwhile, I had to apply for the tenure-track position. Unfortunately, in early February, the university told me I was in the second tier of candidates. That baffled me. I had, by all accounts, performed well under difficult circumstances. As far as I could tell, my CV was treated as if I were a complete stranger. I did not even get a phone interview with the committee to make my case. My holding the temporary job seemed to have somehow worked against me.

That disappointment prompted me to start looking more seriously again at other institutions. My supervisor, who had written a positive review of my performance and was unhappy with the search committee's decision, offered to write letters of reference for me. I spotted an opening right away that seemed particularly appealing. I applied to the college, and five days later, I received an e-mail message asking me to schedule a phone interview. Two days later, I had my interview. It looked promising.

The day after my phone interview with the college, I was suddenly invited for an official interview with my university. Something had changed to move me from second tier to first tier; I'll never know what, but I was grateful. Less than a week later, the college also invited me for a campus interview. So after a year and a half of looking, suddenly I had managed to get two campus interviews in a one-week period.

The first interview was with my university, and it was short, because I was already a known quantity there. I met with the head of academic affairs, had lunch with the search committee, and then gave a research presentation to a general audience. I later met with the chancellor.

A week later I traveled to the college for my second campus interview. I had dinner that night with several faculty members, followed by a full day of interviewing. In the early afternoon, I taught an organic-chemistry class, filling in for the usual professor, who watched along with other faculty members. That was certainly stressful, but it went well, and I enjoyed getting a chance to teach students at another institution. At the end of the afternoon, I gave a research presentation to an audience of chemists.

Then I went home and waited. It was tough, because along with wanting to be a tenure-track professor, I was also concerned that if both opportunities fell through, I might not have a job of any sort in the fall. Finally, in late March 2010, my university offered me a tenure-track job.

I contacted the college, told administrators there that I had an offer, and asked if they could tell me my status. After a few days, I learned that the college had offered its position to someone else who had accepted. In a way, I was glad. Choosing between the two institutions would have been difficult because each had advantages over the other.

So beginning in the fall, I am an assistant professor. I am using the summer to plan my courses for next year, start a research program, and do all the things I couldn't find time to do during the school year.

This past academic year, I have worked more hours than I ever did in industry. I have faced constant deadlines, under the gun seemingly all the time. I've worked while I was on the campus, and I've worked while I was at home. I've made substantially less money than I did in industry. But I make my own schedule, I have intellectual freedom, I am at home with my family more, the work has more meaning, and I love the effect I can have on young people's lives. Professionally, I have never been happier.

John Louis is the pseudonym of a chemistry instructor at a state university in the East.