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[alienwares]

Hello everyone,

    My fiance/e recently entered a graduate program in psychology, and I have had to come to terms with the prospect of spending the next few years living in a completely different region of the country, about 3000 miles away from our (former) home, schools, etc. I'm somewhat familiar with just how difficult it is for PhDs to get a tenure-track position--I gave up on pursuing a PhD myself for that reason--and I have no illusions about ending up in a particular region, type of area, etc.

    That being said, I was hoping to use my remaining 4.5 years or so to obtain more useful skills than those I currently possess. I just graduated last May, and while I am feeling very lucky to have a job (career prospects are tough for non-Ivy liberal arts majors) I am under no illusions that it will provide me with remotely portable skills for when we leave this area. I am wondering, therefore, if any of you had non-academic spouses who were with you through graduate school, and what they ended up doing.

    I am willing to return to school, relocate geographically for a time, sacrifice animals, or generally do whatever it takes to make this work. Law school is looking attractive, for portability reasons. The downside is that in order to go to a school that is nationally-recognized enough to give me a portable degree, I would need to take on massive debt, and almost surely sell my soul for several years after graduating. I'm also turned off by the prospect of voluntarily submitting to 3 years apart, ESPECIALLY since the realities of the academic job market could easily lead to more. Besides, there are a lot of really really unhappy lawyers out there. I guess that's why the pay is so high.

    How willing are universities to provide non-academic jobs for trailing spouses, out of curiosity? I realize it's a nightmare to try getting two PhD spouses in one university unless one is JJ Pollitt or Niall Ferguson or something, but I thought I read somewhere on this forum that administrative jobs were somewhat easier to obtain.

    Thank you for any advice you may be willing to dispense. Apologies if I'm too long-winded; I just want to make sure I ask everything and find out as much as possible now, so I won't be surprised when we move to Podunk or if the dissertation is delayed. Down that road lies unhappiness, or divorce, and that's obviously what we would like to avoid.

[stitch]

IIRC, Lawyers have to take the bar in each state in which they practice.  If you end up moving several times for visiting positions, poor fit in a TT position, or whatever, that could get old. 

I would recommend accounting.  Much more portable.

[expatinuk]

 I would second accounting.

[systeme_d_]

Third on accounting.

Also, if you have any interest or skills at all in these areas, good trades (HVAC, electrician, etc.) are very portable, and generally lucrative.

[menotti]

A good fundraiser ("development officer") will have a job at just about any university s/he wants.

[cat_on_track]

The "lower" on the work pole you are willing to go, the easier it will be; we have a janitor who is married to a non-tt faculty member. She's taking classes and hopes to enroll in a graduate program here, but, for now, she's cleaning offices.

I do have to ask though why you are already resigning yourself to be dependent on your spouse's career or to be the "trailing spouse" for the next four decades or so. If you are just looking for something to be employed while husband/wife enjoys a real career, you could look into nursing or elementary school teaching or counseling (a lot of the academic guys around here have their wives do that) and you may be o.k. when said spouse becomes disabled, leaves you, or dies, but you may also want to consider investing in yourself as well. You still have the opportunity to study something or become a professional in a field that you can enjoy instead of just picking a job for its mobility.

[psychgrad816]

I second cat on track’s suggestion that you don’t sell yourself short for your fiancee’s career. Any two-career couple can run into conflicts regarding location. Even if you pick a career because you think it’s portable, you might still face problems if moving for Fiancee’s job affects your career trajectory. Figure out what you would be happy doing first, and then look at portability after you’ve narrowed down your options that way.

I assume that your fiancee is set on a tenure-track job now, but also keep in mind that not all first-year graduate students who want the TT life still want it years later. I’m about to get my PhD in experimental psychology and will soon start a non-academic research job in Washington DC (which has a lot of opportunities for my SO since it’s a major metro area). When I started out I thought I wanted to be a professor, and if my SO decided then to base his career around portability, he wouldn’t be very happy now.

[macaroon]

Pharmacy - although your SO might finish school before you.

[alienwares]

Thank you all for your replies.

I appreciate the specific recommendations made, as well as the more general advice to not sell myself too short. With the latter in mind, I think I'm going about this backwards, so before I take any of the specific career recommendations in mind I'm going to try harder to figure out what else I think I would enjoy and/or be good at. No point in becoming an accountant if I'm going to be miserable actually doing it, I suppose.

I suppose that I posted my first post mostly because I've been worrying about the long-distance-relationship aspect, and I'm also kind of sick of it. But in the long run I imagine that feeling "stuck" in a career I don't like could have a lot more negative ramifications: long-term resentment, specifically. While at some point one of us might have to give up some of our career goals, I think I'm thinking about this too soon. (Although I will consider accounting, pharmacy... reasonable salary + reasonable hours + portability are all very good things.)

For the meantime, if any of you are tenured psych professors, please consider early retirement in exactly four to five years. This message is addressed particularly those of you located in schools with low teaching loads, intelligent undergrads, in metropolitan areas, or on particularly scenic campuses. Much appreciated!

[jackalope]

Does teaching interest you? I think it is the ideal academic spouse job. You work a similar schedule to a college professor with the same breaks and responsibilities. There are public schools everywhere. If you can do math or science the jobs are fairly easy to come by--but not all that hard even for history teachers. And many school districts will help you pay for graduate classes. My wife was a high school teacher for years and it really worked out well.

[ideagirl]

IIRC, Lawyers have to take the bar in each state in which they practice. 

Strictly speaking, that's not true. Some states require it (e.g. California), but many/most states recognize each other's bar exams after a certain time spent practicing--generally 5 years. That means that if you take the bar in, say, Michigan and then practice law there (or elsewhere) for 5 years, you can go to most other states (any state that has reciprocity) and practice law there without retaking the bar.

But of course, that freedom is at least eight years away for the OP, so it's not that useful. Law school could work just fine if hu knew that, given the fiance's schedule, three or 3.5 years from now they would know what state the fiance was going to be in. If that were the case, the OP could simply go to law school with the intention of taking the bar in whatever state the fiance ends up in, and by the time the OP has to sign up for the bar exam, hu and the fiance will know what state that is. But it doesn't sound like there's any way for them to know that 3 or 3.5 years from now, so scratch law off the list...

I would recommend accounting.  Much more portable.

Many liberal arts types would shiver with dread upon receiving such advice. I don't know if the OP is interested in numbers/money/etc.; if not, that career would be torture. In that case, if the OP is really a humanities type, what about public school teaching? Yes, that requires certification, but it's much easier (and cheaper) to get certified as a teacher than to go to law school and pass the bar exam. And there are always private schools too, so the OP could teach in a private school while studying for certification as a public school teacher. And of course, there are schools everywhere--it's eminently portable.

Other professions that are very portable and in demand include nursing and the skilled trades (electrician, plumber etc.). They are also stable and surprisingly high-earning professions, once you get past the initial requirements (e.g. nursing school or a skilled-trade apprenticeship). Depending where you are, how hard you work, etc., it would be eminently reasonable to anticipate a salary of $60k-$100k+ for these trades. And for teaching it would obviously be lower, but some states pay well--e.g. Pennsylvania high schools will easily pay $52k, etc.--and there's also the very pleasant academic schedule to keep in mind.

4.5 years--the OP's time frame--is plenty of time to get into any of these careers. It's hard to advise without knowing the OP's interests, but I'm just throwing these ideas out there...

[alienwares]

Two posters in a row for public school teaching! I apologize; it was unfair of me to request career advice without stating what my existing interests were.

Public school teaching was one of those careers that I have been considering fairly seriously. I was until very recently going to be a grad student attempting to get a PhD in [specific area of] modern US history. Obviously, as a humanities-PhD-groupie it was fairly clear to me that I would be spending a lot of time teaching. However, I was under the impression that humanities teaching jobs were very very difficult to obtain. Is that not the case?

I would also be willing to teach other languages, although I would have to learn or relearn them and attain fluency. Spanish would be feasible, and I've been interested in learning Latin and Greek. Given my timeframe, I really could take whatever required courses I needed for a subject. I will have to look into it some more.

At this point, I'm strongly considering public school teaching and law school for my top two contenders. Both are basically related to my interest in becoming a history PhD to begin with, and I think that might be a smarter way to choose a career path than JUST portability. It occurs to me that public school teaching might be the easiest way to have a career without having to spend massive amounts of time away from my s/o.

However, if you knew you could get into a really good law school, would you go?  I am a bit worried that a few years of teaching high-schoolers US history (for example) would leave me feeling intellectually stunted. I am wondering if law school would be more promising in that regard. I took the LSAT a while ago; I know I can get into somewhere that would give me options. I could delay school 1 year, finish my 2nd year of law school when my fiancee gets her PhD, and be able to spend my 3rd year focusing on the bar/applying for jobs in whatever state s/he has a job in. We are willing to spend time apart, we are just not willing to do so without a clear end in sight.

As you can see, I am entirely too indecisive for my own good. However, thank you for some excellent advice, as well as for reading my public musings about the future.

[daurousseau]

Do you know how to write? A friend did that throughout her husband's career. Edited this, ghost-wrote that. The gimmick is that there's a lot of publishing going on around most academic environments, and few people who can write a sentence coherently, much less a book or an article. If you are part of the academic community, and discreet, the hapless folks will find their way to your door and throw their pathetic manuscripts at your feet, falling on their knees as they empty their pockets for you.

[alienwares]

I may not be very good at formulating blog posts, but I like to think I am fairly good at formal writing. A professor of mine used to review articles and essays written by professors at other schools, and he would occasionally have me vet them first: their content was strong, but the writing was usually terrible. How did your friend get such a job? I feel like it would last approximately as long as it took for someone to realize I didn't have a PhD, or even a Master's, at which point I would be forced to take down my shingle. After all, that would be like sending a manuscript to an undergrad...

[jackalope]

I think the availability of public school humanities positions varies tremendously by region. In my previous location in the rural midwest it was not that difficult to land a position teaching high school history and government, though the pay was not great and some (but not all)  positions were reserved for persons with the first name of Coach. In my current position in a more geographically desirable location where teachers are better paid it is a pretty tough market, and many recent graduates with social studies certifications end up substituting for several years before landing jobs.

Since you do not know where you will end up, this is perhaps not a helpful response!