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A Hot Prospect in a Suddenly Not-So-Hot Field

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By Joseph Livingston

Those of you who haven't recently spent a Wednesday night at a quiet bar with an eclectic gaggle of graduate students might not know about an informal parlor game that sometimes starts around the second or third pint. The never-stated goal is for a participant to demonstrate satisfaction with his or her life despite being subject to the worst graduate-school experiences ever.

It helps to have an adviser who has been out of the country for two years. Or to be from a field that has three tenure-track openings nationwide, but none until 2012. Or to have your department replace traditional stipends with a weekly bingo game. Or to have your research stolen by a smelly officemate.

As I prepare to join the hunt for a tenure-track faculty position at a research university, I should admit right now that I have never finished higher than last place in this contest. I am a doctoral student in computer science at a "top 10" university in the field. Money is plentiful, tenure-track positions flow from every hillside (at least they have the last two years), and the field still enjoys a vibrance I attribute to its relative youth in the academy. My well-known adviser has always been approachable and almost too eager to give me the credit for our joint work. My (odor-free) officemate just left town to start a fabulous faculty position, and he let me peer over his shoulder during his job search last year. He told me, "Don't worry. You'll be a hot prospect, turning down schools left and right."

It might appear that my only problem is that most of the people reading this column now hate me. (You shouldn't. The factors in my favor are just part of the current climate that I neither created nor intended to exploit.) But lofty expectations can serve as a curse, mentally and strategically.

Mentally, none of this "hot prospect" talk is preparing me for the drudgery and disappointments of the interview trail. Nor does it motivate me to focus on the substantial amount of work that remains before they'll call me Dr. Somebody. Several chapters of my dissertation remain unwritten, but because the primary research results are done, I lack much of the drive I had earlier in graduate school. Some correlation between the quality of my dissertation and my hiring prospects could serve as nice motivation. Instead, the only people likely to evaluate the work I do over the next nine months are the people telling me, "Don't worry."

Strategically, under the ridiculous assumption that I am the greatest contribution to computer science since the transistor, my job search acquires some interesting complications. I am not sure I am interested in going to some pressure-cooker research university where teaching is an afterthought and even we "hot prospects" are denied tenure. I long more for the idyllic green quadrangle where I teach to adoring students while collaborating with supportive colleagues, and I am willing to "drop down in the rankings" for this environment.

But rumor has it these colleges aren't fond of making offers to "hot prospects" who tie up the offer until late in the hiring season and then go elsewhere. It can also disappoint faculty members at my current institution if I interview "beneath" my alleged value. In essence, the culture encourages the rankings it supposedly detests.

I doubt my situation is nearly as rosy as everyone would have me believe, anyway. I am not well-known outside my subdiscipline, so there are plenty of fresh, skeptical, decision-making people left to impress. And plenty of them will not share my colleagues' belief in the value of my work. Usually, the doubts are old arguments that discount any work in my area. Having heard the arguments many times, my eyes tend to glaze over and I recite the equally trite rebuttals while my mind drifts to unrelated matters. From what I've heard, that's not a good interviewing tactic.

Moreover, computer-science academic hiring is probably beyond its recent peak. The faculty ranks drained by professors looking for a dot-com quick buck have been largely refilled, and the undergraduates in search of the same almighty dollar have moved on in search of the next pot of gold.

I have known for the last two years that it was a race to get in before the faculty lines dried up, but I feel more like the race-clock than a runner. Research takes a certain amount of time, and I knew I would not be ready to start a new faculty job until the fall of 2003, whether a position was still there for me or not. A professor at another institution told me in the summer of 2000, "get out of graduate school now no matter what your dissertation looks like." I didn't take that advice, and I've been patiently crossing my fingers ever since.

So, despite seemingly having everything in my favor, I have managed to conjure up a variety of problems to keep me awake at night until I have a job. For now, I need a little more patience since it won't be clear until later in the fall what opportunities are available. Until then, I should get back to writing my dissertation and preparing my application materials. But right now, it's Wednesday night, and there's a seat waiting for me at the bar.