Where (literally, where) is your job going?
Photo by Juliana Kozoski on Unsplash
At some point in your academic career, you will have to decide how far you are willing to go. Literally. At each stage of your academic career—as an undergraduate student, graduate student, postdoctoral fellow, and faculty member—you will need to consider where, or even if, you are willing to move. As you advance in your academic career, you may move across cities, states, or provinces. Or, you may choose to move to different countries to take advantage of new opportunities. Make no mistake: moving, even internationally, is quite common, and even expected, of academics.
For some, moving can be an exciting new adventure. But, even in the best of circumstances, moving for your career can be challenging. I relocated from Illinois to Toronto in 2001 for my job. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal, at first. After all, Toronto is a short plane ride from Chicago, the weather is pretty similar, and both cities really care about their sports teams, arts, and food. They’re both three-sided cities on a lakefront! But, I hadn’t anticipated the linguistic and cultural differences between Toronto and Chicago, and more broadly between Canada and the US (which feel even more pronounced today). I didn’t know what a toque was, and I thought someone was calling me a very impolite word in French when he offered me poutine (we cleared that one up quickly, thankfully). I still think people here walk too slowly, whereas my fellow Torontonians can still pick me out as an American because my laugh is too loud. I also hadn’t anticipated how lonely things were going to feel with no family or friends around, especially given that I had moved to Canada a month before 9/11. Granted, my new colleagues and my neighbors did so much to make me feel welcome, from inviting me out to dinner to taking me to art exhibits to inviting me to watch the hockey. But it wasn’t obvious how you make new friends as an adult, and, sometimes, you just want to hang out with your bestie or have Sunday dinner with your parents.
Explaining the need to move for your career to your families and friends who are not academics is also challenging. For years, my family continually asked me why I couldn’t just get a job in Illinois or asked when I was moving back. There were so many universities there, surely one of them would have a job for me? I’m not sure they ever fully understand the nuances of academic job markets, departmental fit, and budgets; I think they just gave up asking.
Although it was feasible for me to move for my career, and ended up being a great decision in the end, for others, moving may be a nonstarter. Moving can present with real financial hardships, and may not be possible for those with certain disabilities or medical conditions, those who provide significant caregiving for family members, or those who rely on their communities for support with their own young families, among (many, many) other reasons. For people in these circumstances, an inability to move, frankly, creates significant disadvantages in being considered for graduate school, postdoctoral fellowships, or faculty positions. First of all, it limits your options. Obviously, willingness to travel abroad opens up more potential opportunities. But sometimes, even if you find a nice fit closer to home, university and institutional committees will have members who refuse to consider a candidate from their own institution, or will voice concerns that a given candidate ‘needs to widen their expertise’ or ‘learn different schools of thought’. Certainly, exposing ourselves to different environments and ways of thinking and working can lead to new, creative insights or help us develop new skillsets. One piece of advice that’s often floated around to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows—particularly here in Toronto—is that if you want to stay in a given city for an academic job, you should go away for a few years for a postdoc (even if that means another postdoc) and then try to come back. But, such outdated stances and advice unfortunately ultimately push otherwise excellent candidates out of academia because they simply cannot move, for one reason or another.
Thankfully, the tide is slowly turning on this issue, and faculty members and search committees are increasingly seeing that the broader political, medical, and economic landscape means that requiring a candidate to move for their career is not only infeasible in certain circumstances, but it is actually an equity issue that disproportionately disadvantages women and persons from under-represented groups. Candidates are also realizing that there are numerous other career options that go beyond academia, whether that’s in industry, not-for-profit, or governmental sectors, that leverage the unique skillsets that are developed during the PhD, that would provide financial stability and meaningful work, and that would allow them to reside in their location of choice. If academia wants to retain the best and the brightest, then we need to reconsider this expectation of mobility in our candidates.
Deciding whether to move, where to live, and what kind of career to pursue are all deeply personal choices. There’s no singular right answer, there is simply the answer that is best for you and your situation. Consider not just the job, but the life you would have outside of that job as well; what are you gaining and what would you be giving up? If moving isn’t an option, give yourself permission to brainstorm all of the ways in which you could have a fulfilling career, in or out of academia, in your location of choice. Regardless of your situation, if you would like support in planning your next steps, reach out.
Finally, for those of us who are academics, we have an opportunity to change the culture and create a more inclusive system that recognizes and values talent and vision, rather than mobility. If you would like help in moving those conversations forward in your own departments, book a call with me here.
Next week: How to decide whether moving is right for you
