About Career Sense
Career Sense is a blog for academic job seekers.
- Read full bio: Carolyn Steele (formerly our “Dr. Jobs” columnist), is a career adviser of 10 years, and a PhD candidate herself.
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Career Sense signs off – the last post
On September 26, 2008, we launched Career Sense as a conversation, or as a forum among academics across Canada about professional issues unique to them. For University Affairs, Career Sense was an experiment of sorts. Online technologies have provided a valuable way for a community with shared interests to come together and share their thoughts. Career Sense was to be one such resource.
Indeed, over the past 19 months or so some good conversations have emerged through reader comments. For instance the open forum on reference letters and the discussion on making the best of a dismal job market each generated some interesting, and sometimes contentious comments. The post which was e-mailed out most often was my open letter to John Milloy, the Minister of Training Colleges, and Universities. And 407 people responded to polls about various topics in the posts.
However, more times than not, the blog didn’t get the degree of participation that would have created the conversation it was intended to generate. I discussed the general lack of reader response with a colleague of mine who writes for The Chronicle, where readers more actively comment on posts and articles. She mused the perhaps the difference was “an offshoot of all our [American] town meetings, talk radio and Internet news – people are very engaged.” Hmm – maybe it is a cultural thing – Canadians might be more insular than Americans in this regard. Maybe it was the content of the blog itself – although the topics covered were so broad, that it would be difficult to isolate the variables there.
The reason why I had been excited by the prospect of the blog is because so many of the graduate students and junior faculty I have advised over the years share a sense of isolation, and trepidation that the issues and challenges they face are because there is something wrong with them. I was hoping Career Sense would help to dispel this myth somewhat. I also hoped that the shared love all of us in academe have for learning and knowledge could be reinforced and validated.
Perhaps then, a blog isn’t the best venue in Canada for academics to share their perspectives, insights and concerns with each other. I know that the folks at University Affairs are looking at the whole career resource section to consider how it can best serve the needs of the increasing, and diverse population of Canadian academics. In the meantime, this will be the final post for Career Sense.
As for me, I have been working with academics on career-related issues for over a decade. For the past five years or so I have been writing on these issues for University Affairs in articles, through the Dr. Jobs column and Career Sense. This is a conversation I am personally committed to both as an academic and as a professional career advisor. So in some other format or venue, I’m sure our paths will cross again in the future. In the meantime, I’ll be working on my dissertation.
Thank you for your support and participation in Career Sense. I hope you found it informative and it gave you a better understanding of what you are facing as an academic in Canada. Until next time, be well.
Comments
10 Responses to “Career Sense signs off – the last post”
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sorry to hear of the demise of Career Sense. Thank you for the many insightful and enjoyable columns!
Oh no! My colleagues and I will certainly miss your blog. While few of us actually contributed to the comments section, we had many conversations prompted by your entries. The value of the blog shouldn’t be measured by the number of direct comments along.
As someone who moved from academia to the non-profit world, I now feel guilty about not contributing some observations about my very successful transition.
Best of luck!
I think most bloggers would say that counting comments is not the best way to measure either value or impact, but in general, the blogging ‘culture’ in Canada (including, but not just, academic blogging) so far lags behind the US, I think. Links to other related blogs (there are many US bloggers who write about academic issues, for instance, including the job search and its frustrations, and the move to non-academic careers as well) and a robust blogroll can be helpful in building up that kind of engaged community. I have noticed that a lot of blogs started up under ‘professional’ publication banners don’t make those kinds of connections and thus end up looking (and thus being treated) more like regular columns than participatory forums. In any case, I’m sure many people have found your posts valuable. Good luck with the dissertating!
This is too bad. Such a space for discussing the job market in higher education is sorely needed in Canada, much like they have the US with the Chronicle of Higher Education. Thanks for your posts and good luck.
I’d have to agree with Rohan here. If I’d counted the worth of my blog or podcast in comments, I’d have stopped years ago. It’d be a shame if that was the primary factor in closing down this venue. I really enjoyed your comments, and found them particularly valuable at this stage in my relationship with academia. I didn’t comment much, once to be precise, but that has nothing to do with how valuable I found the resource to be.
All the best with your dissertation. I’m gonna get back to mine (hmmm…thinking about it now…maybe I’ll comment more when my diss is done!)
Best of luck
I’ll echo the sentiments of disappointment at the closing down of the blog. The value of your archives (which hopefully you will keep up) will stand the test of time, I’m sure, for those stumbling across through search results. Even if Canadians aren’t by there nature as willing to have these conversations on the open Internet, the fact that someone did was a step in the right direction as far as my opinion goes. As someone who’s always felt a little out of sorts in academia, it was always nice to know there was someplace in my RSS reader I could turn to empathize.
All the best.
Having recently started my own blog, I’m sorry to hear this and embarrassed that I wasn’t a more regular reader and contributor here. It can be hard to start a buzz.
But I don’t think a Chronicle comparison is valid here, especially if we assume their readership is about ten times that of University Affairs, and they are able to put up lots of new content every day and by many different contributors. That’s what creates their lively commenting culture – not American brashness.
As a postdoc who enjoys working in academia, I have often followed the blogs on UA and I will be sorry to see Career Sense disappear. Regarding the lack of input, I have found that most grad students and postdocs are quite unaware of UA and its blogs!
Facebook group linked to UA might be a far better alternative, given the ubiquitous presence of FB amongst the junior researcher community.
Thanks for sharing the insights and good luck !
Hello Subhadeep!
We have launched a University Affairs Facebook page. Check it out here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/University-Affairs-Affaires-universitaires/357112594787
I have read your blogs since almost the beginning, but as an up-and-coming academic, I haven’t posted and wanted to see what others would say… including you!
I don’t believe that the number of comments on any particular blog should be of concern as I think that is growth happening for all of us that read this blog! I know it’s helped me… although sometimes I didn’t always agree (jobs outside the academy aren’t all they’re cracked up to be!).
It’s a shame that you won’t continue to provide insight and knowledge!!
Angela