The cohabitation contract. What are the pros and cons of living outside of marriage with the one you love? Another controversial Table Talk discussion

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Spanking the theory
By Danya Ruttenberg
Is the study of the autoerotic more than just mental masturbation?
(03/26/99)

Strange bedfellows
By Christina Boufis
Does academic life lead to divorce?
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Who killed Meriwether Lewis?
By Leighton Woodhouse
A forensic scientist has stirred controversy by proposing to dig up the famous explorer's bones to find out
(03/22/99)

Raging against "the Machine"
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A Congolese student says death threats accompanied his campaign for U. of Alabama's student presidency
(03/19/99)

Battling stag/nation
By Jill Priluck
Radical hag Mary Daly stands up to Boston College for forcing coed classes
(03/17/99)

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BROWSE THE
IVORY TOWER CAREER
ARCHIVE

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Four steps to succeeding outside the ivory tower
A FORMER ACADEMIC OFFERS LESSONS IN JOINING THE "REAL WORLD."

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BY JENNIFER STONE GONZALEZ | The ivory tower is crumbling. The shortage of tenure-track jobs (once thought temporary) now stretches into the future. Morale, according to recent studies, is plummeting among those who do have jobs. And an army of underpaid, overworked adjunct professors is giving a forlorn new definition to the term "the life of the mind." Yet peer pressure not to leave the academy remains intense. For the young scholar, leaving is almost always taken as a sign of some sort of personal failure. The best and brightest stay, goes the prevailing wisdom, others wash out.

Having left five years ago, I no longer believe that generalization to be at all useful -- or true. There are very good reasons to leave, and mine were compelling. The toughest questions I faced, outside the academy, were what my Ph.D. and all my academic experience counted for. Would all those years of reading tomes with tiny print, teaching students to construct a thesis and all that academic ass-kissing count for anything in the "real world" of business?

At first, having a doctorate proved to be an albatross. Out on the streets, my new one-page résumé in hand, I appeared to be overqualified for every job possibly open to me. I looked where I thought my skills in analysis and critical thinking might be put to good use -- in marketing, public relations, government, public policy, print journalism, cable television and corporate communications. Potential employers couldn't see how my academic expertise transferred to the "real world." It didn't help that I carried around a vague sense of guilt about somehow disappointing my graduate school mentors, people who, in fact, had neither the connections nor the desire to help me find employment in the non-academic world.

In the business world, you succeed through networking, since the most important information flows through people, not texts. Having hung around almost exclusively with other academics for a decade, I had to create a non-academic network from scratch. After many phone calls and informational interviews, I eventually met an executive in a telecommunications company who offered me an internship, which seemed to be the best place for a person with a humanities Ph.D., but very limited "real world" experience.

Happily, the corporate internship turned into a full-time position in a fast-growing technology-related area, which turned into an opportunity to write a technology and business book. My path through corporate America has allowed me to create a fluid, unique career of my own design. Paradoxically, the more I succeeded "out there," the more value my Ph.D. seemed to take on in the eyes of other people.

To do well, I had to put my Ph.D. and all its attendant ideology aside. Gradually, I figured out how to communicate with new co-workers, and let them see my skills on their terms. My corporate colleagues liked having me on projects because I could help "drive to the goal line." I was "problem-solution oriented," "audience-centered" and "customer-focused." For them, my extensive reading of critical theory and cultural studies was irrelevant. Everything I had done to pay my dues in graduate school appeared unnecessary and insignificant -- except for one crucial fact: I had spent several years thinking hard, exercising my mind into a taut little muscle.

N E X T_ P A G E .|. How to give yourself a business-minded makeover