Goodbye, Academia!

[fisherman]

I've not made much of a secret of the fact that I haven't been terribly happy with the MSU philosophy department. Around the time I arrived two years ago, the department started focusing more exclusively on continental philosophy, in part because of the departure of some key faculty and in part because of deliberate actions by the department chair

Comments

[blacktigr]

Suggestion? Move to Boston. Why? Because there are jobs here. I am hounded daily by recruiters who are trying to get me jobs that are not in my field but that I could take if I had a more computer-oriented background. You would probably have some luck finding work out here, and more importantly you'd get out of MI, which is going to hell, handbasket or no. To the Boston job market, everyone is employable, it just depends on what they want to do.

My coworkers from my last job had new jobs even before the old ones ended. Once you are 2-3-5 jobs into your resume, no one cares what your degree was in, they just care if you can do the work.

Save up first and last and let me know when you want to move out here. ;) I could give you a tour of MIT and point out *their* AI/Cog Sci offices.

[fisherman]

Your suggestion may have the potential to be the winner. I've always wanted to try living in New England. And I've never been to Boston in the fall. :) Do you think you could get Ed to suggest some employers that might pay good money for computer nerds with master's degrees in philosophy?

[meghandani55]

I actually know someone who does hiring for a non-profit in Boston, and she generally hires philo majors for computer programy stuff. If you move to Boston though, I will be SO jealous.

[blacktigr]

Ed hasn't been out here long enough to have many contacts in companies other than his own, and he's been training two guys since the beginning of the year, so he's not going to be much help. However, you may find that dice.com and Monster or Craigslist will yield results to throw a resume at. The potential pool of jobs is like swimming in the ocean when you're used to someone's kiddie pool.

[deckardmagnus]

Come to Seattle. It's fucking gorgeous, the economy hasn't fallen apart yet here, and I plan to be here for a long time. So you'll have at least one friend to work off of and I'm sure if you keep tabs on craigslist, etc, for awhile, you'd find something here. Then there's always U-Washington when you're ready to go back to school.

[ellejayoh]

So sucks that you're having all these difficulties (especially the letters, blech), but yes! UDUB! You know you wanna! And thank god this moron finally realized that going back to the midwest is a bad idea. ;D <3

[cadet426]

seattle/tacoma weather sucks 9 months out of the year, don't move out here if u can help it

[1womanarmy]

We already sort of discussed this in our midnight (well 10 pm...) meijer coincidnetal rendevouz but I think East coast is the way to go (as is the leaving Lansing).

But when you do decide to move, to wherever, I am sort of the recent expert at picking up and moving away from everyone/thing I know so we can chat about "how to go about that."

[superspryte]

Okay, moving across the country is a lot like moving around the world, which I am doing, so I'll say what I can. Try to find a job of any kind before you go, even if it's just minimum wage somewhere. That way you've got some kind of income. For the rest, there are websites that talk about how to move cross-country successfully. Those will probably help more than any of us here could.

As for where to move, I had a friend who lived in Boston for five years. He hated it. While it was a nice city he wasn't impressed with the hospitality and no matter how many friends he made there or in NYC he never felt like he belonged. He has since moved to San Francisco and is super duper happy, but that's not the point. He hated Boston. When I visited it was a nice city to visit but I don't think I could live there...and I love big cities (Hello? I'm moving to Tokyo...)

Find a place you like and look for jobs there if you want to move. ^_^