After the Storm: Reflections of a Job Market Candidate

Posts have been sparse recently as I have been on the "job market." It was great fun, as it turned out--a positive experience in almost every respect. Traveling to different universities, meeting with dozens of people each time out, being taken to dinner, presenting one's work and defending it against very smart people throwing well-aimed and high-velocity spit balls at its weakest points, actually being listened to after 4 years. It is also very, very draining. At the end of the day, you feel as though you've been run over by a truck. My favorite part of the process was having been described (not to my face, as it happened) as either a lunatic or a visionary. My own opinion: I would hope I am a convex combination of the two. (I leave it for my readers to decide whether the weighting is heaviest on the lunacy node.) In any event, there were a number of attractive offers. My least favorite part of the process was turning down offers from interesting and exciting institutions. Any choice one makes, no matter how intriguing, seems limiting: I choose one path and reject a multitude of alternative paths. As choice follows choice, it is almost dizzying how quickly the alternative paths add up. One begins to feel small. Less than small. Infinitesimal. An epsilon. A weightless pinpoint, drifting among the other selves one might have become.

But enough of that. We become real through the specific choices we make. Moreover, economists must never be reflective, philosophical, introspective, or even vaguely self-aware. It's in the rule book they give you when you join the American Economic Association. (Please don't report me.) You can be expelled from the profession, I'm told, for writing poetry. The situation has now been resolved, in any case, so its time to get back to work again. I will take an assistant professor position at UC Riverside in the fall. The prospect is very exciting, the next step of an intellectual adventure.

Rumor has it that the fictional Dr. Edgeworth Boks will be moving with me. Fictional professors have a much easier time finding positions at research institutions than those of us who suffer the profound disadvantage of being real. Most departments have only a few slots for junior or senior faculty, but unlimited slots for fictional professors (as the latter are paid in fictional dollars).

Perhaps this is as it should be. Which is more valuable: a real professor doing fictional or irrelevant research (of which, I fear, there may be many in the profession) or a fictional professor discussing real issues?

Thanks, readers (you loyal few), for your patience during this busy time.

-P.S.Babcock (and Edgie)

Comments

[Christopher Silvey]

Congratulations and good luck.

[Chris R]

Hey, another Motel 6-type department! And only a hundred miles away.

Seriously, congratulations. When's the party?

[Philip]

Thanks Chris S and Chris R.

Actually the econ department at Riverside moved 4 years ago from their legendary Motel 6 headqarters into a nice modern structure on the main campus. (A definite improvement over my office here... though that was not a factor in the decision: Every place I went had a better econ building than UCSD).

Alas, no party as of yet. I still have to grind out the rest of my dissertation by end of summer. Perhaps a party then!

Thanks again.

[Vinayak]

Hey Philip!

Many congratulations! I hope you have a fabulous time at UCR.

[Kevin K]

Congrats, Philip. You worked hard to get to this point. And how many people start out grad school with a locational preference in mind and then get it? Not many, I reckon.

[Philip]

Thanks Vinayak. Thanks, Kevin. Yes, it *was* fortunate to get something in CA. Geographical preferences usually have to be discarded in this business. (All I have to do now is finish the damned dissertation...)