The Great Fishbowl Quest #12

I apologize for going silent for a solid eight days. Today was our comprehensive exam. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad at all. I’m proud to say that at no point in time did I lose sleep in preparing for this test. I have successfully kept from sacrificing sleep in regards to the job search or prepping for what my cohort has referred to as “the test with no name.” Hopefully, everyone is as confident as I am with our performance on the test. The looks on some of my peers’ faces don’t have me convinced.

Anyway, with the job search, I have to say that I’m a little anxious. Up until now, I’ve done well at predicting the “traffic” of interview requests and on-campus offers. I predicted incorrectly, though, that more institutions would be getting in contact with me this week than the number that got in contact with me last week. At the beginning of this week, I declined three on-campus interview offers. I was confident that one of those would pretty much translate into a job offer very quickly. I keep telling myself that I knew that none of those were going to provide the right “fit” for my wife and I, but it would have been nice to have accepted more on-campuses than I’ve declined. I’ve been comparing offers of on-campuses with the one that I have already completed. The only possible flaw in this strategy is that if that institution doesn’t offer a job, it isn’t going to do me any good to have turned down everybody else.

I do have one on-campus I’ll be doing this next week during my spring break. I’m pretty excited about the opportunity, but the job I was originally interviewed for (and considered strongly for) has changed. I’m now being interviewed for a job that is quite different within the same department. We’ll see. I’m really excited about the new opportunity, possibly more than the original job I interviewed for. This interview requires a presentation, though, so it would be wise if I stopped blogging and started working.

Taking my own advice isn’t something I do when I finish such a big accomplishment as comps. I’ll keep writing.

Unless I hear from a few institutions by the end of this week, my interest list drops to six institutions. One of the institutions that I’m very interested in has just notified me that the position they were considering me for may be changing (seems to be a trend). The problem with this is that it may create a different opening that I can’t be considered for (female only). I’m disappointed just thinking about it. We’ll see.

My peers are having varying experiences. One of my close friends attempted to get into another master’s program and was unsuccessful with the institution she was hoping for. Seeing somebody I care about having to shift to Plan B and let go of Plan A is disheartening. Another one of my colleagues is starting to receive “no longer considering you” communication.

At this point, I’d really take any communication. I think tomorrow I will begin contacting the institutions left on my list. I’m starting to worry about the silence.