A warning before I begin: this post will be long-winded, biased, irrelevant to most of your lives, and, frankly, not particularly interesting.
Background:
I am currently a Mathematics Fellow in the NYC Teaching Fellows program. Fellows are required to, among other tasks, find their own full-time teaching position in their subject area. The job search is supposed to be completed over the summer, but those who do not find a full time position before the beginning of the school year are not tossed out of the program, but rather assigned to “help-out” (yes, that phrasing is used in actual Fellows documents) at a school until they are able to find a full-time job. At this point the clock begins ticking, and if a Fellow has not gotten a job by the fifth of December then he/she is no longer a certified teacher and is booted from the program.
I was one of the many who did not find a job over the summer. After moving math books around for three weeks at the school to which I was assigned, I was given a full-time health schedule to teach. Needless to say teaching health is not nearly as appealing to me as teaching math, and that is without even considering the personal costs imposed on me by the knowledge that every day I entered the classroom I was hypocritically preaching healthy decisions to small children.
Today I confirmed what I had long suspected—that my school’s budget has no room to hire me (and in fact must cut approximately $300,000 in already committed funds). My goals in writing this post: 1. Organize my own thoughts and opinions (feelings, I suppose, but I have a strong aversion to the connotations of that word); 2. Outline the limitations I face in moving forward; and 3. Seek suggestions concerning how to proceed.
My thoughts:
Here’s where I now stand: I am very happy that I will not be teaching health for a year, and I am fairly confident that I will not be disappointed when I leave my classroom for the last time. As it turns out I am capable of managing a boatload of rowdy children, but I don’t like it. My time at FIT spent tutoring relatively calm and level (though not normal) people made me forget that I would soon be facing middle-school students. I enjoy the feeling of passing information on to a child, knowing that the home environment will never be able to educate the child in the same way that I could, but that is such a tiny portion of the job that I am quite happy to be handed what I consider to be a form of a Get Out of Jail Free card.
To that end, I am no longer actively looking for a math position and assume that as of December fifth I will be free of all obligations to the Fellows, the Department of Education (DOE), and Brooklyn College (where I will no longer be enrolled as of 5:00pm on that date). For those of you about to argue that I am tossing myself into unemployment during one of the great modern downturns I ask, “What math teacher with a full-time position and any concept of the state of the economy would willingly vacate a position?” As proof I submit: 1. HR people at the Fellows and the DOE nearly laughed when I asked about openings; 2. My principal has heard of only two openings of any kind in the last few weeks; and, 3. The DOE has blocked access to the Open Market Hiring System, supposedly the last resort of a certified, unemployed teacher.
Where to go from here:
I do not know how to proceed from unemployed to happily employed. Happily employed in the sense that not only am I being paid, but I also do not want to die when I wake up and realize I have to go to work (this is how I feel about being a health teacher, which is not a healthy attitude. Har de har har.).
I do not even know in what fields to look for jobs, not because of relative unemployment rates in different industries, but rather because I am unsure of the direction in which I hope to progress in my career. I know that I like mathematics and economics, but I do not know how to turn that into some form of career path.
Any suggestions, input, and/or guidance would be appreciated, but please refrain from the standard chorus of, “Sorry you are losing your job”; remember that I am not upset about that (and that I have coworkers and classmates who will not stop offering false condolences along the lines of “That’s fucked up, man. Really fucked up.” Not helpful.). The people reading this blog know me better than just about any group in the world, so I am relying on all of you to be my career counselors, though I will likely stop by the NYU Office of Career Services sometime very soon.
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OK. Well. Alright, despite your plea, I'm obliged to say "sorry, that sucks." Moving on.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, let me say that every article I read agrees that our generation will likely bounce relatively quickly (every 1-5 years) from job to job throughout our entire career. Now certainly this doesn't apply to everyone, but I guess where I'm going is to say "don't be afraid of getting a job you aren't thrilled with because it's not like you have to or are even expected to stay."
Read some articles about things you might be able to do. It may be a rough economy, but if your talents are in mathematics and economics, you probably couldn't be better off. You're in the most useful tier of potential employees there is for our age.
If you find something you want to do don't be afraid of online job searches. I was amazed that putting my resumé on CareerBuilder actually worked, but it's how I got the cubicle where I'm sitting right now.
Consider moving. I know I've beaten this drum before, but I pay $3000 a year in rent and I really don't live in a shithole. (By which I'm referring to geography, I don't think any of you NYC'ers would mind having my physical apartment). I don't know what you pay, but let's say it's $1200/mo. That's $14,400/yr, or an $11,000 surcharge on housing alone to live in NYC. I'm just sayin'.
Alright, I'll see what you/others have to say before I drone on any more.
(Obligatory "good luck!")
CareerNET. Every job I have ever gotten in NY I got on CareerNET. I agree CareerBuilder and Monster are good sources but there is a lot of junk on them too. Economics is cool, but you really need a PhD to make a career out of it. I do agree, however, that if you have an interest in math you don't really have anything to worry about. Have you thought about being an analyst of some sort. I would of course be biased toward business because it is lucrative, but analysts are used in all kinds of things, eg being an analyst for the the department of labor assessing were poverty relief funds are most needed(i don't actually know what department does that, but the point remains that the government and ngo's do a lot of data analysis in the process of advancing humanistic goals)
ReplyDeleteI also agree about moving out of the city. Gen and I are currently planning a move to the burbs and expect to half our rent, but you get much more utility out of living in the city than I do so therefore the premium might be worth it. I might also point that just because you move to the burbs doesn't mean you can't take advantage of what the city offers. Gen and I certainly plan to do just that.
Math provides many avenues, we should discuss when we see each other.
I have a lot of disjointed, perhaps not particularly helpful, thoughts.
ReplyDeleteFirstly: Congratulations! That’s right; I say the opposite of “that sucks, I’m sorry” – thank GOD you don’t have to tell kids not drink and then go home and drink to forget doing it anymore. Forget about health-related board games and unruly kids. You’re free!
Secondly: Teaching, especially in socio-economically diverse city, can be so wildly different depending upon your environment. At a tutoring center, or a private school, or even, say, PS 31 (in the West Village) would probably be a hell of a lot easier than what you’re doing, or many other public school jobs, which wind up being more crowd control than anything else. So if you like imparting knowledge upon the young and/or the other perks of a teacher’s life, I wouldn’t shut the door on that completely.
Thirdly, in terms of career path: while it would be amazing to find something really fulfilling and fitting of your personality and interests, is that really in cards right now? Given the economy etc. – as Chris said, I don’t think you should worry too much about taking a so-so job for a year or two. My job works out because I like the people there and I mostly work with the written word (as opposed to numbers, which we’re all aware are not my friend – remind me to tell you the story of my becoming a minor local celebrity at age 10 for being the only kid at my elementary who flat-out refused to memorize the “times tables”), but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to make publishing a career. I do know, however, that I want to make NYC my home, at least for now, which is what led me to search for pretty much any salaried job.
Like you, I really don’t have a specific idea of what I want to “do with my life.” I felt that my options when job searching – and maybe yours now, too – were this: (a) to look for a job, any job, that would pay me well enough to stay in new york, because the benefits of having friends, loving my hometown, etc., would hopefully outweigh whatever dissatisfaction I would get with whatever job I found, or (b) analyze my interests, strengths, etc., and just sort guess at what my “dream job”/career might be, then be willing to move anywhere to take it. I obviously chose (a) and am pretty happy, but who knows how (b) would have treated me.
In the selfish interest of keeping a friend around, I’d vote for you to scour the job boards/ friend and family connections to get some random office job, like mine. Even if you don’t love it, the security of a salary, health benefits, and regular (pretty easy) hours leave you with the money and time to pursue your interests, live in a decent place, etc.
Do you want to have job listings passed along to you? I’m still on the listervs for Monster, CareerBuilder, etc., so I get a lot of that stuff.
P.S. sorry that was so long and more about me than you.
ReplyDelete