I'm going to be a college professor | MetaFilter

I'm going to be a college professor | MetaFilter: "I would stick a shrimp fork in my eye before even remotely considering leading a different life or changing one bit of the career path I've stumbled along for the 28 years since I was a first-year MA student. The smartest, most fortuitous thing I ever did was go to graduate school and get a humanities doctorate because it's what I was most suited for, and because of all I learned along the way and keep learning with and from the students who give a [expletive]. I'm aware that it doesn't work out this well for everyone and academic jobs are -- and have throughout my professional life been -- hard to get. And that is unfortunate, except maybe it does also sift out some of the people who are quite bright indeed but not really cut out for a lifetime of 90-minute meetings to distribute travel funding or morning-long discussions of department bylaw revisions."