The following story is moved from my medium.com blog.

I am new to Medium. This is the first story I write. I view this as a place that I practice my English writing. Or, if the time comes, my Chinese writing. (Yes, I am a Chinese.) And also share my life story.

The recent stories I will tell will be

• My life as a visiting assistant professor in a small liberal art college.
• My story of job hunting in academia.

I study theoretical computer science when I was a Ph.D. student and I love mathematics. So I will also share some of the things I learn from my research, or maybe just share something that interests me.

I took my current position in very short notice. I was about to graduate and sent some initial applications in spring, 2019. Afraid that no one would really hire me, I waited until I had three publications, and sent my applications to only very few places that I thought I would have a better chance. It was the first time I went on the academic job market. My advisor suggested “apply everything, as long as they don’t rule you out”, and “don’t do any research about the location or event the department until they call you.” I still think those are very good suggestions, but I was shy and did not fully execute what he told me.

In the whole “hunting season”, I got 10 online interviews and one campus visit. The campus visit finalized me at the #2 candidate. I waited for two months, but the college did not give me any notification. I learned that some universities and colleges do things in this way, so I won’t complain about it, but I also feel very grateful to receive a rejection. Well, at least those people tell you what happened.

I also applied for a postdoc position in France. The result was “You’ve been ranked 4th, which highlights that your file has been appreciated and that we (the members of the project) would be happy to welcome you as part of our project in absolute terms.” But you know, you don’t really get a chance if you ranked #4. (Edit: I also applied JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research in Japan; and similarly Postdoctoral Fellowships - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. These fellowships require proposal style of application. It took extra efforts to work out the proposals with my potential hosts, on two different research areas. Both of the application did not work out.)

Almost all the position that I interviewed with were visiting position, those were, you know, not really jobs. I felt like there no hope that I can get a tenure-track position right after I graduate. (Edit: people from other disciplinary will be like “what are you talking about?” By default they need to do postdoc, many be several rounds. But it is not unusual to do so in computer science.)

My advisor said that was because I started late. I should send my initial application in the Fall, not Spring. He firmly believed I would have a better chance in the coming fall. He also said the market would look very good. There was a nationwide shortage of good computer science teacher/professor. I checked the stats and it was true. But we all know what the stats say does not really immediately to an individual.

It soon came to the end of the summer. I applied for some positions posted late and I felt the season was going to end. I talked to my advisor about my extra year of staying. He initially said he needed to check with the CS department but it should have no problem. You know he was talking about TA-ship. However, I had some luck since my advisor’s NSF funding got approved and he now could support me with RA.

To be very honest, I became a little disappointed and considered leaving academia. My peers got industrial offers from Facebook, Google pretty easily. I did not really know why I should insist on continuing on this path that is full of rejections. Anyway, this was a flash of thought.

My last online interview happened in the middle of July. It appeared to be a last-minute hiring since they did not arrange a campus visit. (They tried, but then canceled.) I went to a conference in the first week of August when I got a best presentation award. It is for “good presentation of good work”. I was very glad while at the same time, I received a rejection from the position. Again, I am the #2 candidate. In the rejection letter, they said “we saw significant promise in your teaching abilities. Best wishes as you complete your research and dissertation. Perhaps our paths with cross again.”

Out of some luck, the last part of what they said come true. Their #1 candidate did not work out. So they come back to me.

That became my first job.