Stephen Wittek, Assistant Professor
Stephen Wittek graduated with a PhD in English in 2013 and is now an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.聽
Q: What made you interested in doing a PhD in the first place?
The only thing I ever really wanted to be was a literature instructor, but I had very little idea of how universities worked or how to get into one. I grew up in a working-class family, the son of a single parent living in my grandparents鈥� basement in a small town. Nobody in my family went to university鈥搃n fact, my mom was the only member of the family even to graduate high school. I decided to go to journalism school because I knew I was good at reading and writing, and journalism seemed like a trade where I could apply those skills.
After completing a journalism degree at Langara College (Vancouver), I began to get a sense of how the academic world worked, and I had a sense that I could go further. Looking back, I suppose it was somewhere around that time that my interest in getting a PhD really began to grow. I moved on to the University of British Columbia for my BA, then to the Shakespeare Institute (Birmingham University) for my MA, then to 看片视频 for my PhD and a postdoc.
Q: How did you end up in your current position as an Assistant Professor?聽
After I finished my PhD, I landed a two-year postdoc with Paul Yachnin鈥檚聽聽project. I completed the first year, and then graduated to project manager. The postdoc and the management position helped to keep me afloat while I was on the job market.聽
Q: How many academic jobs would you say you applied for?
My first year on the job market was 2013. I was ABD at that point. I applied for fourteen positions that year. In 2014, I applied for thirty-three. In 2015 I applied for nineteen jobs, and in 2016 I applied for twenty-eight. A grand total of 94 applications! It was my policy to apply for every job available in my field, irrespective of location or quality. My thinking at the time was that the experience of applying and interviewing would be valuable, even if I didn鈥檛 get a job offer. Moreover, if I got an offer for a job I didn鈥檛 want, I could always turn it down. I鈥檇 recommend the same strategy to anyone else venturing into the job market. Apply now, ask questions later!
Q: Was there ever a point when you thought about exploring a path other than academia, or did you ever get frustrated and want to try something else?聽
In-between my undergraduate years and graduate school, I had an entirely different career in South Korea working in educational development, teacher training, and producing educational media. My wife is from South Korea, so our backup plan has always been to move back if my academic career hit a dead end. As things now stand, it looks like we will not have to move to Plan B.聽
Q: Is there a type of mentorship you wish you had before starting the PhD?
As I noted, I did my MA at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-Upon-Avon in England. The way things work in England and North America are rather dissimilar, so I didn鈥檛 have a very clear view of how to go about applying to graduate schools and pursuing an academic career in North America. I had to figure a lot of things out for myself. I had no idea how tough the job market is. My naive presumption was that, upon completing a PhD, some sort of job would surely be available, somewhere or other鈥搘hich is not always the case. On a similar note, although I had heard of postdoctoral fellowships, I didn鈥檛 really know what they were or how they worked. I remember being really shocked to discover that, upon finishing my PhD, there was this other one-or-two year thing I would probably have to do before getting a job. In retrospect, I think I really could have benefited from some mentorship before the PhD, rather than groping my way through the wilderness on my own.聽聽
Q: What would you say that you value most about your time in graduate school?聽
The first thing that comes to mind is time. Graduate school is a unique period in an academic鈥檚 development where one can dedicate exclusive attention to a single monolithic task: writing a thesis. There is lots and lots of time to read and think through things for yourself and learn to articulate your ideas. Secondly, graduate school also provides the invaluable benefit of connection and conversation with other scholars. I had a real treasure trove of friends and mentors at 看片视频. I don鈥檛 think it is an exaggeration to say that I would be a very different person today without the influence of those relationships.聽
Q: What were your biggest challenges during your PhD and how did you overcome them?聽
The first challenge is simply to write. After completing all of the introductory coursework, one comes face-to-face with a vast expanse of blank pages waiting to become a thesis. It is a bit scary. Unlike other sorts of work, it isn鈥檛 always easy to see progress. Very often, after a full day鈥搊r even a week鈥搊f very hard work, the needle has barely moved at all, and there are still so, so many blank pages waiting ominously for more labor. In addition, there鈥檚 also a lot of uncertainty. It is difficult to anticipate what one鈥檚 life is going to look like upon completion of the degree. In my view, the trick to managing these pressures is to breathe deeply, get to work, and continue taking baby steps forward, even if there is not a lot of evidence of progress. As long as one is continually pushing forward, the work eventually does get done.
Q: What were your biggest challenges after you graduated?聽
The world of academic publishing鈥揺specially book publishing鈥搘as a whole new world to me. Publishers don鈥檛 look at a manuscript in the same way as a thesis supervisor or fellow scholar. They have an entirely different set of criteria. Learning to think like a publisher and re-structuring my thesis into something that would be attractive to an academic press was my first big challenge.