I survived the sick, hyper child. He was actually quite delightful after he got over his mom leaving.

I got three rejection letters today. I'm kind of panicking a bit. As usual. I'm thinking about what I can do if I don't get a job in academia, and I really can't think of much.

Hil, are there postdoctoral fellowships in math? That is the traditional way to wait out a bad job market while staying in academia.

It's a terrible, terrible year to be looking for an academic job. My own program is ranked 6th in the country out of 235 programs, so our students are usually competing for the very best jobs, but this year there so few jobs that every student from every program in the country is applying for the the same handful of positions, many of them in institutions the applicants woudn't normally consider.

I got a call recently from the department chair at a not very well-known regional university who was "considering" interviewing one of our best students. He was so obnoxious about how selective they were being about interviews that I looked him up; turns out that the graduate student already had twice as many peer reviewed publications as the department chair had managed in his 30 year career! This is the topsy-turvy world of the the academic job market right now. Programs feel free to reject young applicants whose skills and accomplishments already exceed those of the entire department. In the sciences, at least, most people are trying to ride it out in a postdoc.

Hil, are there postdoctoral fellowships in math? That is the traditional way to wait out a bad job market while staying in academia.

There are, but those are mostly going to people with much better research records than I have. Pretty much all of the interest I've gotten has been from schools with a teaching focus.

A competitive prep school might be a good fit for you in the short term, Hil. Teaching high school is still within the world of academia and is nothing to be ashamed of.

Omnis, I know the decision is difficult, but it sounds like you know what you want to do--you just also know that it isn't an ideal situation. But...it's never ideal. The question is if you pass this job up, will another one come around next year or the year after? From what you and ND have said, this is a pretty rare job opportunity, though not a perfect one. In any case, you know we'll support you in whatever decision you make.

I'm having major job angst myself. May need to vent a bit later if you all don't mind.

A competitive prep school might be a good fit for you in the short term, Hil. Teaching high school is still within the world of academia and is nothing to be ashamed of.

Oh, I know it's nothing to be ashamed of, it's just that I've heard that people hiring at universities will sometimes consider it a negative.

There are, but those are mostly going to people with much better research records than I have. Pretty much all of the interest I've gotten has been from schools with a teaching focus.

If your main interest is teaching then of course you should focus there. If the research side still interests you, I know that many math folks are finding it an easier path in math-adjacent fields with obvious practical implications (and therefore more money!) like informatics, complex systems (e.g. the work Nilly was doing), or computational methods. More jobs, more postdocs, more grant money, and more jobs in industry, as long as you can find an interesting problem in there somewhere.

It doesn't have the coolness of sitting in your office with a pencil and a pad of paper, uncovering the truths of the universe with only the power of your brain. That would be the best thing ever. But it is where lots of mathematicians and physicists are ending up these days.

Told boss to expect a call for reference. It's the next step. Apparently they pick the final candidate, and THEN call references. I put a DO NOT CONTACT on current, as he didn't know at the time of the application. But they can't make an offer until they talk to current. He knows now. Oy. That was not a comfortable meeting. I mean, he was cool about it, and took it well, but lobbying for me to stay. But. I think I've made up my mind. Unless something goes topsy turvey in the next few days, I think I'm moving (back) to California.

I've looked into industry jobs, but my field (algebraic combinatorics) doesn't have many applications to anything. The NSA hires a lot of combinatorists (combinatoricists?), and sometimes internet security people, but other than that, most places that want mathematicians want people who do either statistics or some form of differential equations.

I know this decision has been a hard one omnis.

Health~ma to Anne's Mom.

Aimee I'm sorry that Em is having a rough go. And Hil I hope you find a job and a place.

Health update for SLNRLBF's son -The oncologist has said NO CANCER! So that's good. But they still don't know what is going on so they are running retesting for Mono and testing for Cat Scratch Fever. The doctor has ruled out the possibility of Lyme Disease based on several factors but SLNRLBF couldn't remember them all.

If the Mono and Cat Scratch Fever tests come back negative the doctor is going to refer them to an infectious disease specialist who is right there in the main office.