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English Lit. Ph.D. - American job prospects?

phdgirl · 2012-03-27 20:28:42

Hi guys, I'm just about half-way through my Ph.D. in English Lit right now and starting to think very seriously about my next career move. I'm in my mid-twenties and as much as I love home and am grateful for all the opportunities studying here has given me, I have spent a lot of time (travel, doing research) in the States…

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27-03-2012 9:28pm

#1

phdgirl

Registered Users Posts: 11 ✭

Join Date: January 2012

Posts: 8

Hi guys, I'm just about half-way through my Ph.D. in English Lit right now and starting to think very seriously about my next career move. I'm in my mid-twenties and as much as I love home and am grateful for all the opportunities studying here has given me, I have spent a lot of time (travel, doing research) in the States and would love to try and make the jump over there if everything goes okay with my current study. I'm pretty au fait with UK/Ireland postdoctoral funding organisations and non-academic post-Ph.D. job notification-type websites, but with the States I am pretty clueless.

These questions probably sound very basic, but I would be interested to hear from any postgrads (regardless of discipline) who managed to make the jump abroad - how did you do it?

I'm aware of US job sites like higheredjobs.com and there are a few colleges with postdoctoral opportunities (e.g. Emory) that would be applicable to me, all going well. I guess I just wonder that I might seem a lesser candidate because a). I'm applying from outside the US and there would be a lot of annoying visa paperwork for the institution to fill out and b). can't imagine finding a "proper" job over a skype interview!

The second part to my enquiry is, as much as I enjoy research and have the beginnings of an interesting idea for post-doc development based on my current work, I would be interested in and open to a career outside academia. I have admin, editorial and proof-reading experience and would love to work in any field like this. Any arts-related field at all would suit. I guess (and I know this is a huge question) I just want to know: where to start? How do people get jobs over in the States if they don't know anyone over there already? And if possible, could I get a good job?

As a last resort I would consider going over on something like the Mountbatten Institute programme (you pay £6,000 they place you for a year of paid work in a multi-national company and you get PG diploma credits) or even the 1-year working visa scheme from the Boston IIC.. But I would like to think that all this hard work I'm doing now should offer me something more than entry-level admin (though I'd take that if I was offered it!) and am just looking general advice - academic or non.

Thanks!

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