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U.S. Campus Life

A happy week

By Masako Yamada


うれしい報告

就職が内定し、論文が公に認められ...と、ここ1週間、筆者を取り巻く環境は順風満帆。

Two weeks ago, I wrote about preparing for a job interview. One week ago, I wrote about going to the job interview and coming back full of dreams of a new life ahead of me. This week, I have happy news to report: I've gotten an official job offer, and it looks like I'll be moving to Albany, New York, in the fall.

A little less than a week after the job interview, I got a phone call from my future boss telling me that the contract would be in the mail. He wanted to give me the news informally in case the contract got delayed. I suspected that he would be offering me the job, since he invited me to dinner with his family and friends after the interview and he told me that I had done very well, but I knew that anything could happen. I was quite nervous for a few days while waiting to hear from the company.

I was very happy when I heard the news. I went to school and I told everybody I saw that I had gotten the offer. The word spread, and it was the hot topic in the lab for a brief moment. Obviously, I'm not the first person in the lab who has ever gotten a job, but I think it's the first time I've seen all of my labmates get so excited about somebody else's job. Some of them seemed even more excited than I was.

Perhaps this is because I shared my experiences more freely than other people. My labmates were interested in my job hunt from the start. They asked me how I had gotten the interview, and they seemed really interested when I told them how I kept on contacting different people so that my resume wouldn't get lost in the large stack of resumes kept at any large company. My labmates helped me prepare for my interview and helped me practice my seminar. After I came back, they asked me what the interviews were like. I think they were partly interested in helping me, and partly interested in having their own questions answered.

Many of my labmates are foreigners with no experience working in the States. Or else they are researchers who have been in a university setting for so long that they don't know what it's like to apply for a corporate job. They are curious and a bit frightened about the process and I was happy to answer their questions. It's often difficult to find people who are willing to give honest advice about such matters.

I understand why people are usually more tight-lipped. They don't want to embarrass themselves in case they don't get the job. Or they don't want to talk in front of potential rivals. Or they don't want to embarrass peers who have been having a hard time looking for jobs. Or they don't feel such enthusiasm about the process in the first place. Or they feel shy about talking about themselves.

But I felt I didn't have much to hide. I knew that I wasn't competing against any of my labmates since I was entering a new field and I felt that my experience might help my labmates. It's also true that I found the process interesting and I wanted to share my adventures ... with the right dramatic flourishes, of course. It's the same reason I'm sharing my experience with you, my readers.

A couple of hours after I heard this news, the next round of good news came pouring in: My very first journal article had been accepted by the best journal in my field. The timing couldn't have been better. My life as a graduate student has often been frustrating because my progress has been very slow. In a field where publishing lots of papers is considered a barometer of success, I felt I was lagging far behind. However, thanks to the strong support of my labmates — indeed, they did a lot of the planning and the hard work — the paper made it through. More than relief or happiness, I felt strong gratitude toward my labmates.

I know I can't rest on my laurels yet. Now that I know that I will start working in the fall, I have to rush to complete three other projects with my labmates, not to mention finish (or, rather, start) writing my thesis. I think it will get darker before I see the light. But I see the light and it makes me happy.


Shukan ST: March 29, 2002

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