The view from two weeks in

Over the summer, people asked me whether I was taking the summer off, and I had to explain to them that it wasn’t so much that I had a new job, as that I was simply moving my old job to a new place.* And that’s true in the sense that I am continuing to teach, do research, publish, write grants, review papers and grants, advise students, serve on committees and all those million other things professors do. But now that we are two weeks into the semester in the Department of Geology at Kent State University, I realize that it’s not entirely true, because there are a lot of new things about being in a new place.

My first time starting a professor job, I think I couldn’t truly appreciate and enjoy the “getting to know you” phase of the job, but this time I am trying to actually savor these moments of everything being new and shiny. And I thought I’d share them with you, so that any interested readers could see what it’s like to be a (more or less) newbie professor. Over the last two weeks, I’ve shared a few things on Twitter, but I thought I’d add a little more context here. I hope you enjoy it.

*I wrote and submitted paper, revised another one, spoke at a conference, and helped a student revise and defend his MS thesis while unemployed this summer. Also, I moved. Some “time off”!