take your student to work day

Students undergrad & grad occasionally visit my office, look around, and say, "I wanna be a professor like you" (one can see them mentally pushing me down an elevator shaft and measuring for drapes). And who can blame them? They see me looking relaxed and somewhat slovenly, they assume I work 24/7 -- 24 hours per week, 7 months per year -- and they know I make several hundred thousand dollars per year. My sense is that because of professors' and students' daily proximity to one another, both think that the professors' worklife is pretty transparent. But my sense is that students don't really understand what our jobs are really like -- just as professors don't fully grasp that their students are taking other courses, are tired, and aren't obsessed with the same things they are. But that's another post.

So. Announcing "Take Your Student to Work Day." If you're a graduate or undergraduate history student planning a career in academics, contact me.