Time for the sequel to last week’s post! Last week, I talked about a major change in my career — moving from the classroom to full-time consulting. This week, I’ll talk more about the mental/psychological aspects of the change.
But first, I want to give a brief recap of our ninth Bay Area Mathematical Art Seminar. Because of my move — and lack of affiliation with a university — we met at a coffee shop in my new neighborhood at 3:00ish yesterday for show-and-tell and an informal discussion. One participant, Stan, brought a selection of puzzles from his extensive collection, which kept many of us occupied for some time. Of course we never have a shortage of things to talk about.
We then moved on, as usual, to dinner. It turns out that there is a fantastic Nepalese restaurant in Bernal Heights. We would typically find a Thai or Indian place near USF for dinner, and this Nepalese place was close to Indian in flavor — but better than any of the places we’d been to before.
I think we’ll be back again. So far, five from our group have offered to host a seminar on occasion. This means that if several of us host just one or twice a year, we can keep the group going. We are all very excited by this! One of my biggest worries was that finding a venue would be a big hurdle in keeping the seminars going, but we’ve already got volunteers for July and August. So full steam ahead!
This informal meeting didn’t warrant an entire blog post, but I wanted to make sure it was in the archives….
Back to the career change. The biggest issue was deciding whether or not to leave the brick-and-mortar academic environment. I will admit that I was pretty selective in terms of schools I applied to — since I had a backup plan, I had to think each time: would I prefer teaching in (insert location), or staying with my friends in Florida? I had lived in the middle of nowhere before — my first full-time teaching position was in west central Illinois. Can you name even one city in west central Illinois? I thought not….
I had actually done the Florida thing about four years ago while I was transitioning from Princeton to San Francisco — I spent six months there doing some online work and looking for jobs. So I knew it would be fine.
And then the consulting gig came into play. Totally unexpected. The process for bringing in consultants is way simpler than the process for bringing in new faculty members, which is why it took only about a month before I signed a contract. Keep in mind that I did this before knowing for certain whether or not the academic positions I applied for would amount to anything.
As you know, they didn’t. So was I willing to give a consulting career a chance? It was a lot riskier than an academic job. I have to admit that right now, things look pretty stable. But I’ve done some consulting before, and it can dry up all of a sudden. For example, I was consulting for a firm whose major client was considering dropping their account, and all resources went to making sure that client stayed on. I was expendable. It happens.
What about benefits? Oh, there are none…. No health insurance, no contributions to my retirement account. When teaching at USF, I applied for and was granted in excess of $15,000 for conference travel. In the summer of 2016, as an example, I was awarded $5000 for travel to two conferences in Europe. This perk would go away.
Further, could I handle working from home? As a professor, I was used to a lot of interaction with students and faculty on a regular basis. Now I’d be on my own during the day, every day. I talked a lot with friends Cory and Sandy about this particular issue.
You see, it’s different when you’re your own boss. I can tell you, since I’ve had an entire week’s experience at it…. When I was still teaching, every time I worked on one of my lectures for the online course and finished it, I’d think, “Hey, I’m getting ahead of the game! This’ll make my summer a little bit easier.” But when I woke up last Monday morning, all I could think was, “Oh, I am soooo far behind.”
Thankfully, I had a good long chat with my dear friend Cory, after which I sat down and made a brief — tentative — schedule of my entire summer. Then I felt much better, though there is still a big unknown: I haven’t produced a video yet (I’ll tackle my first one tomorrow!), so it is difficult to estimate how long that process will take. Though presumably it will take less time the more of them I make.
And working at home all the time? I’ve already had two “play dates” last week. Friends Nick and Stacy came over on two separate days, and we just worked on our own things together at my place. Yes, we chatted now and then, and I would occasionally answer some mathematical questions. But otherwise, we focused pretty well on our own work. I really enjoy working this way. It helps to have someone there, since you’re less likely to be distracted doing something useless online….
Also, I’m trying to find other activities which get me out interacting with other people. For example, I started going to the Gay Men’s Buddhist Fellowship on Sunday mornings again — I had done so for a few weeks about a year ago, but stopped once the academic year ramped up. But now, I’m making more of an effort.
Yes, it’s exciting, but no, it’s not glamorous. There’s potential to make more money than I did teaching, but there’s also the risk and added stress of being your own boss. The jury is still out.
One thing I am insistent upon is that I can do all my work remotely. I’ve already planned a trip to England and Serbia in October. And since the couple who owns the place I’m renting needs the apartment in January and February for family, I’ll be spending those months in Florida. It’s nice to have the flexibility to do that.
So let the adventure begin! I’ll probably continue this thread and let you know how things progress — maybe every three months or so. And if you’ve got any tips for working from home that you’d like to share, please comment! Until next time….
Creativity in Mathematics 