My daughter was recently offered a PhD-tract STEM graduate teaching position with a full stipend. My wife and I agree that it's an amazing opportunity, and are encouraging her whole-heartedly to pursue it even if it "pushes back" her professional career.

"With such a competitive and technical job market, aren't you afraid she's losing out on valuable work experience..."

No.. hell no...not at all.. absolutely frigging positively no! Back to the LinkedIn "professional influencer" mines with that psychobabble BS you sleeper-cell corporate shill.

On that note : LinkedIn culture is fascinating to me. That place has it all - Over-caffeinated AF recruiters, 26 year old life-skill coaches, non-persuasive "influencers", LLM product "CEOs", and never-employed "thought leaders" all trying to out-meme / "hot take" one another. Boot-licking mid-level managers cosplaying "industry pillars" in hopes of catching the eye of their 34 year old CEO who most recently posted shirtless pictures of himself from his 3 week ayahuasca retreat with his third wife. Ex-Facebookers who have likely been blocked by their entire family reply-guying political trash to everyone within arms length alongside recently laid-off schleps with no severance thanking their ex-employee for "such a great opportunity to grow". VC guys telling you if you aren't working 60+ hours a week from the office 90 minutes away from where you live you "aren't grinding hard enough" in the same scroll-read as boomers that "made millions" without "any of that technology witchcraft." All under the guise of "professional networking."

The "real job market", IMO, sounds like ass. So what's the rush to get there? Especially given that (if you believe my past rants) AI is a comin' (even if it sucks) like it or not...

..oh also : if you weren't aware, the current job-market absolutely blows ass ATM anyway.

With all of the chaos surrounding employability, I'd argue it makes little sense to look for an entry-level job in this rapidly changing landscape if you have a paid-for, upper education alternative. Also - working hand-in-hand with fellow STEM PhD students and professors sounds a lot more challenging and mentally rewarding than dilly-dicking around with a shit company that is actively working to outsource your job or, alternatively, replace your "skilled labor" with the same LLM you are training.

"Worst" case scenario? My daughter comes out the other side of this entire PhD endeavor even more intimidatingly smart than she is now. And, while stuff like that may frighten the trad-wife incel crowd, anyone with a grain of common sense and self-worth realizes the value of "book learnin'"; education and thought are two of the few things corporate America can never strip from you regardless of hard how they try.

So with all that on the table I just wanna say loud and proud to my amazing daughter - you go girl!

 

Disclaimer : I generally deplore email as a form of communication and I pretty much always have. Spams, scams, and "thank you ma'ams" (as well as a lot of other shit that doesn't rhyme quite as nicely) are all culpable toward making email a hot mess. "But filters ..." I hear folks cry like marginally wounded animals fortunate enough to escape a bear trap with the majority of their appendages intact. But the fact legitimate sites ask you to "check your spam filter" for missed correspondence only confirms this weapon of protection is oftentimes too blunt. And while it's easy to blame the "worst email" offenders like those I mentioned above, far too many legitimate websites only compound the issue.