Becoming an Academic

Mewburn's counsel is solid. This quick and entertaining primer will appeal to students considering a career in academia as well as their advisers and anyone who has been down the path themselves. -Library Journal Inger Mewburn is eminently relatable. Like many graduate students and early career academics struggling to find permanent jobs, she is a veteran of rejection and disappointment. But after years spent working in the field of research education, she knows how to roll with the punches, and she can show you how. Mewburn is the academic version of Dear Abby, the witty and warm adviser you wish you had. Partly a memoir, partly a practical field guide, and partly a self-help book, Becoming an Academic is meant to be devoured during late-night existential crises or bouts of writer's block. Mewburn deftly identifies the common insecurities that linger in the average graduate student's brain, offering pithy anecdotal examples from her own life or from the misadventures of her students or friends. -Morgan Shahan, graduate student in history, Johns Hopkins University It's often said that 'anger is an energy.' In Inger Mewburn's case it's an honest, generous, and constructive energy that we need more of in the academy. Her commitment pervades this immensely readable book, drawing together the best bits of The Thesis Whisperer in a combination that is more than the sum of its parts. -Mark Carrigan, Cambridge University Brilliant, funny, and insightful. Inger Mewburn, aka. The Thesis Whisperer, has for a long time been taming the rodeo of academic life through her blog. In this wonderful book, she offers ways to think about the practical challenges of a scholarly life, but also makes the case for the things we hold dear in the vocation of thinking. -Les Back, Goldsmiths, University of London