Cocooning
As of next week, I'll no longer be a first year composition instructor. I'll be teaching a course this summer, but it's not technically first year comp and I'll no longer be a part of the Writing Studies Department here. Probably the hardest part of this whole transition has been stepping out of a fairly comfortable niche. I've been in my current career track for almost a decade. I more or less know what I'm doing, and I'm reasonably competent at it. I'm in control of my work and I know what's expected of me.
Starting this fall, that all changes. I'm entering a new field. Rather than concentrating on teaching, the next three years of my life will be primarily about research. While my classes have touched on the themes I'm interested in, they've been introductory and, by necessity, fairly broad. In my next gig, some four or five years from now, I'll be teaching students specific content from a particular discipline. And during this transition, I'm a student--somewhat in control, but also learning what's expected of me and how I fit in a new academic landscape.
To that end, I feel like the caterpillar entering a cocoon. I don't know exactly what I'll look like on the other end of this. But it will be interesting to find out.
