PS.: peeked your profile after responding, and ehrmmm I am actually going into IT work, which is what I have done on the side to sustain life while being a professor. I have been divided between tech and humanities for a long time, and have mixed both in my career. Also keep my side gig doing custom 3D printing for local artists, but that’s just because I enjoy it :)
Comment on I'm a professional.
pineapplelover@lemm.ee 6 months agoI’m interested in what career you have. Are you a professor of historical aviation?
redbr64@lemmy.world 6 months ago
redbr64@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Well, I am a professor at a university, which involves teaching and research (at a research focused gig, so not excessive on the teaching load). I wouldn’t call myself a historian of aviation really, but a historian of technology - but my dissertation and hence first (and only) book is primarily about aviation so that would potentially cause lots of folks to think historian of aviation, but I already moved on to other topics, so aviation was not my focus really, but rather aviation’s role as a technology in a particular process that is the actual thing I was focusing on (territorial expansion and colonization through aviation). So, if historian colleagues ask what I do, it’s history of tech and history of the geographical region I focus on. If someone outside the profession asks, sure, history of aviation.
All that said, my long and (pejoratively speaking) academic explanation is kind of a moot point, since I am unfortunately quitting academia because I am too underpaid to guarantee my kid a secure future. So the next project I had, on the history of hydroelectric dams and their environmental impacts, will not come to fruition