It is time for me to begin my search for a faculty position in earnest. I’d actually prefer not to discuss many of the details of this process and will not be disclosing much of that information. In fact, I find much of the information to be rather inappropriate to publicly talk about.

However, there is something that I’ve noticed that I would like to expand upon that I was not expecting explicitly at the outset. Part of the process of applying for faculty positions involves preparing statements of teaching philosophy and research intent. It’s this preparation that has struck me in a rather interesting fashion, in a way that actually reminds me of my physics qualifying exam experience.

It may seem trivial to write down a “statement of research intent” or “teaching philosophy.” However, in practice this has been quite a project and resembles very much the process I go through for writing academic papers and proposals. My own approach to writing papers often boils down to an organic ``growing” of the paper. First, I tend to try to write down the principle idea/result to convey. Then I write everything I can think of that might possibly be important, details and all. This causes the manuscript to balloon to a length usually much to large to be suitable, and to be fair, many of the details included in the first draft are not sufficiently important to be included. At that point I begin to cut down the manuscript into something smaller. Each time asking if a paragraph or sentence is really needed. Eventually I end up with a shorter, more to the point paper that is suitable to submit for publication. This also describes the process I’ve been using to create my own application package for these faculty positions.

It has actually been rather enjoyable to write all these things down and edit the thoughts into a coherent whole. It’s also rather interesting in that much of the information are about subjects that I feel rather strongly about. The whole process has been very beneficial in providing sort of a unified vision of what I want to do. What are all the parts? What do they have to do with each other? How do they work together?

It’s that unification that reminds me of my qualifying exam. The purpose of that exam should* be for the students to study enough physics over a singular period of time to develop a unified ``world view” and approach to physics. That approach may be very different from how others do physics (and often is), but the important thing is to have one and to have a enough physics in your head at once to see the similarities across many different fields of physics (a unified vision). This idea may be a bit idealistic when it comes to students actually taking the exam. But to me taking the exam is not the important thing, preparing for it is. That is where the benefit comes from.

After spending quite a bit of time on my application package, it feels like a similar unification has taken place. It’s a feeling that now more than ever before I know what I want to do with my career and life in science.