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
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 :)
Very interesting. I also do 3d printing for fun hee hee. Yeah, I know a lot of people from humanities who’ve jumped over to tech. One of the people I know was Art but they have been in tech for over a decade now
If you don’t mind telling me, what kind of roles did they get into? I worked at a small company and was a jack of all trades, started coding then did their DevOps, managed other coders, did compliance consulting gigs, was de facto sys admin, etc. But I am trying to think of what I could do in the tech world that would also leverage my skills in the humanities, rather than something purely technical, since I have a somewhat unique combination of skills with the academic background. Also because I never specialized in any one technical role, so it would be hard to jump into a senior role for any of the technical positions I had
I’m interested in what career you have. Are you a professor of historical aviation?
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
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 :)
Very interesting. I also do 3d printing for fun hee hee. Yeah, I know a lot of people from humanities who’ve jumped over to tech. One of the people I know was Art but they have been in tech for over a decade now
If you don’t mind telling me, what kind of roles did they get into? I worked at a small company and was a jack of all trades, started coding then did their DevOps, managed other coders, did compliance consulting gigs, was de facto sys admin, etc. But I am trying to think of what I could do in the tech world that would also leverage my skills in the humanities, rather than something purely technical, since I have a somewhat unique combination of skills with the academic background. Also because I never specialized in any one technical role, so it would be hard to jump into a senior role for any of the technical positions I had
I believe they mentioned they worked help desk, QA, software programmer, and then I think possibly something in networking