Matchmaker, Find Me A Match
I can't quite bring myself to talk much about the job search yet, given the anxiety it gives me on so many levels--not the least of which is the sparse job listings. But, I have applied to one position that is a long shot. I'm preparing another application for another position, and am strongly considering applying for another. What leaves me feeling ungrounded right now is that I have absolutely no clue where I'll be living after July--where will I get a job? WILL I find a job? etc. Which brings me to matchmaking:
Today, I went to "Match Day" at the med school. For those who aren't familiar, match day (always March 18th) is when 4th year medical students (i.e., those who are graduating from medical shcool) all across the United States find out where they will go for residency training in their chosen specialty. It's kind of cool how the residency match system works, in that it's different from a regular job search, and while there is some suspense, it works in a clean way.
In their last year of medical school, students pick the specialty they want to go into (e.g pediatrics, or surgery, or anesthesiology, psychiatry, or whatever), and apply to residency programs. They typically are interviewed at several places. After their interviews, both students and residency programs alike rank each other in the order in which they would like to go to that program for training (or in the case of residency programs, they rank students they have interviewed in order of preference). It goes into a nationwide match system, and based on mutual rankings, students and programs get matched up with each other. In theory, it's good b/c students presumably only apply to and interview at places they'd possibly be willing to go, and then rank those places and know that they'll end up at one of them.
On March 18th at noon (East Coast time), med students all across the country find out where they'll be going for training. And it's typically done in a match-day ceremony that is pretty cool to watch. At UVA med school, students names are pulled from a mail bag in random order, and one-by-one, each is handed a sealed envelope and a glass of champagne. There is also a box at the front of the room, that each student places a dollar bill into as they receive their envelope. Students do not open their envelope until after the last student's name has been called to get their envelope. The last student called is the one who gets the box full of money. This is when the students raise their glass of champagne, and then, in unison, open their envelopes to see where they matched.
Match day is a big deal and emotions are visibly high when the envelopes are open. A lost of students' parents and spouses attend the ceremony. There are many embraces and high-fives, and tears--both of joy and of disappointment. And, I think there's a sense of relief that the suspense is over.
I'd never been to a match day ceremony before, but I do remember learning about it vicariously through my sister, when she finished med school. I remember that my sister had interviewed at several different places during the winter months, and as spring came, there was a question of whether she would be "coming back home" to the East Coast after four years of med school in Chicago. Her two top choices--much like mine when I applied to Ph.D. programs--were on opposite coasts. Her two favorites were in Massachusetts, and California. On Match Day, I happened to be visiting my parents' house. The phone rang, and it was my sister, ecstatically letting us know that she had matched on the West Coast and would be moving out to the Bay Area. And I remember my mom getting teary-eyed both out of joy for my sister matching at a prestigious program, and out of a tinge of sadness that she was going so far away from home.
And right now, the emotions of that hit very close to home because of that big unknown. In fact, I told my sister this evening about how I had watched Match Day, and wished that there were something like that for new Ph.D. graduates, to match them up with tenure-track assistant professorships (the dream job for many of us). Unfortunately it doesn't work like that, and probably never could. Besides, in this economy, people would be stupid not to cast a net wider than academia. In this job market, people on a liver transplant waiting list probably have a greater likelihood of finding a matching liver donor than people on the job market finding an ideal job in a location of their choice.*
*I'm really not a Negative Nelly, but I do sometimes get that way when I feel stressed. And now back to powerpoint.
