I\u2019ve been in my new job at Brighton for nearly three weeks now. I thought I would write a few thoughts about the positives about starting a new job. It has been over ten years since I was the \u2018new guy\u2019, and so far I\u2019m enjoying it immensely.<\/p>\n

Five good things about starting a new job:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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1. I\u2019ve let go:<\/strong> I find it easy to start getting involved in things, but difficult to stop doing them. After ten years in the job I was the \u2018go to guy\u2019 for lots of different things. I had accumulated a lot of roles and responsibilities I did not want to give up. Some of these roles and responsibilities were probably not that important, or they are less important than they were. Someone else has to do the stuff which is really important now. The rest of it doesn\u2019t need doing.<\/li>\n
2. I\u2019m ignorant and na\u00efve:<\/strong> Usually this is a bad thing but for a newcomer it\u2019s a (sort of)\u00a0 strength. If I don\u2019t understand how something works I can ask without sounding clueless. If there is an elephant in the room I can brazenly draw attention to it (if I want to).<\/li>\n
3. I can be known for something else:<\/strong> Past achievements can be an albatross. After a long time in a job, people can appreciate talents, skills and achievements you wish to move on from. You can become known and appreciated for the wrong reasons.<\/li>\n
4. I\u2019m meeting new people and having new experiences<\/strong>: I was always meeting new people in my previous job, but it has been particularly nice meeting new people in my new job. Brighton has a very different subject mix to Southampton, so I\u2019m meeting people who teach and research different subjects like sport, hospitality, fashion design and Youthwork.<\/li>\n
5. I\u2019m really doing new things.<\/strong> I\u2019m teaching on the Postgraduate Certificate course, working with students on the Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) scheme<\/a>, working on Brighton\u2019s professional recognition scheme. All this is related to my previous role, but new enough to be exciting, challenging and daunting.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n
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     I\u2019ve been in my new job at Brighton for nearly three weeks now. I thought I would write a few thoughts about the positives about starting a new job. It has been over ten years since I was the \u2018new guy\u2019, and so far I\u2019m enjoying it immensely. Five good things about starting a new … Continue reading Five good things about starting a new academic job<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-development","category-brighton","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}