My professional origin story

History provides symbolic resources for constructing social identities.   Origin stories of nations, such as Columbus Day, induce intense identity conflicts, in part because of the emotional power of origin stories.  Lately I have also been thinking about different types of origin stories, such as professional origin stories, that is, the stories we tell about how we landed in our current profession.

I love to teach.  Of course, the interaction with the students is primary, but I've come to realize that much of my enjoyment also comes from many of the "incidental" components of teaching, such as course preparation, chatting with students outside of class, watching students graduate and advance in their careers, etc.  One recent example was something that has happened many times but also something that I've rarely acknowledged:  I like telling my story about how I became a sociologist.  I came to this realization recently when a student and I were talking after class and he asked me how I became a sociologist, and I told the story:

When I was five, my family moved from East Los Angeles to the Midwest.  We lived in four different states and over twenty different places by the time I finished my undergraduate degree.  Because I had moved so much when young, I learned to think like a sociologist.  I learned to observe and listen, analyze and infiltrate new groups.  As an undergraduate, I found that when I was assigned an ethnography it was like second nature.  I also found that I could spend countless hours reading sociology and not even notice the time going by.   For many reasons, I learned to love being a part of the university.  I was excited about the idea of improving society through teaching, and about spending my life working for a nonprofit organization.   I had some exceptional mentors in graduate school. With all of that, and with generations of college graduates in my family, and both parents as former teachers, a sociology professor seems almost obvious, at least in hindsight.

 After I had explained my professional origin story to the student that day, I realized that I was still thinking about it later.  So I asked my wife about her professional origin story, and I've since asked others.  I find it interesting to hear other people's professional origin story.  Everyone seems to agree that it feels good to tell his or her own story.

 What is your professional origin story?  I'd love to read it.  You can send your story in the body of an email message (with the title of your story in the subject line), and send the email message to the following address,

 

tkubal2.2009.csa2017@blogger.com

 

 

Your comments will appear publicly on the blogsite,

https://prof-origin-stories.blogspot.com/