Surprise Contact From My Grad School Professor

On Friday evening I got an email from one of the Town Selectmen. He was forwarding an email that was received via the Town's website contact form. The email was from one of my graduate school professors. He had Googled me and found that I serve on my Town Planning Commission. The professor was looking for me because he had "some questions about our past work." He included his email and phone number and requested I contact him.

I was surprised, and a bit flattered. But then I started to panic a bit. What did he want to ask me about? Would I remember anything about it? Could I sound intelligent on the phone even though it's been 6 years since I graduated, and 5 since I worked in transportation planning? I would have to fess up that I, a former "transportation scholar" who received funding from my university to study transportation, was now a stay at home mom in a tiny town and not doing anything transportation related.

"Did he find you on LinkedIn?" my husband asked. LinkedIn is another thing that makes me panic a little. Yes, I joined years ago when I had a professional job, but LinkedIn doesn't serve much purpose for people who don't work for an income. It's a point of embarrassment to think that old colleagues might find me on there and see that I have become irrelevant in my field. Or so my panicked brain told me.

So I emailed him, the phone would be too nerve-wracking, plus it was dinner time here on the East Coast and not far from the kids bedtime either. It was a very congenial email exchange. Turns out my old professor just was looking for a file from that project I had helped him with. Thanks to the never ending storage provided by my gmail account, I still had our original correspondence on the project which included the original database he was desperately seeking. He was grateful to find the database file, and told me about how much his kids had grown and made the usual "it goes by so fast!" kind of remarks. He was glad to see I was still involved in planning. He also mentioned that thanks to a generous donation my school had been renovated from a dumpy little building into something quite nice, and they had a full time staff person to help students and alumni find internships and jobs.

Thanks for the tip, Professor! I just may do that sometime in the next few years. But for now I'm good where I am, despite any insecurities I may have about not having a position in our economic system at this point in time.

 

Me in grad school, wrapping up a conference I organized.

Me in my current job