Belinda Campos

Professor and Chair, Chicano/Latino Studies

The number of academics who are taking their first academic job and are first in their families to go down this professional road is increasing. For many of us who fit that description, we might be all too well versed in how to manage scarcity and try to avoid debt, but we may feel out of our element with issues of benefits, retirement planning, house purchasing considerations, etc. – in short, all things financial literacy. At UCI there are central resources (e.g., retirement planning webinars; email announcements are sent out and the webinars are offered during the school year and in the summer), but there are also other things you can do in the early stages of your career to set yourself up for financial security and ease of mind in the future. Bring up the topic with trusted senior faculty or more junior colleagues with a valuable 5 years of experience on the job. Bring up the topic with other new faculty you are meeting at orientation or other events – you are all figuring this out and that makes it a salient and reasonable topic of conversation. Wisdom sharing happens formally but a lot of it can also happen informally, like at lunch when people are just talking about life. But whether formally and/or informally, learn how getting paid works (and who to call if there seems to be an error), the UC benefits that come with being a faculty member, and the meaningful difference between avoiding debt and building long-term economic safety.