Interview

When the Email Said “We Want to Interview You”

I stared at my screen for a full minute before I let myself believe it.

The hiring manager’s message was simple:

> “Thank you for applying. Your experience stood out to us, and we’d like to schedule an interview for the part-time teaching position. Are you available this week?”

Beautiful. That’s the only word for it. After weeks of tweaking my resume, questioning every bullet point, wondering if my winding path made sense to anyone but me — someone saw me.

I’m a PhD student. Most days that means I’m in the University Library with a laptop, three tabs of research open, and a prayer that I’m smart enough to finish what I started. Going back to school in my 50s wasn’t the plan I would’ve written for myself. But I know God has a plan for me, even when my plans fell apart.

Applying for this part-time teaching position felt like obedience more than ambition. I need teaching experience. Not someday — now. I need to be in a classroom while I’m still learning how to research one. I need the paycheck, yes. But more than that, I need to remember why I’m doing this PhD in the first place. I didn’t come back to education for the title. I came back because education saved me.

So I worked on my resume. I listed the obvious things: degrees, coursework, volunteer hours. And I fought the urge to explain the gaps. The years mental illness stole. The evictions. The seasons I was just trying to survive. I told myself, Put it on the page. Trust God with the rest.‍ ‍

When the interview invite came, it felt like Him answering.

This position isn’t full-time. It isn’t tenure. It isn’t glamorous. It’s part-time, probably messy, probably full of first-year-teacher mistakes I’ll make at 51. But it’s a door. A chance to gain teaching experience while I work on my PhD instead of waiting until after. A chance to live in the both/and — student and teacher. Learning and leading.

I don’t know if I’ll get the job. Interviews are still interviews. But I do know this: I wasn’t disqualified. My story wasn’t too broken, my age wasn’t too late, my detour wasn’t too long.

The message from the hiring manager didn’t just set up an interview. It set up hope.

And hope is what keeps a PhD student going when the research is heavy and the imposter syndrome is loud. Hope is what reminds me that God’s plan isn’t linear, and it’s never late.

So I’ll show up to that interview with my resume in hand and my faith in my chest.

I’ll tell them what I know: Education changed my life. I want to help it change someone else’s.

Because maybe that’s the plan.

Maybe it was all along.

*Cathrynmharris