Zoë’s Reviews > From Student to Scholar: A Candid Guide to Becoming a Professor > Status Update

There's nothing groundbreaking here, but I continue to read and enjoy anyway. I've finally reached the part that's beyond where I currently am in my career, and I find it reassuring to read things like "unless you are a major disappointment, you should be granted additional years"—i.e., it's not typically the pre-tenure renewals that are risky, but only the tenure decision itself.

I'm generally enjoying this book, but some of the advice strikes me as bizarre. For example, I didn't realize that it was possible for your advisor to access confidential reference letters written by other faculty members, in order to tell you which ones to remove from your dossier. Apparently this can be done "without breaching confidentiality by revealing content". I guess confidentiality isn't what I thought?