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I love The Professor Is In 2.0 (Book review)

Last November, the Professor Is In, 2.0 was published. Compared to the first version we had previously reviewed on this blog (The 7 Best Tips from ‘The Professor is in’ (Book review)), the 2025 version is significantly different—in a good way, in my opinion. There is an audio version this time, which I got (of course!), so I can only give you the review on that. I liked this second edition a lot more because it’s much more attentive to the real-life concerns vulnerable early career scholars are experiencing in precarious academic conditions.

The first version, as much as I liked it, had this tough love tone (that I didn’t appreciate). I’m not sure if it’s because there’s been some time between me reading the first and the second version. Maybe I’m not the primary audience for the second version anymore—whereas I was for the first (being in the process of doing my PhD back then).

I can’t even express how much this book meant to me when I first read it. Kelsky states that this is the career advice people often don’t get explicitly from their advisors, even though those in leadership positions in academia kind of implicitly know how things work, yet fail to pass it on to younger scholars. This book definitely felt like an initiation to me and that’s what I loved it for.

But at the same time, the tone (at least how I read it in my head, because I read the first version as a physical book) seemed very harsh to me. I get that you need to hear many things that are uncomfortable and we’re quick to shoot the messenger. But I really believe that even tough love information can still be said in a very respectful, caring manner (as, in fact, Kelsky demonstrates in version 2.0). I don’t know if that’s just because I’m actually listening to how she says it now (using the audiobook), and that’s why it works better. The way she reads it comes across like she has your best interests at heart. Which is what the book is about and has always been about. The book being about your best interests, it wouldn’t make sense for Kelsky to be mean. Yet it did come across like that in the original version.

Then again, maybe I just felt personally attacked in the first version because many things she pointed out made me wonder uncomfortably “Is that what I’m doing? Is that how people think of me?” And that just didn’t feel good. Maybe it still was what I needed to hear at the time. Now that I already knew a lot of this advice and feel much more confident, I’m definitely a very different person rereading than I was when I first read the book.

Still, I love that it’s updated. The new version is very attentive to mental health and diversity, how marginalized people have it extra hard and how they can still make it work (but Kelsky also explicitly encourages you to decide whether the considerable sacrifices required are truly worth it). It feels much more like she’s an ally this time around. I guess that’s also already what the first version was about, but I felt constantly scolded in the first version (for things I couldn’t know about because no one had told me).

So all in all, positives. I don’t want to say “positive surprise” as I was already a fan of the first book. The key things that I mentioned as the best takeaways from reading the book in the first review blog post are still true. Those are still my key takeaways.

In the end, this is not the richest book review ever. I guess I just wanted to let you know the new version is out in case you didn’t know. As a big fan, I got it right when it came out last winter. I liked it. Maybe even more than the first version. It’s a must-read for early career scholars.

Best,
Sarah

Sarah Lang
Sarah Lang

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Sarah Lang (May 17, 2026). I love The Professor Is In 2.0 (Book review). Epigrammetry. Retrieved June 7, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/1684d


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