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Jo VanEvery

You are here: Home / Archives for Careers / Your PhD

PhD Advice

The posts in this category are addressed primarily to PhD students. My primary audience are those who are working in academia or in the process of getting their first academic job. However, to get there you have to get the PhD finished.

wood block letters in various fonts spelling out "productivity" on a bright blue background

Radical alternative ways to approach productivity in the PhD

Posted on July 14, 2023 by Jamie Pei

Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Radical alternative ways to approach productivity in the PhD This month’s article is by a guest author, Jamie Pei. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that I try to follow my own advice and take a proper vacation. I’m on annual leave for the first […]

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Taking responsibility for your career

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Jo VanEvery Leave a Comment

Every week or so we see another article in the mainstream or Higher Education press telling smart young people that going to graduate school in the humanities is a waste of time and money. We seem to be coming to the point qualitative researchers would call “saturation”, where new data doesn’t really add anything knew […]

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Publishing from your dissertation

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Jo VanEvery 1 Comment

It is a fact of life that if you want an academic job you need to publish. For most early career academics, or PhD students contemplating academic careers, this means thinking about your dissertation. This post looks at the options: book or articles; and what kind of articles.

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You can take your time

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Jo VanEvery 2 Comments

Your dissertation is not an end. It is a beginning.

Getting a tenure track job (or equivalent academic appointment) is not an end. It is a beginning.

And even if your ultimate goal is “Be a full-professor, with an international reputation in my field.” (and it’s okay if that isn’t your goal), you aren’t going to get there in 3-5 years.

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Shifting the career focus in doctoral education

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Jo VanEvery 11 Comments

On Wednesday November 17th, 2010, I spoke to graduate students at Carleton University about careers after grad school. This post is based on part of what I said. It is directed not only to graduate students but also to the faculty that advise them. For most doctoral students, the tenure-track position is the daisy in […]

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The value of education

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Jo VanEvery 1 Comment

Trying to articulate the value of your PhD is complicated by the fact that debates about the value of education (at any level) are dominated by an instrumentalist, employment preparation discourse. I recall having a conversation with a friend back in the early 1990s in which she told me that her 6 year old son’s […]

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Useful answers for “What are you going to do with that?”

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Jo VanEvery 2 Comments

It’s all well and good for me to say it isn’t the right question. People still ask it. People you care about. People you have trouble ignoring or being snarky to. So what do you say? Assume the best intentions Whenever you are faced with a stomach cramp inducing question like this, it is always […]

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What are you going to do with that?

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Jo VanEvery 2 Comments

How many people have asked you this question? I bet you’ve lost count. It is such a common question, someone used it as the title of a book. About non-academic careers for PhDs, of course. (It’s a good book. Well worth it.) And it’s probably your number one source of anxiety while working towards your PhD and […]

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Taking responsibility for your PhD

Posted on September 9, 2010 by Jo VanEvery 1 Comment

There is a lot of discussion out there about attrition rates (high) and time to completion (long). Beyond asking questions of your prospective programs, what can you do to make sure that you finish and finish in a reasonable time? Take responsibility. Here’s an extended example from one cur

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Why universities are recruiting PhD students

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Jo VanEvery 4 Comments

There is a lot of debate about whether we are training too many PhD students (given the demand for academic labour) or too few (given the needs of the so-called knowledge economy). At an individual level, plenty of unemployed PhDs are wondering how they ended up in such a precarious labour market position and why no […]

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Where do you start with doctoral fellowship applications?

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Jo VanEvery 1 Comment

I received the following question from a reader: My MA is completing end of August this year, and I plan to go on to PhD.  My department has recommended I apply for SSHRC and other grants. I am completely green when it comes to applying for grants/scholarships, and have no idea where to start. There […]

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Finishing the Dissertation

Posted on July 23, 2009 by Jo VanEvery 1 Comment

If you are still working on your PhD dissertation, or if you supervise doctoral students, this post is for you. As you may be aware completion times in the humanities and social sciences are long. Much longer than for other disciplines. And humanities disciplines tend to be longer than social sciences. This seems to be have […]

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