If an academic career is on your list of possible post-PhD paths, there are a few things you should know. The de facto requirements for an academic position have increased. It is unreasonable to expect that you will have all of these additional requirements at the same time as you are awarded the PhD. For most people, there is going to be a period of some other employment between finishing the PhD and getting that secure position. In this post, I lay out some options.
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You can take your time
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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So, what do you do next…
Julie Clarenbach and I wrote the Myths & Mismatches series because we know that a lot of people are feeling unhappy with some aspect of their academic career. We also know that a lot of people are blaming themselves. When you feel like you’re being battered by a constant storm, it’s pretty hard to start […]
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The importance of quitting
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · The importance of quitting Quitting has a bad rap. Winners never quit and quitters never win. When the going gets tough, the tough keep going. I can see how you don’t want to give up at the first hurdle, but sometimes quitting is actually a good option. The option […]
Read More »Academic Myths and Mismatches
As I’ve said before, I genuinely believe that a lot of humanities and social science research and scholarship is interesting and important, even if it has no direct instrumental application. I think our society is a better place for having such interesting literary, historical, philosophical, cultural studies, sociology, etc. scholars in our midst. One of […]
Read More »What happened to the Life of the Mind?
For many people what’s attractive about an academic career is the opportunity to be intellectually engaged: with students, with books, with colleagues, etc. Popular cultural representations of academia twist this into an image of the professor with his mind on higher things and detached from reality. Either way what gets called “the life of the mind” […]
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