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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Publishing from your dissertation
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
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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PhD programs are not career training
A degree may be necessary but it is never sufficient
There is no job for which an educational qualification is enough to get you hired.
There is no job for which an educational qualification provides all the necessary skills and knowledge.
A degree, whatever it is, is always but one piece of a complex puzzle.
Read More »Useful answers for “What are you going to do with that?”
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 […]
Read More »Believe it or not, I do this for a living
I never would have imagined it were possible. Given that there was no internet when I was a teenager, running my own business over the internet is obviously not something I’ve wanted to do forever. In fact, running my own business at all only came to me as an option fairly late in the game. […]
Read More »Why universities are recruiting PhD students
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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