Year: 2013
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CV to resume
It’s a standard exercise advice columns and career centres assign post-PhDs seeking non-academic employment: turn your CV into a resume. Unfortunately, doing so isn’t straightforward. And completing the exercise isn’t necessarily the best way of going about things. Trouble is, one’s academic path is only that. What it leaves out may well be the aspects…
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What I’m reading
Frazier, Ian. Travels in Siberia. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. This is a wonderful book. Frazier, a regular contributor to the New Yorker, first fell in love with Russia in the 1970s. Since then he’s travelled to the country a bunch of times. Most significantly, he went on a five week car journey…
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Wasted talent?
When my time came to be “on the market,” I wasn’t. I never applied for an academic job. This wasn’t so much because I decided not to; rather, the thought of doing so made me cringe. Big time. Luckily, I’d gotten some decent scholarships, lived cheaply, and at the end of my PhD could afford…
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Informational interviews
All the “how to get a job” books emphasize the importance of networking. Informational interviews, they say, are a great way of meeting potential career contacts and learning about job options. For an academic seeking post-PhD work, or anyone transitioning from one career to another, networking is often essential but it’s not always obvious where…
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Scheduling
I’m an organized person, mostly. But I am easily distracted, and often forget to keep focused. I make endless to-do lists, cross some things off, and then the rest of the items just sit there, never getting done. It’s not that I don’t want to do them, or can’t, or don’t have the time. I…
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I want to be a magazine writer?
I love a good non-fiction book. Fantastic feature writing makes me swoon. A great documentary is a beautiful thing. It’s no wonder I took to history and do lots of writing. During my undergrad I enjoyed writing essays: not the stress of having too little time, but doing the research and thinking and writing and…
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Where are the History PhDs?
As I search for what I can do to happily earn an income post-PhD, I’ve looked to others for inspiration. I’ve found examples of history PhDs outside the academy, but most of them have been online. When I think of my own grad school colleagues, most of those who’ve finished are teaching; they are, at…