Year: 2015
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Don’t give in to your inner critic
Are you doing your work, or are you making excuses? I ask lovingly, of course 🙂 From my latest for University Affairs: [D]oing the work is terrifying because it means putting yourself first – your ideas, your ambitions, your goals. When you do that, you risk ultimate failure. That’s the inner critic talking, though. Our egos,…
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Transition Q & A: Alison Norman
The latest Q & A is by Alison Norman, a history PhD who moved into a government researcher role where she’s doing important work. “I get to be a historian on a daily basis, and put my knowledge and skills to good use,” she writes. Here’s an excerpt: What most surprises you about your job?…
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Congratulations to us!
I attended the Canadian Online Publishing Awards ceremony last evening in Toronto, with my University Affairs editor Ashleigh VanHouten. The magazine took home 5 gold wins in the blue division (business-to-business), including best blog or column for From PhD to Life! I don’t know exactly what content the magazine shared when it entered my blog…
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How much I make
Or, as my University Affairs editor put it, “Let’s talk money”! Talking about money can make for an awkward conversation. But money is also a basic fact of life. So, I decided to tell the world how much I make and how I make it. I think it’s helpful for us self-employed folk to talk…
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Transition Q & A: Kenna Barrett
At a talk I once gave a woman in the audience was feeling awkward that she’d have a better shot at going backward in her career than forward. She meant that she could go back to the job she had before doing her doctorate, but wasn’t thrilled about doing that. I totally get that. Here’s…
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Do PhDs really want tenure-track jobs?
Well, the seemingly obvious answer is, “Yes!” but dig a bit deeper and it’s not so clear cut. In my newest post for University Affairs I go beyond survey data to show that it’s not good enough to only support students who dream of tenure. An excerpt: It’s a fair assumption that most, and perhaps…
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Grad school is part of your career
This one was inspired by a group session I had with a few McMaster University engineering PhD students. The interviewed me about my job and career. One question in particular got me thinking. An excerpt: As for those current students, I hope they can do as I didn’t. When I was a student, I spent…
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Transition Q & A: Paul Hartley
Paul’s finishing up his PhD in ethnomusicology. After he returned from fieldwork in Turkey, he started working in the private sector. His work is fascinating! I have to admit that despite this, I had a naïve view of academia and thought that it was simply an extension of grad school. The closer I got, the…
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Transition Q & A: Christine Buske
What’s an extroverted biology PhD to do? Well, for Christine, the current answer is to work as head of outreach for a software company! About a year before finishing my PhD I started working part-time for Papers (the reference manager). It was a great job and I knew I had a good chance of staying…
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My new mission: From PhD to Life, the book!
Oh, this is a bit scary! Yup, I’m working on a book. It’s about the emotional transition part of going “from PhD to life,” whatever that means for each person. More about what I’m planning over at University Affairs.