Author: Jennifer Polk
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![[Monthly] What’s happening this month + popular posts](https://fromphdtolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/vvTginhxzTewp8cFZbYn1m.jpg)
[Monthly] What’s happening this month + popular posts
Dear Reader, My big news is that I’ve welcomed nearly 40 new members to the PhD Career Clarity Program this month! 👏🏻 Happy New Year to me 🎉! And to you, too. It’s great to be working with these folks. They include professors, postdocs, a few graduate students, plus other PhDs ready to finally figure…
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![[Monthly] January events + a fave reflection question](https://fromphdtolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/circle.png)
[Monthly] January events + a fave reflection question
Dear Reader, Welcome to my new monthly newsletter! This once-a-month email will include anything new and noteworthy plus reminders about how we can work together (if we aren’t already). To kick off the new year right, I’m hosting a Career Reflection & Goal Setting Workshop on Friday, 13 January. I’ll guide participants through a series…
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Your PhD dissertation can help you get a job
Interview with Jen Harrison, dissertation coach and owner of Read.Write.Perfect. I met Jen Harrison a few weeks ago and we had a great conversation about the challenges dissertators face. One of the topics that came up was how folks can better leverage their dissertations (specifically) as career preparation. I asked Jen if she’d be willing…
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What are informational interviews?
Thanks to my friend Jennifer van Alstyne for this fun conversation about informational interviews, why to do them, and how they can supercharge a PhD job search. Read the full interview on Jennifer’s website (“What Are Informational Interviews? With Jennifer Polk, PhD“), or watch our conversation on YouTube:
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Want to apply to industry jobs for PhDs? Read this.
Recently, I was reading advice about how to apply for industry jobs for PhDs. It got me curious about how folks were defining “industry” in this context. I had a sense in my mind that “industry” referred mainly to STEM PhDs working in research roles at companies. But I also knew that some folks —…
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Are you a sellout if you leave academia after your PhD?
Guess who is the featured guess for the launch of season 4 of the Papa PhD podcast? Yup, that would be me. I’m episode 190. (It’s about time, eh! 🤣) Thanks to David Mendes from Papa PhD for hosting me on his channel(s). We talked about my career journey as well as tackling this question:…
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Network as an introvert without doing anything icky
Are you an introvert? If so, you’ve probably wondered how you can network as an introvert without doing anything icky. A lot of PhDs identify as introverts. I do! I am definitely introverted. Introversion can be a strength in an academic environment, certainly while you’re in graduate school. But then folks worry when they hear…
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Leaving academia doesn’t mean going corporate
One of the concerns PhDs have when contemplating leaving academia is wanting to do research without selling out to giant corporations that only care about profits. A social science PhD may well worry that leaving academia means working as a researcher at Meta (Facebook) or another soulless entity where their insights will be used to…
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Do you have to network to get a job after your PhD?
I watched a webinar for PhDs where the presenter pushed back against the advice to network in order to get a job. “No, you don’t have to network,” she said. “That’s not true.” Now, the thing is, she’s right: You don’t have to network to get a job. You don’t. But it’s also true that…
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What you think you know about postdocs is wrong
Okay, yes, that’s a cheeky headline. You probably aren’t wrong about postdocs 🙂 But a lot of folks do have mistaken views about postdocs. What are common misconceptions about postdoc positions and the people who hold them? I asked this question last week on Twitter (tweet) and got lots of great responses. This is my…