As you come to the end of your PhD, if there’s no tenure-track job in sight, there is another P word that starts to get thrown around: postdoc. A postdoc for many academics is the unquestioned next step. The springboard to an academic career (we’re
Chris: Jennifer Polk, Ph.D. is a career coach and an expert on careers. She launched from Ph.D. to Life, a career coaching and speaking business, and blog, I should add, in 2013. She currently writes on graduate education and careers for doctoral degree holders. She’s
Updated May 24, 2021 A question that I get asked a lot at Roostervane is how to build non-academic experience. There’s nothing wrong with academic experience, and I’ve talked in other posts about great skills your degree gave you. Today I want to give some
A little over two years ago, I sat in the lobby of a think tank in a badly-fitting suit. I was fresh out of my PhD and desperately hoping they’d take a chance on me and hire me. They did. I jumped into a world
I almost quit grad school. I drafted my resignation letter at least ten times. It wasn’t much of a mystery, really. I realized that my degree wasn’t preparing me for anything, that I was unlikely to get an academic job, and I wanted out. More
Lindy Ledohowski, PhD, is the Founder and CEO of EssayJack, a rapidly growing software company that helps students to write better. In this interview with Roostervane, she tells the story of leaving a tenure-track professor job in English, and her journey through consulting to eventually
There’s a weird veil of silence for a lot of us about what happens outside of academia with a PhD. It’s a complicated period of transition and there’s a lot we don’t understand about it. Which makes total sense. And since people don’t know about
Updated May 25, 2021. I have a PhD and can’t get a job! What’s wrong? Check out my book about leaving academia– Doctoring: Building a Life After a PhD—read the first chapter for free on Amazon. When I finished my PhD, I jumped into a
Updated Apr. 20, 2021 Quitting academia after my PhD was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It took a tremendous toll on my physical and mental health and, worst of all, was extremely lonely. Like many PhD students, I was in denial. I
Updated May 24, 2021 Is a PhD worth it? Should I get a PhD? A few people admit to regretting their PhD. Most—myself included — said that they don’t (I wrote about why in this post). But we often say we don’t regret stupid things
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