From the category archives:
I know it’s short notice, but the next installment of the Leaving Academia meetup in Toronto will be held this Wednesday, March 3 at 6:00 pm at the Bean Cafe, 388 College at Bathurst. For anyone who hasn’t been to one of these meetings before, please flip me an email to let me know you’re attending: sabine [at] leavingacademia [dot] com.
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Just wanted to let you folks in the life sciences know about a site I learned about this week called BioJobBlog, a blog that covers alllll kinds of career-related topics for bioprofessionals. It was started by a guy named Cliff Mintz, who got in touch with me to let me know about his site. Cliff has some big plans for catering to the postacademic crowd, so watch this space for further updates. Cliff is the guy behind Bioinsights, a company dedicated to training scientists moving into the private sector. He also let me know about a social media site called BioCrowd, which looks like Facebook for scientists and bioprofessionals.
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Torontonians, in case you aren’t on my email list, we’re meeting tonight at 6:00 pm at The Bean, 388 College (at Bathurst). See you there!
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It is a fact that, although I am very proud of my PhD, there are certain times when I do and don’t reveal that this is a designation I carry. When I’m applying for jobs, for example, I do NOT put “Sabine Hikel, PhD” at the top of my resume. To me, that would be like putting, “Sabine Hikel, Ponce” way up there (I do, however, note my PhD on the second page, under “Education”). But when I want to get a meeting with someone, for example, and I think they’d be more likely to meet with me if they knew my credentials, I’ll pop a “Dr.” in front of my name in my email signature file. Another example: when I had to order new cheques after I defended my dissertation, I made a point of changing the way my name appeared on my cheques to read “Dr. Sabine Hikel.”
One instance when I never, ever, EVER make reference to my credential is when I fly. There is absolutely no way I ever want to be on a plane when a flight attendant approaches me with an urgent medical emergency, and I have to ask if the person needs a political scientist to tend to them. When I book travel, it’s “Ms.” all the way.
Thus, I was thrilled to find this t-shirt over at ThinkGeek, courtesy of Anna over at ABDPBT (herself a former-academic-turned-blogger).
Don’t you have a smartypants in your life for whom this would be perfect?
Regardless of what kind of holidays you celebrate (or the clever gifts you give and receive), I want to wish all of my readers a happy and healthy holiday season (and tomorrow, I’ll be posting about the early Christmas present I got this year). Remember, if any of you are going to the MLA this year, I’ll be at the Inside Higher Ed booth on the 28th and 29th, answering any questions you have about the post-academic life.
Happy holidays, everyone!
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We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming due to the extreme shitshow going on in Copenhagen right now. Canadian readers–hell, American readers, pitch in, too!–if you care at all about Canada’s sullied reputation in the climate talks, and the fact that Prime Minister Harper is selling out the world’s interests for those of Alberta oil, please go sign the petition over at Avaaz. The number of hours left in talks are dwindling, and I just can’t believe what’s happening right now.
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Torontonians and GTA’ers: come for another round of advice, support, accountability and idea-generation at our Leaving Academia meeting on Monday, December 14th. We’ll be meeting at The Bean (the cafe formerly known as Kahawa), at 388 College (just east of Bathurst). As always, if you don’t order something to eat and/or drink from the nice folks who run this independent coffee house, ye shall risk the wrath of me frowning at you disapprovingly.
Please RSVP with me if you will be attending: sabine [at] leavingacademia [dot] com.
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Attention, all MLAers! Thanks to the good folks at Inside Higher Ed, I’m going to be joining in on the English-language loving convention happening this year in Philadelphia. Come and find me at exhibitor booth 311 (where Inside Higher Ed will be bookended cozily by the Scottish Writing Exhibition) on the afternoon of December 28th and the morning of December 29th. I’m looking forward to discussing all matters post-academic with you!
Lest I forget about my own post-academic brethren who live in and around Toronto, we’re going to be holding another meet-up on Monday, December 14th at 7:00 pm. Due to increased interest in the meet-ups, I am on the hunt for an appropriate venue that can accomodate all of us. I’ll be announcing the location, then, closer to the time (and if you have any ideas of cheap/free, quiet locations, let me know!).
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Attention, Toronto-based academic ex-pats (and those of you who are still at the thinking about it stage)! The next installment of the Leaving Academia meetup will happen on Monday, November 23rd at 7:00 pm. We’ll be meeting at Kahawa, a cafe at 388 College, at Bathurst (for a map, click here). The space is kindly being donated to us for free, but I will frown at you sternly like a schoolmarm if you don’t order a drink and/or something to eat. Please let me know if you’re planning to attend by emailing me: sabine [at] leavingacademia [dot] com.
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From the Guardian’s piece on Sunday about the outing of Brooke Magnanti, aka Belle du Jour, the PhD who anonymously wrote the Diary of a London Call Girl blog (which was turned into a British TV show):
Among sex workers themselves there was little surprise that a well-educated woman like Magnanti had got into prostitution. “Loads of people who work in the sex industry are academics – education is a very expensive habit,” said Catherine Stephens, an activist for the International Union of Sex Workers who has been a sex worker herself for 10 years.
“At a brothel I worked in, I think I was the only one not doing a PhD.”
Dr. Magnanti now works as a children’s cancer scientist at the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health based at Bristol’s St. Michael’s Hospital.
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It’s time to come clean, dear readers, about a little secret I’ve had for the past two months or so. I, Sabine Hikel, prophet of all that is great and good about ditching the academic life, am on the job hunt. It’s true: I’m out there on the job market, just like you. Not having job searched for over three years now, it’s been a very clear and solid reminder of just how much work is involved in looking for work!
Now, the situation I’ve got going at the moment (i.e. the freelance life: cobbling together writing, editing, consulting, workshops and research projects) has its virtues, much in the same way that any flexible work arrangement has its virtues. But the downsides of all that flextime and being my own boss include managing the isolation, keeping many balls in the air all at once, and the lack of steady income.
What I lack in income, though, I make up for in time. As we’ve discussed before, like other former academics, I wouldn’t be able to be self-employed if my partner weren’t bringing home the bacon on a steady and predictable basis. I’m taking advantage of this situation by steadily, systematically and vigorously meeting new people, cultivating my current contacts, and learning, learning, learning about the job market.
This is why, as much as this is a semi-awkward time in my life (being a freelancer, I mean), it’s also an incredibly rewarding one. Since the inception of Leaving Academia, I’ve been able to meet an incredibly diverse range of professionals who’ve shared their time and thoughts with me. This started off, of course, as my podcast series of interviews. It evolved into my own personal information interviews, not always with people who had ditched academia, but with people who were working in roles and sectors that I was curious about. This is a process I am still engaged in, and enjoying just as much as ever.
At first, I wasn’t sure about sharing my job-hunting adventures on this blog because I was afraid I’d discredit myself. How could I keep a blog about non-academic job hunting when I was in the same position as many of my clients and readers? And then I realized two things. One is that, as someone who already left academia three years ago, I’m actually moving from strength to strength. I’ve done the heavy lifting of the resume writing, the transferable skills analysis, and landing that first non-academic job. I’ve dismantled my academic identity and built up a wholly new one. So although I’m changing jobs again, I’m a hell of a lot further ahead than I was a few years ago.
The other realization I had about sharing my decision to go from freelance to finding something more stable was about practicing what I preach. Use social media as part of your networking strategy, I’ve been known to say. Tell everyone you know that you’re on the job market. Well, not sharing my professional ambitions with those of you who read this and my other work online seems unwise, at best.
So there you go: I’m out here in the trenches, just like many of you, and I’ll be writing more dispatches to let you know how it’s going and what strategies I’m using. And as always, leave your comments and questions below, since it’s you guys who make Leaving Academia the resource it is.
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University Affairs: Careers Inside Higher Ed News Chronicle of Higher Education: On Hiring
