There’s also this piece in the New York Times, just so you know you’re not alone. Here’s an choice excerpt:

Dr. Pannapacker has rebuked graduate schools for perpetuating a culture in which unattainable academic careers are portrayed as the only worthwhile goal, and for failing to level with students about their true prospects. …

“Academe encourages students to think of what they’re doing as a special kind of calling or vocation which is exempt from the rules of the marketplace,” he says. Those who look to work outside the scholarly world are seen as rejecting the academy’s core values. “They socialize students into believing they can’t leave academe or shouldn’t, which is why they hang on year after year as adjuncts, rather than pursue alternative careers.”

So you know all those theories you learned in your degree about socialization and whatnot? While you were in grad school, you were being socialized to have certain beliefs around your employability (i.e. that you have a special calling to be a university professor, that that is the only worthwhile career goal, that the jobs are there for the smartest among us, etc.). Guess what? THEY WERE WRONG. So you know how you learned in school to buck the dominant paradigm, shuck off the shackles of normative social mores and question authority? Start doing that with these absurd beliefs about the professoriat being the only worthwhile job out there.

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1. A Canada Day link roundup
2. A cornucopia of links: Consulting, finishing, meeting up
3. Tackling transferable skills, part four: Now what?

Thus, the contents of this site are not comprehensive. My message about academic career change is that it’s incredibly difficult and totally do-able. There are those who disagree with this view, and won’t get much out of this site as a result. Fortunately, there are sites like the Leaving Academe forum at the Chronicle for those who have a different take than I do.

Disclaimer: The information on this site is for informational purposes only. I assume no liability for any inaccurate, delayed or incomplete information, nor for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Prior to making any career-based decision, it is recommended that you talk with real-life people who actually know you and your situation and have them weigh in on what you should do.

Ahem.

You can go through the material here in a few ways: by going through the monthly archives (on the left sidebar), clicking on the tags (specific topics I’ve covered, also found on the left sidebar), or by combing through the categories (the tabs at the top). The categories are:

• Academic Life – These posts provide snapshots of the reality of graduate education and university employment. They largely aim to validate the decision to leave academia, given the low number of good quality, full-time jobs available on university campuses.
• Career Planning – This broad category includes tools for job searchers that I’ve come across as well as career paths that often appeal to social scientists and humanities researchers (consulting, non-profit, knowledge mobilization, etc.). It is not a comprehensive, step-by-step process; if you’re looking for that, go to the library and get one of the thousands of career planning books out there.
• How To – These posts cover resume tips, networking strategies, dos and donts at interviews, and other strategies around visioning and job hunting.
• Inspiration – If you’re just looking for stories that will give you some hope and make you feel like you’re not the only person in the world who left an academic career path, this is the section you need. There are tips of the “you can do it!” nature in here, too, like information interviewing.
• Miscellany – Covers meetup announcements, quick links to resources, and other odds n’ sods.
• News – Hmm, it turns out that there isn’t a lot of news in this category! There are a few posts with links and resources, though.
• Podcast – Self-explanatory. These are just a handful of the interviews I’ve done with former academics.

I almost never create fresh posts anymore, due to having a pretty full life. I welcome comments, though, given that new readers land on the site every day, and they really benefit from multiple voices. But if you want to make sure you don’t miss any new posts, subscribe (yes, it’s free) up in the top right hand corner.

Most of all, I hope you take heart from the stories contained in this site. Leaving a life in the academy for parts unknown really is incredibly hard, but it really is totally do-able. Let me know how it goes!

Related posts:

1. Announcing three new ways Leaving Academia can help
2. Bumpy beginnings
3. What not to say in your job interview

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1. The next Toronto-based Leaving Academia meetup
2. Leaving Academia Toronto meetup
3. Leaving Academia meetup tonight!

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1. The next Toronto-based Leaving Academia meetup
2. Leaving Academia Toronto meetup
3. Leaving Academia meetup tonight!

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1. Post-academic careers for scientists
2. Social media: Tools for the post-academic job hunter
3. Academic leavers seeking community

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1. The next Toronto-based Leaving Academia meetup
2. Leaving Academia Toronto meetup
3. Leaving Academia Toronto meetup

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!

Related posts:

1. A total, shameless plug
2. A Canada Day link roundup
3. Information interviewing: The worst they’ll say is no

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1. Is the 10-hour rule obsolete?
2. Jobs, consulting and networking: A Friday roundup
3. Top 8 Most Famous Academic Leavers

Please RSVP with me if you will be attending: sabine [at] leavingacademia [dot] com.

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1. Leaving Academia Toronto meetup
2. Leaving Academia Toronto meetup
3. A Toronto-based meeting?

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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1. The next Toronto-based Leaving Academia meetup
2. A meetup, a teleseminar, and cut-rate consultations–oh, my!
3. Leaving Academia Toronto meetup

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1. The next Toronto-based Leaving Academia meetup
2. Leaving Academia Toronto meetup
3. A meetup, a teleseminar, and cut-rate consultations–oh, my!

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.

Related posts:

1. Post-academic life: “Simpler, sweeter, more satisfying”
2. Former academic rock star becomes union organizer–during the recession!
3. Podcast #4: “There are a million problems here and there are, therefore, a million opportunities.”

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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2. If you’re going to quit academia, when should you do it?
3. Midnight inspiration: The part you control is preparation

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1. Happy holidays (+ a great gift for the doctors in your life)
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I also want to say: have you yet discovered Julie over at Escape the Ivory Tower? Julie offers coaching, classes and free teleclasses, but she also writes an awesome blog that will validate what you’re going through and make you smile.

And also: how come you’re not on Twitter yet? That’s not a genuine non sequitur — I ask because I found out about Julie via Twitter. Although I have Google alerts set up for all kinds of phrases, I hadn’t been pinged by Julie’s site. So if she hadn’t landed on my Twitter radar (Twittar?), I wouldn’t have heard of her and wouldn’t be letting all of YOU know about her.

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1. If you ARE going to look for academic work…
2. It turns out we ALL worry about being losers!
3. Would you rather sell your kidney than get a non-academic job?

• Canadians: are you aware that the federal government has re-opened their post-secondary recruitment campaign? Most job ads close October 8th, so you’ve got a week to whip your application together.
• Thanks to @jovanevery’s introduction on Twitter, I’ve found out about the very busy Raul Pacheco-Vega (that’s @raulpacheco in Twitter-speak). I haven’t had a chance to talk much with Raul, but I thought you should know about him because he has managed to bridge the divide between scholarly research and consulting. And no, he’s not a computer guy. Water is his thing.
• I’ve also been thinking about this piece over here at The Ladders which claims that “men have stronger professional networks than women.” This is based on research by two American sociologists who found that

“both men and women tend to build networks comprising people of their own gender — a process known scientifically as homophily and colloquially as “birds of a feather flock together.” But women tend to recognize the tendency and try to overcome it — building networks made up of about 50 percent men — while men’s networks included very few women, Torres said.

“According to Torres’ and Huffman’s theory of social networking: Because men hold 80 percent of the jobs in senior management (a figure that has been steadily declining), they are more likely to hear about job openings at the senior-management level. Men pass the news on to their mostly male social networks, and it is likely that news about the job opening reaches women only after it has reached and passed several men.”

And sociologist William Bielby adds:

“Women have tended to be better connected overall, but they and many of their female contacts tend to work in more female-dominated jobs,” Bielby said. “So their networks may be wider but not reach to as high a level as men’s, who tend to be better connected, particularly in getting professional news, to more high-status people.”

Hmmm. Something to think about when you’re cultivating your networks. The advice the article supplies in response to this problem?

“If women want to equal the effectiveness of male social networks, they need to emulate the men in those networks, said Torres. If male-dominated professional networks are passing jobs leads to other men before women, women should put themselves in the path of those leads, Bielby said. Women must add more men — especially high-status men — to their professional networks. Furthermore, they need to make their interests and competencies as clear as possible, he said.”

Related posts:

1. A networking (and more!) link roundup
2. Do women leave academia more frequently than men?
3. Lies, damn lies and statistics

“I’m sorry I didn’t ______; I wasn’t able to get to it because I’ve just been so busy.”

I dislike it when other people use that rationalization with me, so I try not to use it with others. Busy-ness, to me, is not an adequate explanation for not getting to something. Why? Because we’re all busy. We’re all pressed for time. We’ve all got a million balls up in the air that we’re trying to juggle.

But readers, I’m going to say it anyway:

I’m sorry I haven’t blogged here in over a week; I wasn’t able to get to it because I’ve just been so busy.

Okay, there is also the cold/flu that ran through my family home last week and had me dragging my ass when I wasn’t huddling shivering under a blanket (or alternately sweating it out). Don’t worry: it wasn’t THAT flu. But there were also some really great opportunities for meeting people that I took advantage of, like the day-long symposium I attended on social media and knowledge translation (and the half-day followup). And I also jumped through the hurdles of getting on to the Board of Directors for METRAC, an agency in Toronto that fights violence against women and children.

So the combo of busy-ness and the need for rest eclipsed blogging. Now I’m back, refreshed and ready for another week of adventures. Just thought you should know.

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2. Christmas came early for me this year
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Why I Work With Jamie Ridler from Sabine Hikel on Vimeo.

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2. Tackling transferable skills, part one
3. Happy holidays (+ a great gift for the doctors in your life)

Hmm. I’m not sure if it’s worth the nearly $300 price tag, but this event, hosted by Idealist.org, has extra credibility for me because one of the partners is the Centre for Social Innovation. If you’re drawn to both social change and grad school, this fair will be stacked with grad school programs aimed at do-gooders. If you’re in Toronto, and you want to meet up with me there, I’m thinking about sneaking in to talk to people who are *already* grad students about their options.

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2. A networking (and more!) link roundup
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But a reader at Brazen Careerist sent me a link that the scientists among you probably will appreciate quite a lot. It’s called Uncertain Principles: Physics, Politics, Pop Culture. You’ll find there are a number of transcripts of interviews with scientists working outside of academe (and no, they’re not all in big pharma, either). The non-scientists among us can also glean some stories of how networking, luck and timing played in their career trajectories.

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1. Monday, Monday: A link roundup
2. Post-academic professional development
3. Podcast update: You CAN go back to academia after leaving

…lend some support to a tenured faculty who’s blogging about his departure.

…read some MORE about management consulting for PhDs.

…see my latest post at Inside Higher Ed (in case you didn’t catch it the first time here).

And don’t forget: the Toronto & area Leaving Academia meetup is happening this Thursday at the Toronto Reference Library at 2:30 pm. Please email me (sabine at leavingacademia dot com) if you’re planning on attending.

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2. A cornucopia of links: Consulting, finishing, meeting up
3. Leaving Academia Toronto meetup

You know who’s faring well in the current economy? PhDs who know their way around numbers.

In fact, here’s a PhD who knows his way around numbers and eventually became a professional poker champ.

And then there’s the neuroscientist who became a horse trainer.

And now for something completely different: do you know about Yogademia? It’s a great blog written by a woman who’s a mere 9 months away from finishing her Ph.D. (go, Kiki!). Part of her mission is to create work-life balance in academia–I know, a tall order, but Kiki seems totally up to it.

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2. Leaving Academia Toronto meetup
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• Over here is an incredible resource for those of you thinking of going the consulting route. I know we’ve already talked about Management Consulted. But Shawn Lankton is ABD (looks set to finish by the end of the year), and has landed a job at a consulting firm with the start date commencing with the completion of his degree. He has kindly sketched out a three-part series called A PhD’s Guide to Getting Consulting Jobs. From my brief glance, it looks super useful for those considering that path.
• For those who are struggling to finish the PhD, the ever-helpful Jo Van Every has this post for you.
• We have a Montreal connection! Leaving Academia was able to link up a couple of Montreal-based post-academics–would you like to join them? Let me know. [UPDATE: Those intrepid Montrealers have set up a Meetup.com listing! Check it!] And don’t forget about the Toronto-based meetup August 20. And I saw on WRK4US that there’s a Chicago meetup on August 13th at 7pm at Julius Meinl (3601 N. Southport).
• On a slightly more bummed out note (but still worthy of giving it attention): over at WRK4US, someone had posted a link to the Society of American Archivists career centre (oops, it’s American: center). I went to check it out (you know, always looking for stuff to pass on to you guys). When you click on “Browse Jobs,” though, it is revealed that there are exactly 2 jobs in California, 2 in Illinois, and exactly one each in Montana, Ohio, DC, Minnesota and New York. I say your odds are still on networking.
• And then there is this:

Anthology on the Corporate Academy Seeks Short Story, Non Fiction and Poetry Submissions

In his recent article “The Last Professor” (NY Times, Jan 09), Stanley Fish outlines the current state of affairs in the Academy. Drawing on the recently published The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities (Fordham UP, 2008) by Frank Donoghue, Fish writes of the promotion of corporate values in learning, the shrinking number of tenure-stream positions within the Academy (currently 35% in the US), and the expendability of professors who, within the model of the for-profit university, are simple “delivery people” rather than individuals who, after many years of study and research, inspire students and foster insight. Hidden Academics: Contract Faculty in Canadian Universities (University of Toronto Press, 2002) by Indhu Rajagopal paints a similar picture within the Canadian context. “Room Without A View”, the working title for an anthology exploring the experience of working on contract within Academia in the current historical moment, seeks creative submissions in the forms of short stories, poetry, or creative essay. This collection of creative writing documenting and describing the current social and historical moment of the Academy will be accompanied by a critical introduction which analytically frames the collection.

Submission Guidelines:

Short stories and creative essays: 3000-5000 words

Poems: any length

Format: word file with the genre of your submission in the entry line

Please submit by September 15 to Rita Gagliano and Lisa Fiorindi at r_gagliano@earthlink.net and lisa_fiorindi@yahoo.ca

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But sometimes, an academic leaver kinda just longs for a little bit of hanging out, some beer drinking and some story swapping–not to mention some intellectual stimulation. But there does an academic leaver find that kind of thing? Well, if you live in Toronto, you can come to a meetup on August 20th. And if you don’t? You can email me to let me know you’d like to initiate a meetup in your own corner of the world, and I will post a note here on the blog.

So far, I’ve had calls for community in Montreal, Quebec and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Do you live there? Would you like to connect with other people who may be experiencing what you are? Email me, and I will help you find some kindred spirits.

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2. Connecting with other academic leavers (thank you, Facebook!)
3. A cornucopia of links: Consulting, finishing, meeting up

…are PhD or ABD in any discipline
…do not also have a JD, MD or MBA degree
…currently have a post-academic career (between jobs OK)
…are not a graduate student, tenure-track faculty member or academic researcher in any academic department
…are not a K-12 teacher
…do not currently spend more than 10% of your total paid working hours teaching or doing scholarly research

Interested? Take the survey here.

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1. A Toronto-based meeting?
2. Does leaving academia mean leaving your research behind?
3. Is the 10-hour rule obsolete?

I’m also really thrilled to announce two new offerings aimed at connecting academic leavers, while also helping people who have limited budgets that they can devote to their career change. I’ve also got an announcement about my limited-time introductory offer for one-on-one consultations–see below!

Free event!

Torontonians, unite! If you live in the GTA and you’re interested in meeting others who have left or are thinking about leaving academia, come on out for our first official Leaving Academia meetup.

We’re going to meet at 2:30 pm on Thursday, August 20th in room B-1 at the Toronto Reference Library (on Yonge, just a stone’s throw north of Bloor; use the Bloor/Yonge TTC station). I’ll be there to meet everybody and facilitate the discussion–and best of all, it’s free!

This will be an opportunity for you to connect with other (potential) leavers and talk about the challenges and rewards of (potentially) leaving academia. If this becomes a regular thing, the group can choose to make subsequent meetings more structured and information-based (like focussing on particular topics or inviting guest speakers, perhaps?). If you do plan to attend, drop me a line (sabine at leavingacademia dot com) to let me know.

Don’t live near Toronto but want to organize something like this where you live? Let me know and I can help spread the word!

Affordable help for your post-academic problems!

Teleseminars have arrived at Leaving Academia! Starting in August, I’ll be holding monthly phone meetings on a different topic related to developing your post-academic career. Our inaugural seminar is on that most vexing of topics: how to convert your academic CV into a killer resume. This teleseminar includes:

• an hour-long crash course on the absolute must-dos and FOR-GOD’S-SAKE-DON’T-DO-THAT don’ts of resume writing
• time at the end of the call to ask me questions about what to keep and what to excise from your academic CV
• a worksheet that will be emailed to you after the call is completed, summing everything up
• the opportunity to let me know if you would like to connect via email with the other participants you met during the teleseminar
• an offer to receive a discount for group-based or one-on-one consultations with me

And guess what? You get all that for $20.

This teleseminar will be held on Tuesday, August 11 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Pacific). Interested? All you have to do to register is email me (sabine at leavingacademia dot com) with the subject line, “Teleseminar registration,” letting me know you’d like to attend. I’ll send you the number (the area code is 785, so check with your phone company about any relevant long-distance charges on your line) and access code for the call, and that’s it! When the date and time rolls around, you just dial the number, plug in your access code, and voila–sweet relief for your résumé quandaries.

Can’t make it at that time and date? Drop me a line and, if there’s enough interest, we can tack on an additional meeting time.

Cut-rate one-on-one consultations!

I’ve so enjoyed working with those of you who took me up on my introductory offer of one-on-one consultations. I’ve worked with Canadians and Americans, MAs to tenured faculty, each looking for help with résumés, cover letters, networking, information interviews–and sometimes, just a sympathetic ear. My introductory rate, however, will end at the end of this month. Starting at the beginning of August, my rates will go back up. If you want to take advantage of the introductory rate, book with me by the end of July. For more details, email me at sabine at leavingacademia dot com.

Have ideas for other ways you’d like to build community and get some post-academic support? Leave your comment here or give me a shout.

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1. Academic leavers seeking community
2. A Toronto-based meeting?
3. Leaving Academia Toronto meetup

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• I came across the Swiss recruiter Stamford Consultants because of this article on a postdoc in science who got a job offer in government, academia and industry (the pharmaceutical industry, that is). The piece reads a bit like an apologia for big pharma, but I decided to give you guys the heads up about it because it is a nice snapshot of a case study of someone who used her academic skills in her first post-academic job. Plus there are more and more people with a science background coming to this site, and I want you to know I’ve got my eye out for you, too!
• I felt torn about whether this piece at the Chronicle was highlighting just another way contract/adjunct faculty are exploited, or actually a great way for people to discover the skills they already have.
• As reported in Inside Higher Ed, four American colleges have been censured by the American Association of University Professors for ridiculously exploiting some adjunct faculty. The individual case stories are awful. But it strikes me: do we have any mechanism like this in Canada? I really can’t picture Canadian universities being subject to a single overarching body in quite this way.
• Piss Poor Prof, aka Burnt-Out Adjunct, has a piece at IHE on whether you can actually afford to be an adjunct teacher.

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1. Universities, gender and cheap labour
2. A Thursday morning link roundup
3. A link roundup of post-academic goodness

If you’d like to work on transferable skills and résumé stuff in person and in a group (and don’t want to wait for your university to bring me in), email me directly [sabine at leavingacademia dot com] and, if there’s enough interest, we’ll see if we can coordinate everyone’s schedules.

I would really like to work towards having meet-ups on a regular basis–based on a job-finder’s club model–and maybe a group like this could be the beginning of that.

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1. A meetup, a teleseminar, and cut-rate consultations–oh, my!
2. Announcing three new ways Leaving Academia can help
3. The next Toronto-based Leaving Academia meetup

For today, then, I’ve got a couple of links to some resources that are really useful. The first is Christine Kelly’s two-part guide to doing non-academic job interviews, over at Inside Higher Ed. Part one is here and part two is here.

There’s already been quite a lot of chat about this piece (especially at the WRK4US site), but in case you missed it it, Matthew Crawford had a story in the New York Times about the gratification of working with your hands. Crawford has a Ph.D. in political philosophy and now repairs motorcycles for a living.

There’s a long but interesting piece at Inside Higher Ed on a controversial new study about adjuncts working in elite universities.

Apparently India is the next hot place to go find academic work, which doesn’t sound like a bad idea if you’re into traveling and really committed to teaching.

On the WRK4US listserv, Paula Chambers had a really interesting review of Don J. Snyder’s’ 1997 book, Cliff Walk: A Memoir Of A Job Lost and A Life Found. I haven’t read it, but it sounds like an intriguing memoir of a man who was on the tenure track, fell off, suffered deep despair and managed to get his life back on track again.

It turns out that the starting salaries for Canadian professors are the highest in the world, thanks to union organizing. Now if only those jobs weren’t vanishing…

Finally, faithful reader Gleed sent me this link a while back (thanks, Gleed!). It’s to a career-planning site out of the UK called Windmills. The coolest part about it is this Golden Ticket feature, which helps you figure out your dream job and how to get there.

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Careers in Market Research is the topic of an email discussion to take place Monday June 1 through Friday June 5, 2009, on the Work For Us listserv. Joining us as panelists will be three market research professionals, all with PhDs in humanities or social science (Theater & Drama, Anthropology and Political Science). They will share their stories on Monday June 1, then answer your questions by email all week till Friday June 5.

If you are a grad student, postdoc, or faculty member in humanities or the humanistic social sciences, this discussion will give you quality information about the field of Market Research plus access to real live market researchers who understand your background and will answer your questions about the field.

If you would like to participate or even just listen in, subscribe to Work For Us listserv before June 1. No long-term commitment is required; you may subscribe just for this discussion if you want, then unsubscribe after it’s over. And of course it’s free.

Related posts:

1. Researching the researchers
2. Post-academic careers for scientists
3. How to Use This Website

You probably already know that the number of places on the internet to get career advice is infinite. And there are a good handful of places that are specifically designed for academics (as you’ll see in the “Leaving” portion of the blogroll on the left). But Leaving Academia’s mandate is unique: the site provides both career advice for people who are considering post-academic careers, but also addresses some of the painful, difficult issues that involved in making the decision.

I don’t have all the answers to your career-change questions, but what I do have are the research skills, the gumption and the gear to go out and get the answers for you. I get a big kick out of meeting former academics who’ve successfully landed in post-academic careers, recording our conversation and then turning over that information to other people who may find it useful.

Thanks to all of you who’ve tuned in, subscribed, left comments, sent emails and already started making this place start to feel like home. I really look forward to building a community of people here (particularly among Canadians who’ve found themselves tagging along at American and UK sites) who can provide insight and advice to fellow ex-pats (or wanna-be ex-pats) from the academic world.

Related posts:

1. How to Use This Website
2. Leaving Academia Toronto meetup
3. Your career options are NOT limited by your dissertation topic

clipped from www.matr.net

Rajeev Motwani, a computer science professor at Stanford, says: “Good Ph.D. students are extreme in their creativity and self-motivation. Master’s students are equally smart but do not have the same drive to create something new.” The master’s takes you where others have been; the doctorate, where no one has gone before.

While I’m not sure that what he says about Master’s students is 100% true (or perhaps the ones who do have the drive to create something original just go on to become Ph.D.s), I know the description of Ph.D.s is pretty well the gospel truth–which is why you’re all so damn hireable, even if you don’t know it!

Related posts:

1. Take that, you philosophy degree doubters!
2. Can better placement rate info reduce student heartache?
3. Science PhDs are post-academics, too

Related posts:

1. Who’s responsible for informing grad students about their career prospects?
2. Some comic relief for your Friday afternoon

I had two dads – a rich one and a poor one.

One dad was highly educated and intelligent; he had a Ph.D. and had completed four years of undergraduate work in less than two years. He then went to Stanford University, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University to do his advanced studies, all on full, financial scholarships.

My other dad never finished the eighth grade. Both men were successful in their careers, working hard all their lives. Both earned substantial incomes.

Yet one dad struggled financially all his life and the other dad would become one of the richest men in Hawaii. One died leaving tens of millions of dollars to his family, charities, and his church. The other left a legacy of unpaid bills. Both men were strong, charismatic, and influential. Both men offered me advice, but they did not advise the same things.

The stereotype of the hapless academic continues (”money is the root of all evil” being, of course, the mantra of most academics making over $100,000 a year). But really, I’m still trying to figure out the whole gay subtext, here.

Related posts:

1. Money, money, money
2. Podcast #8: “I made the decision to leave because there were a lot of pieces that just didn’t fit together”
3. If you’re going to quit academia, when should you do it?