Are there any graduate students and/or contract faculty in the Greater Toronto Area who would be interested in meeting up this summer specifically for a workshop on identifying transferable skills and converting an academic CV into a résumé? I’m currently having an email chat with a contract faculty person who’s really interested in working on this in a group context, but there are obviously some professional reasons to not go around trying to recruit colleagues to this kind of thing. I’m in the midst of doing outreach to local university departments, graduate student associations, graduate school admins and career centres (and after I’m done in the GTA, I’m coming after you, southern Ontario!). But it’s slow-going, trying to get a hold of administrators at this time of year.
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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After a few weeks of bumps, glitches and bugs, Leaving Academia is finally officially launching! If you’re a grad student or faculty who’s thinking about making the leap from the ivory tower and into a post-academic career, Leaving Academia is the site for you.
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.
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Ah, you’ve found this blog! Before its official launch! You intrepid researchers, you!
In my desire to get this new incarnation of Leaving Academia off the ground, I’ve let it leak here and there that I’ve moved the site to this here location. But in my desire to get my other website off the ground, Leaving Academia has been left behind.
So you might have come here, seen some random collection of old posts in various states of disrepair, and thought, “What the hell? I thought this refurbished site was supposed to be all tidy and content-rich!”
Well, that is still the plan, only we’re all going to have to wait until next week to make sure the site is real nice and purdy before I get any solid content really socked away here.
I promise, though, that things are going to get rolling here shortly. I’m lining up interviews with former academics, scouring the web for the most useful resources and brainstorming a whole host of topics that will address the most pressing issues you may be facing at this point.
So stay tuned!
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