A PhD Is a Journey, But Where Will It Lead?

Madan, Christopher R.

Abstract

A common question posed to PhD students from friends and family is: ‘What will you do after?’ But many students are too focused on the PhD itself and have not yet had a chance to sufficiently think about post-PhD life. Academic careers share many commonalities with many non-academic careers, with skills learned within academia being valuable in other career paths as well. To provide further context, here I provide background in my own training and motivations for developing this book. Several topics are discussed in multiple interviews and summarised here, in addition to an overview of the informational interview and suggestions on how the interviews can be used. I also provide insights on how academic life changes when transitioning to faculty and how the connectedness of modern Internet technologies can offset some downsides to this transition. This chapter ends with suggestions for additional resources to refer to and closing thoughts.

Citation

Madan, C. R. (2022). A PhD Is a Journey, But Where Will It Lead?. In C. R. Madan (Ed.), Academia and the World Beyond: Navigating Life after a PhD (1-10). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82606-2_1

• Online Publication Date: Aug 24, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022
• Deposit Date: Sep 3, 2022
• Publisher: Springer International Publishing
• Pages: 1-10
• Book Title: Academia and the World Beyond: Navigating Life after a PhD
• ISBN: 9783030826055
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82606-2_1
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/10855169
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-82606-2_1