XING WAN The Compleat Academic A Career Guide

Agenda Starting a Career as a PhD candidate  Different from master and undergraduate  Job options Teaching and Mentoring  Teaching  Mentoring Research and Writing  Research Grant  Writing Journal Article  Setting Up Your Lab Managing your career over time

Starting a Career as a PhD candidate

A Guide to Ph.D Graduate School

Job Options for new PHD graduate 3 Job Options for new PHD graduates : Postdoctoral Faculty Industry What’s their pros and cons?

Job Options for new PHD graduate ProsCons Postdoctoral Facilitate the transition Broaden research domain Research Utopia (No burden) Need funding and sponsor “Transition” job Faculty World expert with Prof. title Tenure (Job safety) Balance your time between Teaching and Research Industry Higher compensation Exciting career track Can leave the work behind Less job safety

Advantages of a Postdoctoral Fellowship

How to Find A Postdoc Fellowship

Preparation for Careers outside of Academia Transferable skills Certain skills not trained enough in graduate programs Social skills Having a positive can-do attitude Needs more flexibility Is PHD’s social skill really not that good?

How to Apply for Faculty Position Key: Vita Start by listing everything you have done Displays all your relevant skills. Include your work "in progress", especially your thesis proposal, and your future research directions. Might also include a list of courses you could teach. Be neither parochial nor grandiose. Besides Vita, are there any other things we need to prepare?

How to Apply for Faculty Position Key: Job Visit Research the institution, the department and the audience of your talk. Present your ideas in a less complex way Mention that you know the limits At the end of the talk make a brief but explicit statement regarding future research directions conclude with a summary of what you have shown. Prepare a 5 minutes mini-talk about yourself and your research.

Teaching & Mentoring

Effective Teaching Make good use of the binding contract: the Syllabus Engage students in numerous study sessions Establishing student communication channels: office hours; Take a firm, rational, but caring approach by accepting the excuse but asking for verification. Do not cover "everything" in detail Be careful not to inadvertently impose your political, moral, or religious beliefs on students

Effective Teaching Save everything. Keep good records Create your own versions of the teaching forms Build a directory of useful information to refer students to various kinds of help

Mentoring Testing a student's research ideas  What are you interested in doing/finding out?  Why are you interested in doing this?  How does what you are interested in doing relate to what's already known?  How does this research differ from and/or extend previous research?  How are you going to do this?  What do you expect to find? Fit between you and the student?

Research & Writing

Obtaining a Research Grant Develop a research idea and then pitch it to potential funders  Select your ideas carefully  Think broadly about the applications of your work Call the relevant program officers Be prepared with follow-up questions Hedge your bets  Submit your ideas to various agencies

Writing the Empirical Journal Article An article is written in the shape of an hourglass.  Broad general statement  Specifics of the study  More general consideration Introduction Method Results Discussion Title and abstract

Setting Up Your Lab Not enough funding Buy what you absolutely need to begin your research program Save some money for later Start small and make sure your lab works with right people

Managing Your Career Over Time

The Academic Marathon Thinking about the future: make concrete plans for small chunks of time and more general plans for the more distant future. Short-term planning: build time for writing and research into your schedule Medium-term goals: six-month chunks of time is a good choice Long-term goals: range beyond concrete behavioral objectives to the category of dreams, hopes, and aspirations.

Enjoy the Pure Joy of Research! Faculty have pretty flexible schedule, but can never leave the work behind. The joys are the primary reasons why this stressful, ill-paid line of work is worth pursuing. And what drives us ultimately is the pure joy of research:" Those moments.... When suddenly there is a synthesis of the human intelligence.. And to know every day that it might happen again." (Gornick 1983, p.52)