Academia, Industry, and Everything in between. A (non-exhaustive) list of job opportunities for PhD students and Postdocs
Quick note for International Students:
First, let’s get the “urgent” issue out of the way. :) As of early 2023 when this article is written, the job market in the United States has been affected by the economic downturn and many companies have been experiencing a hiring freeze. Many job offers are rescinded, and many people are getting fired due to budget cuts, etc. For International Students, this means they might need to leave the country if not employed within a certain time period (the so-called OPT clock). Please know that’s not the end of the world! :) You can still get an amazing job with proper job hunt strategies. You don’t have to settle for any jobs you can find just to meet the OPT requirement. If you are running up against OPT deadlines, there are ways to stop the OPT clock so that you have ample time to job hunt. With ample time, you can then do a proper job search to land the dream job you deserve! For starters, check out this article on stopping the OPT clock. Happy job hunting! 🙌
Just a heads up first :) This article has turned into a hairy monster that’s way longer than I originally thought 😛 When I get a chance, I’ll re-organize it for better readability. I’ll probably break it down into multiple blogs or turn it into an e-book! But for now, Ctrl + F is your best friend to jump around. Here’s an outline to help you navigate to what you’re interested in. Enjoy! ;)
Outline
- Academia
1.a) Research Track
1.b) Teaching Track
1.c) Adjunct, Affiliate
1.d) Research Scientist
1.e) K-12 - Industry
- Research Labs/Institutes/Agencies
- Startups
- Nonprofits
- Science Writing
- Consulting
- Expert Witness
- Scientific Sales and Marketing
- Be Your Own Boss
Background Story
When I was a Ph.D. student, I attended many workshops and mentoring events where more senior people gave us advice on different topics. On a side note, if you’ve never been to one, I highly recommend attending some of these things that suit your interest! Ph.D. is not all about research ;) Sometimes even the network you build during these workshops can go a long way. My past article “Fellowship/Travel Grants/Workshop Opportunities for Ph.D. Students in EECS” covers some workshop opportunities for Ph.D. students. And we’re organizing the Student Mentoring Workshop at ICSE 2023! Drop me a line if you have any suggestions on how we can help your Ph.D. journey :)
Going back to those mentoring workshops, one popular topic to discuss is “academia vs. industry” where people compare these two post-PhD career options. This is all great, but for a long time, I thought I only had these two choices! And one piece of advice that comes up a lot is that “it’s easier to go from academia to industry, but not the other way around”, which made a lot of Ph.D. students choose academia to start with, including myself (fun fact: That was the thought of the old me. In my job search during my Postdoc, I actually only considered academia as a backup plan and I didn’t end up going on the academic job market. If you know me, this is quite ironic because I was preparing for the academic job market for years… I gathered lots of advice about the academic job market and people’s job application packages, and also created an “Academic Job Hunters” Facebook group to help each other. But I never went on the academic job market in the end lol Oh well, life is funny and you never know where it leads you haha. At least what I’ve gathered didn’t go to waste and I ended up sharing my resources and commenting on people’s research statements and job talks. Helping others is just like helping yourself :)).
Anyways, this article is not about my journey, but it’s about *YOU*! 😊 What do you want to do in your life? What type of job do you want? What problems excite you that you really want to solve? Are you also debating forever between academia vs. industry like me? Fear no more! It doesn’t need to be a binary choice! There’s everything in between, and always something beyond too :) If you’re not sure about what you want, it’s OK! Let’s look at some options to brainstorm, shall we? At least we can rule out something you don’t want, and that’s some progress, isn’t it? 😉
The List is here!
Here we go! Below you’ll find a (non-exhaustive) list of job opportunities that go beyond academia vs industry. Of course, we’ll start with those two as they are the traditional paths that people often talk about. I have nothing against any of these career paths but only wanted to list them out so that people know they exist. Let’s treat them equally without discrimination ❤️ (I don’t believe in the concept of “high” or “low” jobs. Who cares? The only thing that matters is whether it’s a good match for *you*) Although there’s no good or bad career path, finding a job is a highly personal process and there are definitely jobs that would suit you better than others. At the very end, I’ll also share some resources on finding what’s suitable for you. At the end of the day, the best choice lies in your heart (hint ;))
Note 📝:
My background is in Computer Science (CS) in the United States, and this article is based on my own job search experience. But I do think other majors can benefit from this article too if you just draw some analogy. For example, big tech companies like FAANG in CS can be transferred to the “Big 3 or 4 or 5 or whatever” in your field. Lots of other categories like “nonprofits”, “startups”, and “scientific sales” naturally exist in all fields too. Some categories like “science writing” seem even bigger in other fields (e.g., medical writing).
1. Academia
I’ll be brief on this one because many professors share their advice online, and it’s a popular topic covered in workshops/events for Ph.D. students and Postdocs. Many universities even have series to talk about the academic job market, including how to write a research statement, teaching statement, diversity statement, interview preps, etc. Just by a quick search, I’m sure you’ll find more advice than you can ever read. Feel free to reach out to me if you want some pointers.
Instead, I’ll share some unpopular opinions. That’s always the fun part, isn’t it? Here we go!
What I’ve noticed in academia is this mindset where a lot of people think “you should always shoot for the tenure track at a top school”, and “research track/teaching track/industry/… are for people who can’t get into the tenure track”. Well, it’s true that the tenure track at a top school is probably a lot harder to get given the supply and demand, but so what? What I didn’t understand about this mindset is why should we use “hard to get” as a criterion to find our dream job? Everyone is different and wants different things in life. After years of hard work to finish the Ph.D./Postdoc, isn’t now finally the time to design a life that we really want to live? And we so deserve it! Ph.D. training is very challenging and we’ve gained so many invaluable cool skills along the way. There’s so much you CAN do with those skills! The world is your oyster :)
So I want to challenge you to think *independently*. Don’t live under other people’s standards. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying “tenure track at a top school” is not worth it. It would be a great option for some people! There are many people doing amazing work on this career path. The reason I use “tenure track at top school” as an example is that many people choose this path without thinking independently for themselves. Are you choosing this path because you understand the day-to-day and find it a great fit? (Hint: the day-to-day is completely different from your Ph.D. or Postdoc ;)) Or, are you choosing this path because other people will think highly of you? (Yep, they will. It’s a prestigious and well-respected job :)) Or, are you choosing this path because you have a great track record to get a “hard to get” offer that most people couldn’t? (Remember, only because you can doesn’t mean you should.) Know thyself :)
It took me a lot of time to reflect on myself to know what I want (not what other people think I want). One blog article that really helped me was “the post-academic (computer science) job market” by Andrew Mao. I highly recommend it! Fun fact: I reached out to Andrew after reading his article and he became a precious friend of mine. He’s killing it in the startup world now! On a side note, we’re both firm believers in friendship/networks. Andrew always says “Anything money can do, friends can do better”. Yep, you should always surround yourselves with people who can lift you up! So, why don’t you treat your job search as a great networking opportunity? You might be surprised by the friendship you can end up with. ;)
Alright! Enough of my unpopular opinions, let’s talk a bit about non-tenure tracks that are often less mentioned. Remember, academia doesn’t mean tenure track at a R1 university. There are other tracks and other institutions, such as Liberal Arts colleges (e.g., see “CS Academic Job Market for Liberal Arts Colleges” by Evan Peck). Below I’m listing some non-tenure track positions briefly based on what I’ve heard from people. It might not be 100% accurate as some requirements can differ from institution to institution, and I got my information from people in the EECS field. The best way to know more about the track you’re interested in is to talk to people in that position who started the job not that long ago.
1.a) Research Track
Research track faculty do not need to teach classes, although it’s possible if you want to. I’ve heard in some universities, research faculty can teach classes on a case-by-case basis, but you’re not obligated to teach. They can work with students (e.g., serve as the advisor for a Directed Research course) and also hire students (e.g., admitting Ph.D. students). Compared to the tenure track, the job contract is short-term and you need to get your own grants to keep the job long-term. So the focus is research, and you’re expected to spend a lot of time writing research proposals. In the beginning, just like the tenure track, you usually can get “start-up money” (e.g., you can use it to hire students to help you) so you don’t have the immediate pressure to get your own grants. In some universities, you can convert to the tenure track later.
1.b) Teaching Track
As the name suggests, you’re expected to have a heavier teaching load compared to the tenure track, e.g., teaching 2+ classes per semester is not uncommon. You can still work with students on research projects (if you want, and I believe it’s usually valued by the institution too), but you don’t have your own Ph.D. students. Where you can get students are usually from the classes you’re teaching, or collaborating with other professors and their students. In some universities, you should be qualified as a Principal Investigator (PI), which means you can write proposals to get grants too. If funded, you can definitely use your grants to hire your own students. But keep in mind that this track is for people who love teaching, so if doing research (e.g., writing proposals, having your own students) has a higher priority to you, then you should consider the research track or the tenure track. Otherwise, be prepared to say goodbye to your work-life balance. Don’t say I didn’t warn you :)
1.c) Adjunct, Affiliate
I’m not very familiar with this, but the key difference I want to point out is that Adjunct or Affiliate faculty are NOT full-time positions. You probably shouldn’t consider them during your job search, unless you don’t need a full-time job. But they can be good opportunities for some people to engage with universities, especially when your full-time job is not in academia. For example, I know some researchers at Microsoft Research in Redmond are affiliated with the University of Washington. Then you can teach at the university and also serve as a committee member on Ph.D. students’ thesis.
1.d) Research Scientist
Ha! This is where I am 😊 This is a position that’s somewhere in between academia and industry. I will give a more detailed description in “Section 3. Research Labs/Institutes/Agencies” below. But I want to mention it under “1. Academia” as well because it has a strong academic flavor if you’re a Research Scientist employed by a university. For example, as of writing, I’m a Research Scientist at ISI (Information Sciences Insititute), which is a research institute under USC (University of Southern California). So USC is my employer and I get all the USC benefits and perks! Anyways, check out “Section 3. Research Labs/Institutes/Agencies” below to know more about this path.
Fun fact: I did my Ph.D. at USC as well so I’m back to the Trojan Family! Completely off-topic about USC: Being in LA, USC has lots of cool perks that I’m already very familiar with thanks to the efforts I put in during my Ph.D., and I can’t believe I get to enjoy them again haha. If you’re at USC, here are some gems: free Mindfulness classes open to students/faculty/staff, free Arts events at Visions & Voices, and Occupational Therapy (e.g., Lifestyle Redesign® program) that I myself benefited a lot from (see my article “A CS PhD’s Occupational Therapy Journey — Preface” for more details).
1.e) K-12
I know I know… This is not really academia, but it’s also an option that can have some academic flavor, isn’t it? I want to put it out there as an example to encourage you to think beyond the mainstream career paths after Ph.D./Postdoc. The job opportunities are unlimited and I don’t want to make any assumptions about my readers’ preferences. That’s why I’m listing everything I can think of :) Maybe some readers love to teach kids, who knows? Yes, it can be very rewarding! Also, with your research background, you might be able to conduct some research to help improve kids’ Education which is extremely important!
Completely off-topic again (lol), as someone who’s deeply interested in mental health, I see great potential for solving mental health issues by improving the Education system especially early on (e.g., K-12). This is always in the back of my mind and I know it will require significant effort (including institutional effort, even (inter)national). I’m hoping to get to it in 10 years or so! Interestingly enough, I just watched The Tim Ferriss Show this week, and the guest Mark Manson shared the exact same hope I’ve had! If you’re interested, what Mark shared can be found in this episode “The Stories Behind 15+ Million Copies Sold, Lessons from Will Smith, Personal Reinvention, and More” (My link takes you to where Mark briefly talks about Education. You’re welcome :)).
2. Industry
In the context of “academia vs. industry”, “industry” usually refers to big tech companies if you’re in the EECS field like me, such as FAANG companies as shown below, Microsoft, IBM, etc. That’s what I’ll focus on here. But if you’re interested in other career paths with industry flavor, just scroll down and I’ll talk about other industry jobs as well.
For PhDs/Postdocs, big tech companies mainly offer two types of roles: (1) Research Scientists, and (2) Engineers. I tried to apply for Management roles too (e.g., technical product manager), but no luck. I also asked whether my experience in leading research projects in my Ph.D. counts as “management experience” but I didn’t get any replies. So I feel the chances of going directly to Management seem quite slim in big tech companies if you’re straight out of academia. It might be possible in some cases, but after thinking about it, I didn’t feel Management roles are a good fit for me at the beginning of my career. If you’re also considering Management roles, feel free to reach out and I’m happy to share what I learned :)
The difference between Research roles and Engineering roles might not be as big as you think. For example, researchers usually need to do engineering work as well, such as developing a prototype to present their ideas or implementing a new feature that uses some research techniques. Depending on the team, publishing papers may or may not be a priority (so being a Research Scientist doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll keep publishing papers or going to conferences like when you were in academia). In most cases, you don’t need to be on call if you’re in a Research role, but you need to sometimes if you’re an engineer. Of course, the most accurate information can only be obtained by talking to the team during your interview.
Overall, the money and work-life balance in big tech companies is very attractive, making it a very popular career path. You can easily find lots of resources online so I won’t repeat it (e.g., interview tips, crafting your resume, people sharing their interview experience). Instead, I’ll share a few tips that are talked about less often.
a) The job description may not be accurate.
Yep, this is true even for the job title sometimes. It’s nice to use the job description as a guide to get a general sense of the role and the team’s overall focus, but there’s no need to sweat every single detail of the job ad. Sometimes it’s even out of date (e.g., reusing a previous job ad for a similar position, but the actual position is not exactly the same). The job description is usually more broad in order to capture more potential candidates, but the day-to-day wouldn’t be that clear (you gotta ask during the interview!). Also, the actual day-to-day may vary for different people depending on your strengths/weaknesses. It’s up to discussion during the interview and after you get the offer. In some special cases, you may be asked to apply to a different job posting after your interviews, or even a new job posting that they decide to create for you!
Actionable Items 💪
So, what does this all mean?
First, don’t disqualify yourself just because you don’t match every single detail described in the job ad. It doesn’t hurt to apply!
Second, if you really like what the team is doing (and you believe you can contribute), but you don’t like the exact role, go ask! For example, if they only have openings for engineering roles and you want a research role, don’t give up just yet and contact the team to see if you have a chance. You might! (see point b) below and I have a story to tell :))
Finally, be yourself and don’t lie about your strengths/weaknesses to please your interviewers. Remember, your goal is NOT just to get job offers, but to find a job that you like! It’s of mutual interest for you and the hiring team to place you in a role where you can shine ☀️. By being yourself, you might end up in a different role that suits you much better and you’re more likely to be happy in the role and succeed. If you’re being yourself and not getting the offer, perfect! The company just helped you to eliminate a job that you probably wouldn’t be enjoying doing. One less decision to make! 😁 On the other hand, if you’re dishonest and “successfully pleased” your interviewers to get the role, oh well, good luck with it because you might have to present being someone else in order to keep the job. That’s not gonna be pretty… Again, this is NOT a game to get as many offers as you can. Remember, you can only take ONE job offer in the end. Prioritize quality over quantity.
b) Not all jobs are advertised.
The best way to get a job is through your network! Especially for competitive positions, applying online usually doesn’t get you anywhere. Not to mention, some openings are simply not advertised, so networking is the only way to even get an interview in these cases. For example, one of my collaborators mentioned that a team is hiring at Apple and they’re doing super related research to the project we’re collaborating on. If I were to look online, I wouldn’t be able to find this position. The team only has an engineering position in public, and by looking at its job description, I had no idea how related my research is to that team! But by talking to the team, I learned that their ongoing research is a perfect match to my most recent work and I couldn’t even believe it. 😮 None of this information can be known by online search. So if it wasn’t for my collaborator, I would’ve completely missed this wonderful opportunity. During the whole process (yep I did pass the interviews and I enjoyed my interviews ^^), I actually never submitted an application (so I don’t think this research position is ever advertised), and my recruiter said the interviews are pretty much all through referrals. This may not be true for other teams though.
But don’t be too utilitarian on networking :) Think about it as meeting new people in your related field! Even if the team doesn’t have any openings, wouldn’t it be nice to talk to people in your related field and learn about what they’re doing? Whether there’s an opening or not changes all the time. Think long-term. You’re likely to do the job search again at some point, and all the information and networks you acquired this time can go a long way! For example, in my job search, although I didn’t end up at big techs, I learned a lot about the different cultures at Google, Microsoft, and Apple, and met some wonderful people doing super interesting things! All of this is very helpful if I want to join a big tech company later.
c) Don’t believe everything your recruiter told you.
This one is self-explanatory. I just want to point it out so that you won’t be so surprised during your interview when it’s quite unexpected. It’s not uncommon that the interview format, questions, and focus are far from what your recruiter told you. Recruiters usually are not technical and they might work with multiple teams, so the information they have is usually more general (e.g., company-wide policy). During the interview, you’re interacting with an individual human being and it’s totally normal for them to do the interview in their preferred way that the recruiter isn’t aware of. For example, during one of my “coding interviews”, I was having a lot of fun chatting with my interviewer about our research and had little time left for coding. I only verbally discussed my solution without writing a single line of the code, and my interviewer told me to just send him the pseudocode after the interview. Sure, this might not be common, but just know anything could happen and be mentally prepared. It’s alright! Just go with the flow and be yourself :)
Actionable Items 💪
First of all, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t trust your recruiter. Most information they provide is very useful, but just know it may not be 100% accurate. Be mentally prepared if the interview doesn’t go as you expected and don’t panic! lol For example, in the example above where I had little time for coding, I could’ve panicked that I couldn’t write any code and felt bad about it. But maybe it’s just a different format that your interviewer is OK with. Don’t make any assumptions and don’t lose your cool haha. Even though I didn’t write any code during the interview, I still passed!
And if you have specific questions about the interview that are important to you, you should still ask your recruiter and they can always ping the hiring manager to provide more accurate information. It doesn’t hurt to ask!
3. Research Labs/Institutes/Agencies
Note that there are many different roles in research labs/institutes/agencies, but in this Section, I’m mainly referring to Research Scientist positions (if not mentioned otherwise). There are Research Professor positions (covered by the “1. Academia” Section earlier), Engineering positions (industry-like), Program Manager positions etc in research labs/institutes/agencies as well.
Research labs/institutes/agencies are somewhere in between academic and industry. Depending on the team culture, you will end up more on one side of the spectrum. Sometimes it can be quite flexible where you can jump around on the spectrum, and I’ll give some examples in the end when talking about my own job at Information Sciences Institute (ISI).
Overall, I’m aware of three types of research labs/institutes/agencies. Generally speaking, the pay is usually less than in industry and more than in academia. Besides full-time positions, they might also offer postdoc-like positions/fellowships as well (with less pay) if you want a transition.
First, there are industry labs such as NEC and HRL. This category is very field-specific as each lab has its own focus. You should ask around to know what labs there are in your own field if you’re interested. They are less known by the general public.
Second, there are government labs (e.g., NASA, the Berkeley Lab) and government agencies (e.g., DARPA, NSF). There are also intergovernmental organizations, such as CERN. One thing to note for International Students is that some government positions (not all) require citizenship and/or security clearance.
Finally, there are university research institutes such as ISI (associated with the University of Southern California), HBI (associated with Harvard University), and Stanford Life Design Lab (associated with Stanford University).
The last category is what I know the most (my own job!), so why don’t I demystify it more? 😉 Feel free to skip it if you’re interested in other options. No hard feelings here :)
So, what is it like to be a Research Scientist at a university research institute (e.g., ISI)?
To be honest, I was not aware of this type of job during my job search and could have missed it! I was lucky because my hiring manager at ISI saw me on the 2020 Class of CIFellows and reached out. The interview was the “biggest” I’ve ever had (I had 8 interviews + a job talk, including meeting the “biggest boss” at ISI). It was surprisingly fun! None of the interviews are coding interviews, and multiple people asked about my dream! (e.g., if you can work on anything, what would you work on?) Oh boy do I love to dream! 🤔💭 These are my favorite types of questions haha. I have given this question a lot of thought before and already decided to pivot to Well-being research when I get the chance. I just didn’t expect my dream can come true this soon! Long story short, the interviews went very well and I particularly love the freedom/flexibility in this type of job.
Now let’s take look at the actual day-to-day. Overall, this is a job in between academia and industry, and where you fall on the spectrum can be quite flexible.
Compared to Academia, say tenure-track, Research Scientist at ISI does not teach classes and does not have their own Ph.D. students by default. But if you love classroom teaching, there are no rules stopping you from teaching and you might be asked on an ad-hoc basis to teach at the associated university (e.g., teach at USC if you’re at ISI). There are no teaching obligations though so you can always say no :) If you want to work with students, you can either collaborate with other professors who have their own students, or use your grants to hire people (e.g., hiring summer interns is possible too). If you want to have your own Ph.D. students, you can convert to Research Professor (which is more academia-like as described in “1. Academia” Section earlier). Finally, another big difference compared to academia is work-life balance. Yes, you can take your weekends off! Can you imagine it?? lol I might be exaggerating a bit haha, but coming from academia, I’ll just say it actually took some getting-used-to to “learn” that weekends and holidays are real :) A few months into my new job and I still double-check whether our meeting still holds when it falls on an official holiday 😂 It’s actually unnecessary because everyone is on the same page that no work is expected on a holiday (and no need to feel guilty!). It’s a completely new world and I love it!! 🥰 Being able to have fun and enjoy life is a top priority for me, so this is a big factor in my career choice personally. (Sorry I’m biased 😛 You should understand your own priorities and choose your own path :))
There are also similarities to academia. First, you can collaborate with other professors/students in other universities and/or companies. For example, I’m currently working on a NASA project, and I collaborate closely with Microchip Inc (this project has more industry flavor). In another project, I have a few potential collaborators from different universities on an early-stage research idea related to Mental Health & Well-being (this project has more academic flavor). Second, you can be the Principal Investigator (PI) and submit grant proposals just like in academia. This means you can have your own funding source to hire people, etc. Finally, you also get some freedom in terms of what project you want to work on, although less than academia in the beginning. When starting out, you’re likely to be put on the already-funded project(s) since that’s why there’s money to hire you. But all existing project(s) will end at some point, so you do get some freedom in choosing future projects. For example, gradually, your manager would know your strengths/interests more, and it’s a win-win to write proposals more tailored to the team’s strengths/interests. Or, you can write your own proposals that match your best interests. Once it’s funded, there you go! That would be your project next :)
Compared to Industry, the first obvious difference is money. 💰 The total compensation is less (but a bit more than academia). The base pay is competitive I would say, but you don’t get the big sign-on bonus and stocks/options that you get in big tech companies (note you also pay big tax in this case). The second difference (at least at the beginning of your career) is fewer meetings! lol Of course this can differ in different teams, but generally speaking, I see a lot more meetings in industry (including team hangouts, and “learning hour” for professional development). At ISI, I do get the “postdoc” feeling sometimes because I can arrange my time flexibly. I can also have professional development or social type of meetings, but it’s barely required. I can decide when, or whether I want to do it depending on what’s on my plate. For example, I’m in a proposal mentoring program that meets ~1.5h bi-weekly, but whether you want to sign up or not is completely up to you. Another reason for fewer required meetings compared to industry is probably because the organizational structure has fewer hierarchical levels. Finally, the nature of the projects has more academic flavor compared to industry (that’s more profit-driven). This also means more flexibility in what projects you want to work on as mentioned earlier. This flexibility is very nice for “pivoters” like me who like to explore different research areas that may be different from their Ph.D. expertise. In my experience at ISI, learning new things you know nothing about is quite common. The world changes all the time, so the ability to adapt and innovate is highly valued at ISI. When new projects come along, instead of hiring experts in that area, we tend to first look inward to see who wants to jump onto the new projects in-house. It’s OK if you don’t have much experience, as long as you’re interested in the project :) We have our PhDs and have been trained for years on learning new things. So we’re all well-qualified to jump on new projects! ;) At an individual level, I find this culture very beneficial for my professional development. In the long term, I get the chance to become an expert in so many areas that I’m interested in! For example, I’m at an early stage in building the next-generation processor for spaceships based on RISC-V, and also in developing a solution to improve people’s mental health and well-being. Both are new to me, and I know I can be an expert in both areas before I know it! This freshness keeps the work exciting and fun. But this is just my personal preference, and I do want to acknowledge that there are personality types that prefer working on one thing only, and do it extremely well. You can get a lot of joy out of that as well! Know thyself and choose what you like :)
There are similarities to industry as well. The first one is probably due to the side-effect of not having your own Ph.D. students. This means more technical work, such as coding if you’re in the Computer Science field. However, as you move up, you might be in a manager role and spend less time doing technical work, but more time on proposal ideas and managing different projects. Note that this is only a general trend. I see some cases where higher-ups absolutely love technical work and are very good at it, so they can still do lots of coding. Second, you have customers and you need to deliver products that meet customers’ requirements. Although unlike industry, our customers are usually government agencies where the funding comes from. This is very different from academia where oftentimes the “products” are scientific papers. In our case, the products are more tangible and usable, and often need to be tested thoroughly. For example, I’m working on a project with Microchip Inc, and the project spans many different teams at Microchip, including a testing team. There are also Scrum meetings, sprints, milestones for releases, documentation etc, to assure the quality of the final product. Finally, the culture feels quite supportive if you want to do startups. There are also resources to help you succeed. For example, as ISI is associated with USC, we can take advantage of all the resources provided by the university, such as Viterbi Startup Garage. This is usually true in industry as well where doing startups is encouraged. Not sure if it’s still true, but I heard Google used to allow 20% of your time to work on “passion projects” such as your startup ideas. At ISI, I also see people collaborating with startups if you don’t want to build your own. In academia though, it’s much less heard of. People usually only have time to think about startups after tenure and/or serve as a consultant for other people’s startups.
Alright! So I’ve given lots of details on what a Research Scientist at a university research institute is like, particularly based on my own experience at Information Sciences Institute (associated with University of Southern California). In the end, I want to explain a bit more about the flexibility in where you fall under the “academia-industry spectrum” I mentioned earlier. As people usually work on multiple projects and you have some control over what projects you want to work on (e.g., collaborate with other teams, write your own proposals on what you want to work on), everyone’s day-to-day can be quite different depending on your personal interests. On one side of the spectrum, your life can be very industry-like, such as doing technical work and delivering products on multiple projects (likely collaborating with industry teams as well). The priority is to deliver high-quality products that meet customers’ requirements. I see real examples where people work at ISI for 20+ years and still do lots of technical work daily. I think this is similar to the “engineering” route in industry (as opposed to the “management” route). On the other side of the spectrum, your day-to-day can be very academia-like where you spend most of the time simmering proposal ideas, finding collaborations, pitching ideas to funding agencies, managing existing projects etc. The priority in this case would be getting proposals funded, as well as papers accepted (as it increases your credibility and helps get proposals funded). Yes, you may not write a single line of code anymore. If you prefer this route, it’s likely that you want to convert to Research Professor (mentioned earlier) and you can have your own Ph.D. students do the technical work. If converted to Research Professor, you’ll be categorized as “faculty” instead of “staff” (when you’re Research Scientist) so the awards/funding you can apply to can be different.
Ok that was a lot! The rest of the list will be brief as I don’t have first-hand experience with those career paths below (I might in the future though and I’ll update this article :)). But I want to bring them up so that you know there are so many career paths you can choose from! I’ll also provide some pointers for you to go further if interested in any particular path! Remember, the best path is different for everyone and you can always pivot throughout your life journey. If unsure, the Japanese concept “Ikigai” might help you get started. (If interested in Ikigai, feel free to ping me for instructions and worksheets. I plan to write about it in this blog series, but not sure when I’ll get to it…)
4. Startups
The startup world is another universe as there are so many of them! It’s important to get some clarity before you dive deeper as the options can feel overwhelming. For example, here are some questions for you to think about before diving into the startup ocean.
- Why do I want to join a startup? To work on a product I really like? To gain experience as a future startup founder? To bet on a promising one as an investment and make tons of money when it’s bought out? To expand your network and look for potential co-founders? etc etc — knowing your “why” can really help narrow down your job search.
- Which stage of a startup do I want to join? This is where knowing your “why” would be very helpful. For example, if your “why” is to gain experience and build your own startup later, then early-stage startups (with small enough teams where you can oversee what’s happening) will teach you more. This gives you more opportunity to learn what makes a startup succeed or fail (which I heard is not the tech or not even the design ;)). In this case, the actual product does not matter as much, but the leadership, team, and culture would be very important. You want to learn from a great teacher, don’t you? So you might want to do some homework to find well-organized startups with experienced leadership in this case.
- Which industry do I want to join? Think long-term. Not only will you gain experience in this particular industry’s standards, culture, etc, but it will also have a direct impact on your future networks, which IMHO is always the most valuable & enjoyable resource in life. :)
- What skills am I good at and what skills do I want to gain? This will help you understand what role(s) you want to play in the startup, and whether that role is what the startup is looking for. Unlike big tech companies, it’s possible to be in a manager role when you first join a startup (your Ph.D. did train you for that!). But big tech usually needs more formal qualifications if you’re into manager roles. In a startup, you might be a manager, an engineer, a researcher, or a mix of different flavors. In my case, if I didn’t get a dream offer so soon, I’d be looking for a “technical product manager” role in a startup. Pro tip 💡 Knowing what job title you’re looking for is very helpful because you can make recruiters find you easier! For example, you can tailor your LinkedIn “open to work” section by specifying the roles you’re looking for. Having the right keywords will maximize your chance of being discovered by recruiters.
- What startup culture do I value? I’m a big believer in matching values because it makes me way happier to be surrounded by people with similar core values. We learn from each other and lift each other up. Similarly, when finding a startup, I think it’s important to find one whose culture matches your core values. If you have watched the TV series “Silicon Valley”, you’ll know how different the company cultures can be…😂 You’ll be miserable if you have to do things that you don’t believe in. Finding a culture where you belong can really make a big impact on your happiness, motivation, and growth. This applies at both macro and micro level, such as the company culture, the CEO’s beliefs, your team’s culture, and whether you enjoy working with the people that you interact with day-to-day.
Actionable Items 💪
- I’m not an expert on startups, but so many people are! For starters, I recommend reading Andrew Mao’s article “The post-academic (computer science) job market”. Andrew is a great example of someone who pivoted from academia to the startup world with very diverse experience. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Harvard University, did a Postdoc at Microsoft Research, was in a tenure-track faculty position at Aarhus University, and then joined a startup, and now, wait for it… He’s the CEO of a startup of his own! I learned so much from him about the startup world and also from his friends who he introduced me to! 💯 Doing a startup is not easy and it’s very common to fail a few times first (the so-called “temporary defeats”). If you’re new to this world, I highly recommend talking to people like Andrew to know the game. :)
- Quickly browse some startups of your interest to get a sense of what you like and don’t like. It’s even better if there’s an overview article about the industry that you’re interested in. For example, I’m interested in the Mental Health industry and found this article “Mapping Out 110+ Mental Health Tech Startups” helpful. It makes me realize my passion lies in the “self-care world” (instead of severe mental illness). With a deeper understanding of what you like, then you can dive deeper into that particular field! This process is very similar to “shaping high-level research ideas into one concrete paper” haha. You’re actually well-equipped already! 😉
Now let me describe this process using the “Ph.D. language” you’re familiar with and you’ll see what I mean :) You’ve got this!
1. having a rough idea (knowing the startup industry you’re interested in);
2. finding survey papers for this field (if any) to understand the state-of-the-art (finding overview articles for that startup industry);
3. broadly browsing and only reading abstracts to narrow down your idea (browse related startups briefly to narrow down what you like);
4. now you can quickly identify which paper is relevant to your concrete idea and which is not, so read the relevant ones more in-depth (won’t be that many anymore) and skip the irrelevant ones (research on the relevant startups and even connect with relevant people to learn more, and you should be able to identify irrelevant startups within 5min and close that tab).
Am I right? You already know how it should be done! :) - Network! You can learn so much faster by talking to experts in the industry than by researching on your own. I know the importance of networking is mentioned a lot, but I want to emphasize on quality over quantity. No need to network for the sake of networking, such as stressing yourself out by setting a rule of “reaching out to X people a day”. Do what’s enjoyable for you :) For example, did you come across someone that you are very interested in learning more about? Like you really wish you could talk to them! Maybe you read their blog posts, or their experience on their websites, or simply a LinkedIn post or Tweet. Go talk to them then! This usually leads to a high-quality network as you’re likely to share similar values with this person (e.g., their article resonates with you already). The best network is when both parties enjoy the conversation. And your network can introduce you to their networks that they trust. A high-quality “thread” will lead to many other high-quality threads and the effect is exponential. You’ll get high-quality networks without much effort compared to browsing the Internet to find 10 people to reach out for example. What’s more important, you get to talk to people that you’ll enjoy talking to! Networking should not be a dread but something fun 😊
5. Nonprofits
This is another big universe. I don’t have first-hand experience, but 80,000 hours is a good place to start. They are non-profit themselves. They also have a book with the same name “80,000 Hours: Find a Fulfilling Career That Does Good” that covers non-profit organizations. They have a Job Board that usually has job openings in non-profit organizations.
I did think about nonprofits briefly during my job search, but decided that the timing just isn’t right. Feel free to ping me if you’re interested in my thought process about this decision. Here I’ll list a few things to keep in mind about non-profit organizations.
- Money💰 This is a real concern especially since my target audience is Ph.D. students and Postdocs who have been paid very little for years already (and missed out on compound interest in savings…). Everyone’s situation is different so I can’t say whether you should be concerned about money or not. All I want to say is that there’s nothing wrong with prioritizing money in your career choice. For some people, it can make a big difference in their lives and it’s totally a natural decision factor. Money is just a tool. Wanting to make more money (i.e., sharpening your tool) is nothing to be ashamed of, but how you use your tool is what matters.
As nonprofits usually don’t pay as much, you should consider whether money is an important factor in your career choice (and it might not be). And remember, we can only take care of others after taking care of ourselves first. 🥰 - Management. I heard that a lot of non-profit organizations are not managed well. For example, many charities are not spending the donations they received effectively despite their best intentions. I could totally be wrong though. But just be aware that passion alone is not enough to do the job well. Don’t join a nonprofit only because you like what they’re doing, but spend some time researching how they run their business as well. Here, I asked ChatGPT out of curiosity and it seems to have some tips on what are the good signs of a well-managed nonprofit (I’m sharing this just for fun. Please don’t drag me into the ChatGPT argument that I have no interest in 😂).
3. Work-life balance. If you decided to join a nonprofit, your financial situation is probably stable and you’re likely to be very passionate about the work itself. First of all, congratulations! 🥳 That’s a great place to be where your physical needs are met and you know what your passion is :) Passion is a wonderful thing and many people are still on their way to discovering it. However, just know that a common challenge for people who are doing what they love is burning out. I also heard that some nonprofits might take advantage of people’s passion and pay very little for overwork. You love doing this right? You’re not here for money right? So here’s all the work you need to do and you should thank me! Passion is a fluid thing and it can die down if you’re burning out. It might even collide with your other life priorities like family, friends, etc. So maintaining your work-life balance is even more important when you’re doing what you love. Again, just remember that you need to take care of yourself first before you can take care of others. When we’re taken care of, we’re much better equipped to do good to this world. Enjoy!
6. Science Writing
I haven’t looked into this path yet, but Gertrude Nonterah, Ph.D. would be the perfect person to ask! She does medical writing (my knowledge is mostly in the EECS field) and she loves to share what she can offer! As a side bonus, she’s a great example of “mixing & matching” different career paths. She has a full-time job, and at the same time, she’s also being her own boss in her side business to help Ph.D. students (see Section “10. Be Your Own Boss” below). Yep! You can mix and match! All the career paths I listed here are for you to brainstorm your own path. Be creative! There’s no recipe in life. Have some fun designing your own life journey! 🙌
7. Consulting
You might have heard of “MBB”, which refers to the “Big 3” strategy consulting firms: McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company. There are also many many smaller consulting firms with specific focuses, and you’ll need to dig into them based on your own field. For example, on the smallest side, MathSci.ai is a one-woman consulting firm (as of Feb 2023) founded by Dr. Tamara G. Kolda who serves as an independent consultant. Yep you can start your own consulting firm too! Then your career path would also fall into Section 10. Be Your Own Boss. As mentioned earlier, the list is fluid and you can mix & match. For example, another common way to do consulting work is having a contractor position on top of your full-time job.
As for your day-to-day in a consulting firm, it will be quite different from your Ph.D. For one thing, you’ll have your own clients and your goal is to utilize your knowledge to help them and make them happy. :) You might be working on multiple projects at a time depending on the scale of each project, and you might need to travel a lot depending on your clients. Another thing I heard is that you should like breath (not just depth as you experienced in your Ph.D.) and be open to adapting to new things. The reason is that you don’t have full control over what projects to choose as you can never predict what clients will come to you and when. So adapting to clients’ needs and picking up new knowledge is quite essential to your success. For example, say you’re an expert in ML/AI, but you might have to learn about your client’s specific domain (e.g., Health, Agriculture) to apply your knowledge.
8. Expert Witness
Generally speaking, this is a career path that involves laws. For example, in the field of Computer Science, a lot of lawsuits have something to do with software, such as Software Copyright Infringement (e.g., stealing source code). However, we all know that software can be very complex, so determining whether it is against the law or not can be tricky. That’s where domain experts come in and use their knowledge to help evaluate the cases. As an Expert Witness, you are tasked to provide your professional opinion on the case (e.g., reading the source code of the software). You’re hired by your clients (either plaintiff or defendant), but you’re supposed to provide an unbiased opinion in the lawsuit.
As Expert Witness has a consulting flavor, it shares some qualities I talked about in Section 7. Consulting, such as adapting to new areas (so that you’re qualified to serve more clients), and traveling (maybe even more so as sometimes you might need to participate in the court). There are different types of expert witnesses and the day-to-day can differ depending on the firm you join. For example, Quandary Peak Research is one such firm that provides services in Code Review, Health IT & Audits, and Tech Due diligence. As this article is centered towards fresh Ph.D. graduates and Postdocs, I’ll just say that you’re not going to testify at the court (that needs more experience) but will likely do some offline analysis work such as reading source code and providing reports.
The pay is generally pretty good. Similar to Section 7. Consulting, you can either join a firm in a full-time position, or have a contractor position on top of your other full-time job. The combo of Section 1. Academia as full-time + Section 8. Expert Witness as a contractor is quite common. BTW, your combo doesn’t have to only have 2 things. You can make your own “plate” however you want! Just make sure you’re having fun with what you’re doing and aren’t feeling burned out. Your “plate” can also be very delicious if you focus on one thing without any combo. :)
9. Scientific Sales and Marketing
Some people may get turned off when they hear “sales” or “marketing” and skip this path altogether. But don’t judge the book by its cover. Like anything, there are bad sales, but also good sales. If you really have trouble with the wording, think of it as “sharing”. In fact, we do “sales” all through our lives already. We “sell” our research to reviewers hoping to get the paper accepted (“sharing” our research with the community), we “sell” ourselves to interviewers hoping to get a job offer (“sharing” our experience and skillsets), etc etc. If you truly believe what you’re “selling” and genuinely want to share it with other people to benefit them, then “sales” can be a fulfilling career path for you.
Alright! Now hopefully the biases are out of the way. The reason I mentioned it first is that I also missed this career path just because “I don’t want to do sales”… But luckily when I was a postdoc at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I attended a seminar organized by UMass’s Office of Professional Development introducing this career path by UMass alumni. It’s actually pretty interesting and can put our unique Ph.D. expertise to use!
As always, your day-to-day can vary depending on what company or team you join. But generally speaking, scientific sales and marketing involve a lot of interaction with people. If you love talking to people and figuring out their needs, you might enjoy this career path. On one hand, you talk to potential customers who might benefit from your products. Here, the training in your Ph.D. will be put to use, especially the skill of educating the non-technical general audience about your research. You want to show how your research products can solve your customer’s problems with convincing scientific evidence but not using any jargon. On the other hand, you also get to talk to research labs such as Ph.D. students to learn new scientific developments. Here, you have the unique advantage of understanding Ph.D. students’ mindsets since you’ve been there, done that! We all know Ph.D. students can be very busy and entrenched in their work. They usually don’t want to talk to salespeople about their research, although their research can have a large potential to benefit other people in practice (not just on paper as scientific publications). That’s where you come in! With a genuine understanding of their situations, they are more willing to open up to a fellow Ph.D. and listen to what you can offer. Plus, your scientific expertise makes it much easier for them to explain their research to you. :)
10. Be Your Own Boss
How to start your own business is outside the scope of this article, but I do want to list this option here just so you know it’s possible. In fact, the possibilities in this category are unlimited and there are so many things you can do! I’m personally very interested in the entrepreneurial world and I’m slowly learning about it in my spare time. There are quite a few fun ideas I wanted to try in this life (not necessarily my major) and I might start writing about them in a few years haha. Stay tuned! 😉
If you’re interested in this path (either now or later), here are some resources that I find interesting.
- The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast) — Find the guests you’re interested in and Tim is never afraid to ask interesting questions to dive deep!
- Speaking of “Tim”, here’s another Tim I like. Tim Urban is absolutely hilarious! I like how he’s always willing to share his vulnerabilities and honest opinions in public, which gives us a real picture of the ups and downs of an entrepreneur’s life (Nope, not all successful people get up at 6am and stay productive all day 😂). Oh, he’s also on The Tim Ferriss Show and I loved that episode (Managing Procrastination, Predicting the Future, and Finding Happiness — Tim Urban (#283))! His TED Talk “Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator” is also super fun to watch.
- I mentioned Andrew Mao’s article “The post-academic (computer science) job market” earlier. He also has a Twitter thread that shares the lessons learned as a Ph.D. turned startup founder.
4. Most of my audience is in the field of EECS and usually thinks about Silicon Valley or building an app when thinking about doing a startup. But actually, there are many other possibilities as well! To help you brainstorm, Michael Lin is the CEO of All-In Engineering Consulting, and he started by writing blog posts on Medium. Yep, you don’t always have to build an app! Below you can find his thoughts on the newsletter business. Hope it helps you think outside the box and find the business you love!
5. As always, I believe your network is the most valuable resource in the long run. How can I not mention that when talking about resources? :) I’ve heard from many founders that building a business with someone you know for years (and already trust) usually leads to the best collaboration. Don’t forget to go out there and make some friends along the way to the entrepreneurial world! 🤝 Note the benefits of a great network are not just for building a successful business, but can come in so many ways! Your friends are your great assets and wonderful happiness booster haha. For example, when I’m down, even thinking about some friends gives me lots of courage and motivation to stand back up. Doing a startup (especially for the first time) is tough and can feel very lonely. Having a great network can make a big difference!
Finally, we’re done! 🙌 I hope this list can give you some ideas about where you want to go in the next phase of your life. This is a very exciting time for you! You’ve worked so hard to get the highest degree on this planet, and now the time has finally come to put your expertise to use! The world is your oyster and the possibilities are unlimited! ♾️ And again, this list is not complete, and you can always “mix & match” to design your own life. Go have some fun with it! 🥳
Bonus Content :)
As one blog post is not gonna cover everything for everyone, here I list more resources and tips in case anyone is interested in learning more about this topic. Navigate to what interests you and dive deeper from there. What’s equally important is to skip the ones (or all of them!) that you’re not interested in. Don’t take any advice at its face value. I like to list everything I can think of in case it’s useful for someone (I don’t want to make assumptions about what my readers like or don’t like). But every reader is an individual with specific interests and needs. Don’t be overwhelmed by my resources and *only* pick what you like! :)
- Figuring out what you might be enjoying doing. There are many ways, but here I want to mention myIDP’s career assessment because it’s free, and it’s for Science careers. Here’s their website: https://myidp.sciencecareers.org/ and the “Career Exploration” module can help assess what career path might be a good match for you. You can find my result of the Top-10 (out of ~20) career matches as an example below. Don’t treat the results as the “ground truth” but just some assistance if you don’t know where to begin. For example, in my results, the #9 Entrepreneurship is quite interesting to me despite its low-ish ranking 😂
2. As mentioned earlier in “Section 5 Nonprofits”, 80,000 hours’s website has lots of resources for all kinds of fields. They have a book with the same name “80,000 Hours: Find a Fulfilling Career That Does Good” and you can get a copy for free here. I find the book quite interesting. They also offer 1–1 advice sessions that you can apply to (I haven’t tried before). There’s also a job opening board that seems to be quite active.
3. Academia or not academia. For Ph.D. students or Postdocs, this is probably the very first decision you need to make in your career choices, because your job search strategy can be quite different depending on which path you choose. Believe it or not, many many people find this decision extremely tough to make, especially when you have a very good track record to land a tenure-track job at a top university. What makes it even tougher is this “luxury” struggle can sound like bragging (since it’s super competitive to even have the option to stay in academia), and it’s very hard to find someone to discuss this. I understand your pain :) My first piece of advice is to remind you that “only because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. You will have very different lifestyles after choosing to stay in academia or not, and what *your* preferences are should be quite obvious if you listen to your heart. 💚️ I said it’s obvious, but I didn’t say it’s easy ;) “Listening to your heart” is actually a skill that needs lots of practice to master and it’s outside the scope of this article (but don’t worry, I will give some practical tips to help you get your own answer out!) Through my own struggle, I’ve realized that what makes this decision so tough is the distractions from so many conflicting voices about this topic. Everyone is speaking from their own biased experience (yep including my blog posts too :)), and it’s very easy to feel torn between the two worlds. Many people simplified this decision-making by going to academia because “it’s much easier to switch from academia to industry, but not the other way around. So I’ll go to academia first to leave the door open.” This statement is generally true, but it omits what do *you* really want to do in this life? Would academia help you achieve *your* goals? There could be sunk costs associated with it (e.g., time, money, hobby, family, mental health). And with the busy lifestyle and “inertia”, you might be constantly in “survival mode” without the time to slow down and reflect on whether you like your choice or not. “Inertia” can be a dangerous thing. It puts us on auto-pilot to “get things done” while forgetting about why we even started in the first place. Think about it. It’s true that it’s much easier to go to industry from academia in theory, but in reality, it’s not that easy. You'll hear people say “you’re throwing everything away”, “you’re so close to tenure, and then you can do whatever you want!”, “what about freedom?” (lol I actually have a lot to say about this whole “freedom” thing, but this article’s length is getting out of hand now 🤣 I’ll just say, for starters, check out Professor Amy Ko’s blog post “Academia needs to dream bigger”). So it takes guts to quit academia (like… a lot of guts). Like anything, of course it can be done though! Here’s a recent example from ex-Professor Allison Chaney at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, and she explained her decision in this open resignation letter. Having said that, yes, it IS easier to switch from academia to industry, but it might not be as easy as you think.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not giving you any suggestions without knowing your specific situation, but all I’m saying is please don’t ignore your true feelings and choose the easy way out. It’s not as simple as “choosing academia so that you can have all the options later”. There’s a lot more to it. As always, you know yourself the best and the answer lies in you and you know it! Now, let’s talk about how to get your answer out, shall we?
Step #1: Gather facts to know the game. You need to know what game you’ll be playing. A lot of fresh Ph.D. graduates choose academia because they enjoy their Ph.D. life (including myself before my Postdoc. I was actually going to be on the academic job market if I didn’t win the CIFellow Postdoc fellowship). At that time, I didn’t know being a new faculty is THAT different from being a Ph.D. student! I was lucky in a way because my Ph.D. was long (over 6 years) and then I did a Postdoc, so a lot of my friends already became Assistant Professors before I go to the academic job market. Then I was able to gather first-hand information on what a fresh Assistant Professor’s life is like from talking to my friends and listening to their stories. This is extremely helpful for my decision-making. Talking to your friends is probably the best way to get honest opinions :) You don’t have to talk to a lot of people, but only a few should give you a good picture of what this job is like. These articles might give you some ideas as well: (1) As mentioned earlier, “Academia needs to dream bigger” by Amy Ko (University of Washington); (2) “The CS Assistant Professor Handbook” by Vijay Chidambaram (University of Texas at Austin); (3) “How to live in Paradise” by David Evans (University of Virginia).
Step #2: Get diverse perspectives (not just from your advisor(s)). This is similar to Step #1, but the emphasis here is on diversity. You want to be open-minded to hear diverse perspectives, even conflicting opinions (and you often will :)). Conflicting opinions are awesome and it means you did get diverse perspectives. Great job! 🙌 The reason is that the perspectives we naturally receive are biased toward academia. Think about the people surrounding you in your Ph.D. or Postdoc, how many of them are academics? That’s really uncommon in the real world to be surrounded by PhDs or Ph.D. to be. We are rare species actually! So it’s very natural to only get perspectives from academics about academia if you don’t make some conscious effort to diversify your “advice pool”. Talk to people outside of academia, and even better if you can talk to people who have experience in both worlds (e.g., folks who left academia to join a company or do a startup, or folks who left the industry to become a professor).
Step #3: Ignore advice that doesn’t serve you. This step is VERY important!! Otherwise, you’ll see yourself going back and forth forever 😂 Ah I can’t emphasize enough! This may sound silly, but the best advice I’ve ever got was from Professor Robin Hillary Kravets during the Rising Star Workshop at UIUC in 2019. At the very beginning of the workshop, Professor Kravets shared the best advice she’s ever got (that I stole ever since 😛). Here she goes.
“During this workshop, you will hear so much advice every day. My best advice for you is: don’t listen to them.”
This advice has been the most valuable advice for me for years and is always the advice I love to share with my mentees the most (I don’t want them to take any of my advice at face value). Knowing this is especially important for people in their early-stage careers. You’d be surprised how many people want to give you advice (sometimes unsolicited lol). The situation is unfortunately even worse for early-stage underrepresented groups… But it’s OK! Just give them a smile, and ignore it.😛 Here’s a great piece to help you master the art of ignoring advice: “How to ignore advice” by Professor David Evans. You can do it! :)
Step #4: Let the answer come to you. If you didn’t skip Step #3, the answer should be much clearer to you now and you can feel it. The key here is to think less and feel more. Assuming you did Steps #1 & #2 and know what the potential job is like, now it’s time to really let go of other people’s voices and listen to how *you* feel. Picture your day-to-day in the potential career paths that you wanted to choose from. The more concrete you can visualize it, the more emotions you will feel, and the more obvious the answer is! If you’re new to this type of “know thyself” exercise, don’t worry! Many of us in the Science world have difficulty in the beginning because we’re so used to thinking, reasoning, and logic. This is another very interesting topic I can write about, but for starters, I’ll just say research has shown that our decision-making is most driven by emotions. Reasoning and logic are mostly there to support what you already feel like doing. If you let other people’s logic (driven by their emotion, not yours) gets in the way of your decision-making, you won’t feel happy about your choice. So I invite you to remain open-minded and give it a try to tune in to your emotions! If you still don’t feel it, The Oddesey Planning exercise by Stanford University might help as it has detailed instructions and a worksheet to guide you through.
Step #5: You can always talk to me. :) If you still feel unsure, it’s probably fear. Can I really ignore advice from authoritarian figures or very successful people? Can I really listen to myself who has way less experience than them? What if they’re right? What if, what if, what if… This is another big topic that I might be writing about someday, but for now, just remember nobody knows yourself better than you! How could they? YOU have the most experience in yourself and this career choice is about *your* life. You have a Ph.D. (or about to), which is the HIGHEST degree on earth! The world is your oyster and you should design your life in the way you want it! :)
Oh well, I hate to bring the bad news, but these things are much easier said than done. As someone who experienced the Ph.D. program, I know fear too well. It took me a loooong time (and lots of conscious effort) to be true to myself and I guarantee you it’s worth it!! I’m happier than ever now hahaha (we need some puppies & rainbow here please 🐶🌈). So if you’re having trouble doing the steps I’ve been talking about in real life, know that it’s normal and be patient with yourself. 🥰 This is a never-ending journey that goes beyond career choice. Oh, you can always reach out to me too and I might be able to help! And I mean it! Mentoring students is one of my biggest passion. It breaks my heart to see so many Ph.D. students (the highest achievers) have the lowest confidence (including my past self). And it’s so hard for other people to understand. So don’t hesitate to reach out if you don’t have anyone to talk to about these unique “luxury” Ph.D. problems. I set aside 1–2 hours every week to help Ph.D. students in the way I can. It’s free and always will be for Ph.D. students.
Finally Bonus Content lol
Oh god, this article is really getting out of hand and I need help 😂 Oh well, let me end it right here right now for real!! I’ve got this haha 💪
Arlight! For those who actually read the article until here, hopefully you’ve made up your mind about the classic “academia vs. industry” decision. If not, go back to the 5 steps above and come back after discovering your wonderful self :) Below are some resources depending on whether you want to enter academia or the non-academic world.
Resources for Academia
If you’re interested in academia, there are tons of advice you can easily find online. If you want even more, feel free to reach out to me and I’ve gathered a lot of resources through the years (when I thought I wanted to go to the academic job market). As this is a competitive job market, it’s easy to lose yourself and settle for whatever you can get. I encourage you to have a list of your requirements that you don’t want to compromise before the whole interviewing process, and reflect on it when you’re deciding on the offers. Another thing to remember is that this is a “two-way” interview and you’re interviewing the universities as well. People tend to stay at the university for years, so make sure you choose one that you’re happy with. Department culture is very important! In the same university, the culture can be very different from department to department. And don’t lose your confidence! Know that whether you get an interview or offer can highly depend on what field the department is trying to expand and it has nothing to do with you! 😂 It’s possible for a very strong candidate to not get an interview simply because the department is not hiring for that research direction. Don’t take it personally :)
Resources for Non-Academia
If you’ve decided that academia is not for you, your options are endless! Besides what I’ve written so far, you can find more options mentioned by Ashley Ruba, PhD and Gertrude Nonterah, Ph.D. that I linked below. And Ginger Lockhart, Ph.D. is a great example of an independent academic on a non-academic path, focusing on Education.
Nicole Betz, PhD also started a Slack workspace “Moving on from Academia” where you can get lots of community support! It allows anonymous messages so some people share their Ph.D. struggles there too to get support. You can take a peek at some channels below. The invitation link expires every 30 days, so just ping me or Nicole if you want to be invited to the channel. If you use LinkedIn, a simple message will do :)
Annnnnnd I’m done!!! 🎊 No more final final bonus content haha. As a final reminder though, I hope you don’t get overwhelmed by the resources I provided and please please skip the ones that don’t serve you. I promise there are no hard feelings here at all :) Remember, the best answer lies in YOU! 😊
