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The Compleat Academic A Career Guide

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

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The Compleat Academic A Career Guide

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  1. XING WAN The Compleat AcademicA Career Guide

  2. 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

  3. Starting a Career as a PhD candidate

  4. A Guide to Ph.D Graduate School

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

  6. Job Options for new PHD graduate

  7. Advantages of a Postdoctoral Fellowship

  8. How to Find A Postdoc Fellowship

  9. 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 skillreally not that good?

  10. 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?

  11. 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.

  12. Teaching & Mentoring

  13. Effective Teaching Make good use of the binding contract: the Syllabus Engage students in numerous study sessions Establishing student communication channels: office hours; email 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

  14. 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

  15. 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?

  16. Research & Writing

  17. 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

  18. 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

  19. 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

  20. Managing Your Career Over Time

  21. 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.

  22. Enjoy the Pure Joy of Research! • 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) Faculty have pretty flexible schedule, but can never leave the work behind.

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