Tag Archives: Advice

Repost: I thought there would be a parade…Life after doctoral study

From PSYCH LEARNING CURVE – Where Psychology and Education Connect, a new blog by the APA Education Directorate.

January 25, 2016 * by Daniel Michalski, PhD

After nearly five years of hard work, frustration, setbacks, and anxiety, I completed the final requirement to earning my PhD by defending my dissertation in July 2014. The moment I had been simultaneously anticipating and dreading played out in less than an hour as I confidently presented my research and addressed questions from my committee and the attendees. Beyond the obvious realization that the journey was over, I was struck by how solitary the experience truly was at that moment; what had consumed my life for several years transpired while life went on for others and my achievement was mine alone. I suppose I thought that life would pause for everyone and there would be a parade in my honor. Unfortunately, there was no parade (not even balloons) and I was now faced with moving on and identifying new opportunities and learning experiences.

For me, the primary attraction of pursuing a doctoral degree in psychology was its versatility and utility in work settings outside of academe. In 2009, approximately one in five recent psychology doctoral recipients was working in a non-academic or non-direct human service position. As one of those individuals neither pursuing an academic job nor a career requiring postdoctoral training for licensure, there was an abruptness to the end of graduate study and entry to the professional world inspired anxiety demanding the development of skills to manage the transition. With fewer  psychology tenure-track positions available and growing breadth of options for non-academic careers, my story and experience is one most likely shared by other recent psychology doctorate recipients.

Continue reading to find out Dr. Michalski’s top 5 recommendations for transition from doctoral study to career.

Me: I'm so busy! You: Me too! Repeat ad nauseam

New Year’s Resolution: Stop Saying “I’m Busy”

Me: I'm so busy! You: Me too! Repeat ad nauseam

College, graduate school, and just about any time thereafter is remarkably eventful. We are pressed to do so many things just to stay in place. Usually quite innocently, when people ask how we are, we respond with some variation of “I’m really busy.”  When they ask us the next time, we’re are likely to repeat the same exact thing.

What is up with this glorification of being busy? Is it like talking about the weather in that it makes for a conversation filler? What if it is actually a conversation killer.

Some time ago, blogger Tyler Ward argued in this clever piece that our little over-used phrase leads nowhere good, and it doesn’t make us that special. He describes how one couple  decided to stop using the word “busy” for one entire year. The finding?

“We were forced to describe our own situations with more clarity, and without our best friend ‘busy’ to blame, we engaged with people more authentically. As we did, we noticed the general depth of conversations increase as we and those we were sharing with, were invited to communicate differently about our actual states of being.”

In his post, “Busy Isn’t Respectable Anymore” you can explore other compelling reasons to avoid communicating your busyness with the world.

Be sure to share your thoughts and reactions in the comment section. I’d love to hear reactions you get to saying or hearing “I’m really busy” – and ways to substitute the phrase with something better.

As the calendar just turned over to 2016, it’s as good of a time as any to try something new.

Writing About Psychological Science for the General Public

REPOST from the APA Psychological Science Agenda | November 2015

From The Science Student Council

Writing about psychological science for the general public

Considerations and strategies for effectively sharing your research with the world.

By Daniel R. Rovenpor

Imagine the following scenario: You spent years working on a project that aimed to produce a novel data-driven insight into a problem in the world. Then, with some luck, your work is successful and your insight gets published in a prestigious academic psychology journal. You hope that many people will see your article and learn about your insight, but you know that the chances are slim that the average person will see your article in an academic journal. This discrepancy between psychology’s potential to do good in the world and the fact that only a small fraction of the world’s population reads our journals is often frustrating. How can psychological scientists communicate to a broad audience? There are a number of ways to do this, including teaching, community outreach and advocacy. This article focuses on another way: writing for the general public.

Read more….

Getting a Tenure Track Position

While there are many jobs that psychologists can do well after graduation, tenure track professorships are among the positions that many students aspire to. Getting a tenure track faculty position right out of your doctoral program is not easy, but it can be done. Here, five new assistant professors in counseling psychology share tips on what they believe helped them be successful during the job application process last year. These (now) assistant professors were asked, “What made you competitive for a tenure track job?”

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