In today’s episode, we talk with Jennifer Polk of PhD to Life. She’s a life coach and entrepreneur and has a PhD in History.
Everyone Feels This Way Sometimes
We ask Jen about her transition out of academia and into entrepreneur life. She shares with us the high and low points of her transition—and how many of her clients feel (or felt) the same. She discusses her many business ventures. In addition to life coaching in her PhD to Life business, she also runs Self-Employed PhD (a community for other PhD entrepreneurs) and Beyond the Professoriate (a community that she runs with her business partner, Maren Woods, that focuses on professional development for alternative careers).
Mentioned in This Episode
From PhD to Life – Jen’s life coaching business
Self-Employed PhD – Community for Self-Employed PhDs (full time or part time!)
Beyond the Professoriate Community – Community that focuses on professional development for alternative careers
S1E10: Asking For Help – Recovering Academic episode where we discuss getting help from career coach (or others) to navigate your new career path.
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All of us have a tendency to discount things that we find easy. Is it easy for you to pick out grammatical errors? Is it easy for you to develop your own voice in writing? Is it easy for you to connect with anyone? All of those (and many more!) are skills that are transferable.
Ian shares his venture outside of academia in which he fills a bunch of roles. His current day job is a lab manager with a company that specializes in helping scientists procure lab reagents and equipment. This might seem like an unusual job for an introvert, like Ian, but he explains how it actually can suit him. He also writes for his science blog, other websites, and a magazine. On top of that, he is a volunteer associate editor for the POSTDOCket, the monthly newsletter for the National Postdoctoral Association.
In this episode, we discuss if we regret doing a PhD and what advice we would give our younger selves. Many times we focus in on the microlevel—what results will this experiment bring, what publications will we get—and forget to look at the macrolevel—what do we want to do, where do our interests lie. Getting a PhD can sometimes encourage us to think only about the details and not about the big picture. We also discuss the importance of trying new things—even if they aren’t fully planned.
In this episode, we discuss the elephant in the room: Are you still a scientist after you leave academia? After spending a decade or more identifying as a scientist, deciding to leave may academia may be mean more than abandoning a culture—it may mean losing your identity. Many factors come into play with deciding who is (and who isn’t) a scientist. Join us as we explore what it means to be a scientist.