This column will tell the stories of three academics I have worked with at Harvard's Office of Career Services who have made big career changes. All three were on traditional academic paths when they decided to follow their instincts and try something new. All three have found or created work they love -- not without periods of struggle, however, and not without plenty of effort and help along the way. I hope their stories and advice will inspire your own explorations.
(If you have your own story to tell, please send it to ivorytower@chronicle.com)
From assistant professor of archaeology to adventurer and Internet educator
John Fox suspected that he didn't want to follow a typical academic route. As a graduate student in archaeology, he got involved in the Perseus Project, a Tufts University-based multimedia project about the ancient world. Nevertheless, he ended up going on the academic job market -- mainly, he says, because of inertia.
After receiving no offers, he began considering alternatives and networking with alumni and others. "This process, ironically, landed me a teaching job at Boston University, making me think maybe I was destined (or doomed?) for the academic path after all," he says by way of e-mail. It turned out to be "a terrible job, poor paying and exploitative in many ways."
Renewing his non-academic search, John met with documentary filmmakers and interviewed for academic administrative jobs. He also started talking with Dan Buettner, who had founded Classroom Connect, a California-based company that helps teachers use the Internet effectively in the classroom. Having served as scientist for one of Dan's previous on-line projects, John sought ideas for how he could combine archaeology with new media and film. He also did consulting work for Classroom Connect, thinking that it might pay off.
A year ago, he wrote to Dan requesting the names of some contacts in media and received an offer to be the archaeologist in Dan's new Adventure Learning Division. (John had impressed Dan with his drive and initiative, the gratis consulting work he had done, and especially his ability to translate scientific academese into engaging prose for kids. "This is something I always knew I could do, but finally it is truly paying off for me," he says.
John loves his job, which recently took him and a team of educators and students to Kenya to study human origins. Currently, he and his team are in the Galapagos Islands studying conservation and ecology. The teams are in regular contact on the Web with about 120,000 K-12 students all over the country, who help direct the team's educational course each week. In addition, millions of students from all over the world visited their Web site during the Africa trip.
John offers these tips for others who want to follow a similar path:
- Take advantage of your career and alumni offices at both graduate and undergraduate alma maters.
- Network. Call people for lunch and ask them about what they do and whether they enjoy their work. These people become contacts in the future.
- Believe in what you know your strengths to be. Graduate school can do a lot to undermine one's sense of self. Don't expect tremendous support from your academic advisors. Go outside for this support.
- Believe in the value of the Ph.D. It's an impressive credential and more so outside academe than inside.
- Place yourself in the path of success. Think of it as "strategic serendipity." Don't pass up any opportunity to build skills, contacts, and expand your mind. Have faith.
From graduate student in Middle Eastern history to National Public Radio's Paris correspondent.
Sarah Chayes left her graduate program in history and Middle Eastern studies "not in a thought-out way, but by virtue of a violent sort of allergic reaction" to academe.
A conversation at a cocktail party about the appearance of crack dealers in Mississippi towns led to a summer-job offer with a drug-policy consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. The firm sent Sarah to Philadelphia to study drug use for the Pennsylvania crime commission. After a summer spent riding with police officers and interviewing social workers, addicts, and imprisoned drug offenders, she returned to Harvard with a "shattered" world view. "Suddenly all the constraints of doing rigorous history began crowding in on me and claustrophobia threatened," she says. "A subsequent trip to the poorest parts of Mississippi began undermining the university's teaching about what is important in the world."
"I left graduate school in a very messy way, convinced society had no place for a 27-year-old who no longer had a clue where she belonged or what capacities she had to offer."
Sarah returned to the consulting firm, but eventually left to find a position where she could contribute more actively to social justice. She ended up "settling" for a job as a researcher for Christian Science Monitor Radio and Television in Boston. She recalls that she didn't take advantage of the opportunity to learn new skills, having not entirely shed her Harvard self-importance or her frustration at doing something that so resembled school.
After two years as a researcher, she was "dying to get out and do some reporting." When Monitor TV went under, she was laid off with six months severance pay, enough to support a trip to France. "My experience is a tissue of flukes, unrepeatable in laboratory conditions," Sarah says. "I happened to get laid off, so I had a financial cushion with which to go out in search of adventure." The Monitor's radio correspondent in Paris left at the end of his contract, so a position opened up for Sarah. "Nevertheless, it was slow and painful going at first, fraught with doubt and a sense of incompetence." It's taken a few years of hard work to bring herself to her present position as the regular Paris-based contributor to N.P.R.
Sarah's advice:
- "The point is not to take hints from the specifics of this story, but to note that you should follow your sense of what you want to do, even when that sense is foggy and hard to isolate," she says. "When you have a negative reaction to something, turn in another direction until things feel more in tune. You may not end up doing what you pictured for yourself at first, but you're likely to find a decent match between your own gifts and the needs and opportunities around you."
From neurobiologist to acquisitions editor
As she neared the end of her graduate studies in neurobiology four years ago, Anne Sydor realized that, although she still loved science, she did not want to be an academic scientist. She considered publishing, teaching, curriculum development, and museum curating, focusing quickly on publishing.
At the annual neuroscience meeting, she found herself gravitating to the publishing displays and impulsively conducting informational interviews with the representatives on "publishers' row." This led to several additional contacts and job interviews down the line. Intensifying her job search in late winter and spring before the final push on her dissertation, she zeroed in on scientific, technical, and medical publishers with strong science titles. By late May, within weeks of sending off her resume and cover letters to everyone on her list of contacts, she had multiple interviews and, eventually, the luxury of choosing between two offers.
Anne took a position as developmental editor at Lippincott-Raven Publishers (now Lippincott Williams & Wilkins) with the goal of eventually landing a position in acquisitions. As a developmental editor she handled the day-to-day work of coordinating and editing manuscripts on a range of medical topics -- from oncologic orthopedics to neuroscience.
After two and a half years, she was promoted to associate editor in acquisitions. In this position, she is responsible for acquiring new titles in neurology and neuroscience and managing a broad list of already published titles. "Publishing has turned out to be an excellent match as it keeps me in touch with the field of neuroscience while allowing me the broader focus that was missing from academic research," she says.
Anne's advice to career changers:
- When initiating an alternative job search, first take the time to rediscover what really matters to you and then trust your instincts. Don't be afraid to get help -- career-counseling sessions and exercises can help define what's most important to you.
- Don't be afraid to go out on a limb -- a graduate education gives you special skills that few people in the work force possess.
- When searching for a job, evaluate whether the people who would be your managers have the ability to think outside the box. When you come from an alternative career path, you will have different skills, different ways of doing things, and different things to learn than someone coming from a more traditional background. Having bosses who can respond positively and flexibly to this is one of the keys to your future success.
Correction to last month's column: Kenneth McCurdy, a Ph.D candidate at Ohio University and a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, kindly called my attention to the fact that 45 states require a master's degree in counseling for certification or licensure to practice any kind of counseling, including career counseling.
Distinguishing between career advising and career counseling is probably in order, because it is certainly my experience that not everyone in college and university career-counseling offices has a counseling degree. Nonetheless, if you are seriously interested in this career, you should be prepared to get a master's degree in counseling or a related field. For information on certification requirements, contact the American Counseling Association, the Council on Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, or the National Board for Certified Counselors.
Margaret Newhouse is assistant director of career services for Ph.D's at Harvard University. Even though she cannot answer e-mail personally, Ms. Newhouse appreciates comments, stories, and suggestions. Please send your comments to ivorytower@chronicle.com
