Episodes

In this week’s episode, we’re discussing burnout and transitioning. We all think that once we’ve made our decision that all our problems will be solved. We’ll take all that energy we spent on fretting over leaving and put it into side projects. But it seems like it rarely works out that way… Managing Your Energy Even if you don’t move locations (like Doctor_PMS and Amanda), you still have to adjust to your new situation. If you move (like Ian), then you have this extra layer of fatigue on top ...

Out of the gray zone. We’re joined by Chall (@challdreams) who left academia behind as a postdoc and currently a Project Coordinator in pediatric cancer via a job in pharma quality control science. Getting out of the Gray Zone We discuss characteristics PhDs have that might lend them or not to careers beyond the bench. Academia is ostensibly creative and measurements do matter, but in pharma or other fields, precision and accuracy of claims made about products matter and quality testing has to...

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 ...

You always hear about transferable skills—and how PhDs have them. But how do you identify them? How do you know what skills to develop? In this episode, we discuss how you can identify them and how to develop them. What’s Your Super Power? 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 th...

This week we interview (interrogate?) Ian about his recent transition outside of academia. The Many Hats that Ian Wears… 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 ma...

In this week’s episode, Ian and Amanda interview Cleyde to get the in-depth story of her experience as a recovering academic. Cleyde’s Advice: Have a Plan Photo by: Steven Johnson Cleyde talks about her reasons for leaving academia, including her relationship with academia. She also talks about what her goals are for her career. We also briefly discuss if it’s possible to control your productivity—that is to avoid having 100 publications in one year and only one the next. Cleyde also brings up...

This season we will interview other recovering academics, so it’s only fair that we turn the mic on ourselves first. In this episode, Amanda is interviewed by Ian and Cleyde. Revelations in Amanda’s Career… She talks about the realization that money can be exchanged for goods and services, making the leap into self-employment, and the difficulty in overcoming her introverted ways. She talks a lot about how most people are happy to help you or at least talk to you about their work. Mentioned i...

We’re back! This season, we will interview academics and recovering academics. We’re starting this season off with interviewing the hosts of Hello PhD, Joshua Hall and Daniel Arneman. Hello PhD and the Recovering Academic share a common desire to talk about what no one talks about during your science training. We both hope that by talking about these issues out loud that people who feel isolated realize that they’re not alone. When in Rome… To make our guests feel at home, we brought the Hello...

We’re coming back for Season 2 on August 22nd! Curious about what this means for our podcast? Listen to our Season 2 trailer and find out!

Courtesy of @BWJones In this episode, we discuss the importance of taking breaks. Breaks come in many forms and in different durations—from just an hour to a weekend to a full week (or more!). Preventing burnout and recharging yourself are vital no matter where you are in academia—committed to staying in academia, transitioning out of academia, to fully transitioned. This episode marks the end of Season One of the Recovering Academic Podcast. We are going to take our own advice and take a break...

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. “The ...

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. Mentioned in this episode: Lenny Teytelman’s post: If you’re no longer doing science, are y...

Note: This episode originally had a file error when uploaded. We’ve corrected it. You can re-download the corrected version now. Thanks for supporting the Recovering Academic Podcast! In this episode, we discuss how to tell your story of leaving academia. The age-old advice of staying positive about why you left your previous position can be difficult—especially because academia is held up as this ideal position. We talk a bit about how we handled or are handling telling this story through our ...

Courtesy of @BWJones Getting over the fear of failure. As academics, we are inherently perfectionists. There’s nothing like applying for jobs to bring out those tendencies. In this episode, we discuss our fear of failure, what causes it, and how we got over our fear. And Ian makes us laugh hysterically over an extended metaphor. Even if it’s n=1… you still have to do the experiments with your life. –@IHStreet Mentioned in this episode: Dunning-Kruger Effect Dealing with Impostor Syndrome The E...

photo by Ian Street In this episode, we discuss how we use Twitter, ways to get involved in twitter, and hashtags. Twitter can be an amazing tool for transitioning out of academia. If you’re wondering where we all hang out (virtually), then join Twitter. For us, Twitter is our virtual water cooler where we keep in touch with each other, talk science, and hang out. Also: Learn the origins of @Doctor_PMS‘s twitter handle! I can’t tell you what will happen [if you join Twitter]… but random things...

Birds networking. Photo by Ian Street. In this episode, we discuss asking for help. There comes a time in the transition process where you may want (or need!) someone’s assistance. This comes in many forms: talking to friends, reaching out to your network, finding a career/life coach. We talk about what a career/life coach is (and isn’t), tips on how to find one, and why you might want to talk to a coach. We also assert that you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help! Don’t be afraid to ask for h...

Making the transition requires you to take on extra work. Work in the form of side work (a new side hustle), informational interviews, going to conferences in your new field, attending workshops, making different versions of your resume, and so on. How do you stay productive during this time? How do you stay on track? In this episode we discuss our difficulties with staying productive (you’re not alone!) and the tricks we’ve figured out along the way. Discussed in this episode: Slap Productivi...

What’s so great about LinkedIn? In this episode, we discuss our thoughts about LinkedIn. We all know about it as the professional networking site. It has its upsides (at least two of us have received jobs) and its downsides (the somewhat clunky user interface). So, how do we use it? Why do we use it? What could you use instead of it? Also mentioned: Scicurious (also known as Bethany Brookshire) wrote about LinkedIn as how you keep in touch with all the people who you don’t want to friend on Fa...

Following up on our previous episode, we talk about things that many academics are not good at taking: risks. How do you know if taking a particular risk will pay off? Is academia really less risky than non-academic careers? Why do transition stories always seem really well planned? How do you deal with Imposter Syndrome? I believe that anything you put energy into will eventually pay off one way or another. —Doctor_PMS Also, mentioned in this episode: Conan O’Brien’s commencement speech to...

In this episode, we discuss when to spend (and save) your money and time to invest in your future career.

In this episode, we discuss the transition in identity when leaving academia. You’ve spent 10 years (or more!) inside of academia. Most of your friends might be inside academia. You likely derive a lot of your identity from your work. What happens when you decide that you’re going to leave? One question that we address is: Are you still a scientist after you leave academia? Is it an intrinsic part of your identity or is it something that you do? There’s feelings on both sides. We’re scientists...

In this episode, we discuss unique skills that we gained in academia. When looking to leave academia, you might think, “What do I know outside of pipetting?” …Just for example. As it turns out, working in academia we gain a lot of unique skills. For example, you can prioritize. You’ve spent years deciding what to do first—what to do to get you closer to your goal of publishing that paper or getting that grant. Also, highly-motivated and self-directed aren’t just buzz words in academia—they’re h...

Turning your CV into a resume feels daunting—and maybe even impossible. How do you condense a several page document into a one page resume? How do you make the change without cutting important information? And, possibly most difficult of all, how do you convert your academic accomplishments into ones that are quantifiable and meaningful outside of academia? In this episode, we discuss how we changed our CV into a resume, including how we quantified papers. We also talk about the importance of e...

In this episode, we talk about the difficulties with deciding to leave academia. We ask two important questions: What made the decision to leave academia difficult? Once you decide to leave, how do you know where to go? While most people with PhDs do not go onto a tenure-track position, feelings of failure with leaving academia still persist. These feelings are valid but aren’t grounded in fact. Scientists can go out into the world and do things besides academia that are important to society. ...