While everyone is figuring out creative ways to engage in timeless holiday traditions, I am already pondering new opportunities. As I bake cookies and pie with my mom, two-stepping to holiday music around the kitchen, I am simultaneously thinking about how far I have come this year, and how many more opportunities are still left to find and take.
This entire year has been one of accomplishment and adjustment for my career:
– accomplishment because I earned my Ph.D.
– adjustment because I am entering a new phase in my career, with all of the twists and turns that accompany it
Of course, many people around me still ask, “What was your Ph.D. program like?”; “How did you finish so quickly?”; “What really happens in graduate school?”; “When are you going to write about your experience?”
And that last question is a major impetus for a new blog series I’m working on. And the blog series is part of what I’m calling my “New Plan.”
When I was in graduate school, there were deadlines, semesters, goals to meet and degrees to be earned once I checked all of those academic boxes. But what about everything else? My career outside of the degree? My identity? Would I know what to do with myself when I was no longer moving at a breakneck pace toward my most important life goal?
The answer is no. And yes.
This series has a couple of working titles:
- Revise and Resubmit
- New Plan, New City, New Questions
- What They Did Not Teach Me, What I Had to Learn
- Tracing My Steps
As I work through the stories related to completing my Ph.D., I hope some helpful insights will shine through. If you have questions you would like me to answer as part of this series, leave a comment below!
Photo Credit: Jim Powers
Insta: oldmaninahatbob
Portfolio: www.flickr.com/photos/jimbobp
Angela D. Murphy, Ph.D. 