Logan D. A. Williams
  • Home
    • Navigate Website
    • Contact Logan
  • Research
    • Research Projects
    • Publication Repository
    • Photovoice Projects >
      • Photovoice Project - North Carolina
    • Research Assistants >
      • Recent Work with RAs
  • Consultancy Services
  • Recent News
  • Logan's Blog
  • Teaching
  • Knowledge from the Margins

Re-casting your PhD-provided skill set for a non-academic career

21/2/2013

0 Comments

 
I have just finished reading The Humanities PhD at Work on The Chronicle of Higher Education. The author, Megan Doherty has parlayed her PhD in history into a job as a program officer with the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington. I very much appreciate her article for the direct insights it gives into how the humanities PhD is very valuable; and also its indirect insights into what kind of work program officers do for nonprofit foundations.
I wanted to add to her direct insights with some of my own. I basically think of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) PhD'er as the ultimate project manager. A HASS PhD'er has to be self-disciplined and meet deadlines (e.g. comprehensive exam deadline, candidacy exam deadline, dissertation defense and filing deadlines, etc.) This self-discipline demonstrates that you know how to balance your workload and your time.

One of those deadlines/pieces of writing (the candidacy exam/ dissertation proposal), is key to showing that you know how to put a project together including identifying the resources that you will need to successfully complete the project, setting reasonable goals, putting together a project timeline, etc. Essentially it shows that you can visualize how to move a project from A to Z. Any research grants that you have won means that you have shared that vision with others (typically in a shorter format than your dissertation proposal) and your vision was convincing. Such skills are necessary for any sort of white-collar job.

As part of meeting those deadlines, one has to read, process, and synthesize various types of knowledge in order to regularly produce pieces of writing in various formats (i.e. Doherty discussed blog entries, proposals, publications, and her 400 page dissertation). She highlights that the knowledge itself adds value to your application for a non-academic career. While I had never thought of the knowledge produced during the dissertation as being valuable outside of academia, I believe that she is correct. Having reviewed all relevant literature you have become an expert in small HASS heartland program subfield 'HASS-HP-x'. Depending upon the job for which you apply, your expertise will be valued differently but it is valuable.

Another of those deadlines/pieces of writing (filing the dissertation/ the dissertation), is evidence of how you can identify important questions or topics in HASS-HP, define (or redefine) your subfield HASS-HP-x and engage with others who are also interested in the subfield HASS-HP-x.

So in addition to the writing, analysis and presentation skills that Doherty mentioned , the HASS PhD'er is the ultimate project manager because he or she can:
  • balance work with time
  • set reasonable goals
  • identify and/or redefine important questions or topics
  • identify necessary resources
  • convince others of a vision


Post Edited 25-Feb-2013

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Logan primarily uses this blog to: reflect on policy and professionalization issues in STS (e.g. research funding, discipline formation, skill building, job-hunting, policy applications of STS theory) and to disseminate her own scholarship.


    Archives

    January 2021
    June 2017
    June 2015
    September 2013
    July 2013
    February 2013
    December 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    August 2010

    Categories

    All
    4s
    Adapt Science And Technology
    Agra-Alliance
    Arguing Better
    Asa
    ASA-SKAT
    Blogging
    Call For Papers
    Caorc Multi Country Fellowship
    CAORC Multi-country Fellowship
    Cleveland Oh
    Conference
    Coordination
    Creativity
    Crime
    Critical Thinking
    Cwwl Graduate Fellowship
    Dialogue
    Dublin
    Engagement
    Engineering Co-op
    Engineers
    Environment
    Environmental Economic Social Sustainability
    Environmental-Economic-Social Sustainability
    Federal Funding
    Gigiri Nairobi Kenya
    Gordon Research Seminar
    Graduate Programs In Sts
    Graduate Students
    Health
    Ibm
    India
    Information And Communications Technologies
    Innovation
    Institutions
    International
    Ireland
    Junior Professionals
    Kathmandu Nepal
    Kenya
    Knowledge From The Margins
    Laico Internship
    Learning As Process
    Local Global
    Local-global
    Low Income Communities
    Low-income Communities
    Madurai India
    Media Arts
    Mexico City Mexico
    Middle School
    National Science Foundation
    Natural Scientists
    Nepal
    New Delhi India
    New Haven Connecticut
    Open Spaces
    Periphery-center
    Planning
    Point Of View
    Policy Makers
    Policy-makers
    Post Docs
    Post-docs
    Poverty
    Publication
    Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
    Rpi
    Science And Technology Policy
    Science And Technology Studies
    Science From Below
    Sleeping
    Social Scientists
    Socoiology
    Sts
    Survey
    Teaching As Process
    Terminal 3
    Top Universities In The World
    Travel
    Triple Bottom Line
    Triple Helix
    Unep Internship
    Urban Development
    User As Producer
    U.S. House Of Representatives Committee On Appropriations
    Woods Hole Massachusetts
    Workshop
    Writing Faster
    Yale University

    Contributor For

    CWWL Graduate Fellows
    Passage International

    Academic Professionalism Blogs

    Get a Life, PhD
    Female Science Professor
    Savage Minds

    Women, Minorities & K-12 STEM Blogs

    RIFE
    Schooling Science
    3Helix

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly