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Helping our program help us with career development
My graduate career has been a bit bumpy (although whose hasn’t!), and during my 3rd-year slump, I spent a lot of time asking myself if I really wanted a PhD. By having to face this question, I realized very quickly that I had no idea what a PhD could do for me. I knew I wanted out of academia, but what else was there? (more…)
Alumni Profiles Series: Erica Moiah James
Tell us about yourself:
Yale University, Department of African American Studies
Name: Erica Moiah James
Title: Assistant Professor, Department of the History of Art and African American Studies and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of African American Studies, Yale University (2011-present)
Previous Job: Founding Director and Chief Curator of the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas (2003-2011)
Current City: New Haven
PhD, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Duke, 2008
MFA, Painting and Drawing, University of Chicago, 1994
BA, Urban Studies and Architecture, Vassar College, 1992 (more…)
Alumni Profiles Series: Natalya Wallin
Tell us about yourself:
I received a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) from Duke Graduate School in 2010 and am currently a Master of Public Policy Candidate at the University of Chicago Harris School, a DACOR Fellow, former International Affairs Staff Writer and newly appointed Executive Editor of the Chicago Policy Review. I am also serving as Student Advisory Board Member of the newly launched Center for Policy Entrepreneurship at the Harris School which is a critical initiative to help students master the politics of policymaking. (more…)
Alumni Profiles Series: Nichole Theresa Gleisner
Tell us about yourself:
Nichole Theresa Gleisner
PhD, Romance Studies, Duke University, 2011
BA, Comparative Literature, Boston University, 2003
Current City: New Haven, CT
Current Job: Freelance translator; Poetry Editor for New Haven Review; adjunct instructor in French, World Languages and Literatures Department, Southern Connecticut State University
Family:
Husband: Tadhg Dooley
Children: Josephine, 5; Conall, 2; Finnian, 5 months (more…)
Getting off the tenure track: lessons from history
The Chronicle of Higher Education shared some encouraging news yesterday in what has lately been a contentious national dialogue about the futures of graduate education in the humanities, announcing a new Mellon Foundation grant to support non-academic career & professional development for Ph.D. students in history.
Alumni Profiles Series: Marianne Eileen Wardle
Tell us about yourself:
Name: Marianne Eileen Wardle
Title: Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programs, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
City: Durham, NC
PhD, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Duke University, 2010
MA, Brigham Young University, Art History, 1997
BA, French and Art History, Utah State University, 1992
Alumni profiles series: Jeremy Allen Smith
Tell us about yourself:
Jeremy Allen Smith. PhD, Musicology, 2008
MA, Theology and the Arts, Regent University, 2003
BMus, Music Theory and Composition, University of South Carolina Honors College, 2000
Current city: Oberlin, OH
Current Job: Special Collections Librarian and Curator of the James and Susan Neumann Jazz Collection, Oberlin College Conservatory Library
What professional or career plans did you have in mind as you were completing your graduate degree?
I went to graduate school because I wanted to be involved in knowledge production and dissemination. Beyond that I didn’t have a specific career plan. I basically came to Duke trying to be as open as I could to different career options. Part of that was because of the diversity of interests I had. Another part of it was pragmatic. I was at Duke from ’03 to the end of ’08, and during that time I saw a lot of smart and talented people completing their degrees but not getting jobs. I was determined that was not going to be me. (more…)
My name is Paul Miceli, and I have a non-academic career
It may sound like the opening greeting at an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting, and for someone with a PhD (in Social Psychology, if you’re interested), it may very well feel like it sometimes. The problem is, though, that people like me are no longer the minority in the academic realm. PhD employment reporting is far from an exact science, but a recent study found that only 15% of Biological Sciences PhDs were in tenure-track positions six years after graduating. And it’s not that different in the Social Sciences or Humanities, either (Click here to learn more about the Council of Graduate Schools’ current efforts to better track PhD career paths). These statistics have been attributed to a complex combination of increased PhD production, the rise of a postdoc culture, dwindling research funding, and decreased tenure-track faculty positions, among other factors. (more…)
What’s next?
You may have begun graduate school for a variety of reasons—a love of research, a passion to make an impact through your work on a particular topic, the chance to study with an inspiring scholar among our faculty, a career aspiration that requires a master’s or doctoral degree, or simply a recognition that a graduate degree opens many more professional doors than a bachelor’s degree does. And if you’re a Duke graduate student, you probably had the chance to choose Duke over several other competitive options. You’re a goal-driven, ambitious, forward-looking person.
After Duke, what’s next? (more…)
The Versatile PhD: your guide to the afterlife
The after(-academia-)life, that is.
Maybe you’re the proactive kind of student who started preparing for life after the PhD early in your graduate school career – networking, conferencing, setting up informational interviews, and staying abreast of job market trends and placement data. Or maybe, like me, you have approached your graduate education as an end in itself, immersing yourself in your research and writing without much thought for what would come next. No matter where you may fall on the continuum of career-preparedness, it can be daunting to navigate the transition out of graduate school and into your professional life. (more…)
