I won’t lie – sometimes I’ll be crouched down on the concrete, using a roll of black gaffer tape to fix a hundred feet of speaker cable to the gallery floor, and I’ll think to myself “I’m certainly putting my PhD to good use.” But really those moments are few and far-between, and I certainly […]
Humanities
Sara Ogger | New York Council for the Humanities
As a “Week in the Life” guest-blogger I will take you with me on the road—two trips that represent one of the best aspects of my job as Executive Director of the New York Council for the Humanities. Every year our staff and board undertake an intense touring itinerary of one of the state’s regions; […]
Joseph Shahadi | The Art of Brooklyn
My fantasy of earning a PhD—a life of the mind, narrow but deep, which led to a prestigious and institutionally secure position —was a powerful one. It kept me going as, red-eyed, sporadically bearded and fortified with takeout Chinese, I banged away at my dissertation. (I should note that some of my cohort took a […]
Barbie Decker | Team Beachbody
There’s a little wooden plaque hanging up in my home that reads: Where does your story begin? I guess the story of my second and present career as an Independent Team Beachbody Coach and business developer begins as a worn out and overweight post-graduate student. Life had just put me through the wringer. With my […]
Patricia Fann Bouteneff | Citi
I am the chief of staff and resident historian (that is, the head of the research and analysis unit) at Citi’s Center for Culture. The Center’s other two units are Heritage Services (the history archives) and Fine Arts. Although the roots of our company go back 200 years, to a small Wall Street bank, over […]
Chris Humphrey | Triodos Bank
As a kid I loved reading anything that could help me to understand the world, past, present and future. In university I studied English Literature and critical theory and learned to see the world through the lenses of feminism, post-colonialism and socialism. Intrigued by the carnival traditions which stretched back to medieval Europe and beyond, […]
Rosemary G. Feal | Modern Language Association
I am one of thousands of PhDs who work in organizations connected to the higher education world. You’ll find us concentrated in Washington, DC, the home of big players like the American Council on Education and the Association of American Colleges and Universities, or scattered across the United States and Canada as staff members of […]
Tony Kireopoulos | National Council of Churches
If someone were to show me when I was young the path my career would take, I would have been skeptical. The title of one of my favorite songs, “The Long and Winding Road,” wouldn’t have begun to describe it. Fresh out of college with a bachelor’s degree from one of the more prominent university […]
Jessica Collier | Independent Consultant
I filed my doctoral dissertation in December of 2012 and the next day went to work as a consultant for a small software company called Delicious Monster. In theory that’s true, but in fact it wasn’t quite that simple. I’m often asked about my transition from academia to industry as though it were a finite, […]
Maria Irchenhauser | DWPub
I manage the German operations of DWPub, an international PR and media services company based in London, UK. Services offered by DWPub include an online research platform for journalists, a journalist directory, a press release distribution service, a media database and a media newsletter. Founded in 1997 by former journalist Daryl Willcox, DWPub started out […]
Peter Temes | ILO Institute
In one of my earliest memories, I’m sitting on my parents’ bed, watching them stuff envelopes promoting my father’s home-inspection business. That was his part-time enterprise, just launching; he had recently moved in his day job from a high school science post to a community-college gig teaching electrical technology. I think that’s where my own […]
Aviad Eilam | Rosetta Stone
I’m pretty sure I never imagined I’d find myself working in marketing or social media. In fact, social media didn’t exist when I was growing up, and the closest I could get to marketing at my undergrad institution was probably a degree in business or economics. Neither of these fields appealed to me enough to […]
Hanna Griff-Sleven | Museum at Eldridge Street
When I was senior at Grinnell College, finishing up my degree in American Studies, a friend and I used to fantasize about moving to New York City, posting an ad in the Village Voice. It would say, “Need to get in touch with your roots? Contact Hanna and Sarah and we will research your family […]
Peter A. Bacevice | HLW International
I have been promising to contribute to this blog for quite some time now. Ever since I learned about this extended community of academic professionals whose careers have evolved outside of the traditional ivory tower setting, I have wanted to share my own reflections on a similar experience. My career has evolved along a path […]
Monique Rinere | Columbia University Advising
I have worked in higher education administration for over a dozen years. Frankly, I know that no one grows up answering the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” by saying, “I want to be a higher education administrator.” But as we know, people do end up in the field, so […]
Todd Gilman | Yale University Library
I have served as Yale University Library’s Librarian for Literature in English since August of 2001. In this capacity I build library collections for Sterling Memorial Library and Bass Library in all formats (print, electronic, and microform) that support the study of literature in English, Comparative Literature, Linguistics, British and Commonwealth History, Film Studies, and […]
Nanette Fornabai | PwC
My move from academia to “corporate America” reminds me of “the transitions” common to fantastic and gothic culture. I would like to be able to draw similarities of my transition to the sexier, more seamless transitions of vampires and zombies. But mine was not that. There was no on-screen bloody death, followed by two […]