I can’t say that there have been any wholesale transformations to my job since the last time I wrote here, over a year ago. When things have changed, they’ve mostly been smallish shifts or gradual developments: a staff change here, an added responsibility there. Mostly variations on a theme. However, there have certainly been challenges. […]
One Year Later
Our "One Year Later" series checks in with guest bloggers to learn what has happened for them professionally since they first shared their "Week in the Life." From small shifts in responsibility to promotions to company moves, the year-in-review is an opportunity to illustrate three critical aspects of work life outside academia:
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Professional careers are always evolving.
Where you begin is rarely where you end up, and that's a good thing. It means you are expanding your breadth of knowledge, acquiring new skills, tackling bigger challenges, and delivering greater value.
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Change is the one guaranteed constant.
Happily, it is also the moment where one finds the greatest opportunities for personal and professional growth.
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It is important to maintain your networks.
People often forget to maintain relationships once they've landed, preoccupied with new responsibilities and challenges. However it is critically important to remain in touch, be it an occasional check-in, well wishes for a holiday, or a forwarded article of interest.
PhDs at Work… One Year Later

Sara Ogger | One Year Later
I’m thankful to join other PhDs At Work guest bloggers of a year (and more) ago in giving an update on my career since I wrote. That’s because these check-ins will highlight a truth about all careers–they do change with the times! And hopefully the people in them grow and change too; I hope I […]

Joseph Shahadi | One Year Later
When I last wrote my Week In the Life series for PhDs at Work I was excitedly preparing for the 2012 Art of Brooklyn Film Festival. I am glad to have the chance to report that that the festival continues to be a great success, and in 2013, we doubled attendance from the previous year, […]

Barbie Decker | One Year Later
Here we are one year later. In terms of rank advancements and responsibilities, not much has changed. Most of the changes have happened within. I spent the first 3 to 4 years as a professional network marketer with Beachbody building my team, The Empire, and making a name for myself. During this time, I was […]

Tse-Sung Wu | One Year Later
Let me start with two metaphors. The first one is that I’m a freshman in college. The college is perhaps in my hometown. Everything is new: my local physical environment, people, things, language. Occasionally I see my high school mates, where, a mere three months ago, I knew how everything worked, where everything was; I […]

Patricia Fann Bouteneff | One Year Later
We’d just moved into new offices when I wrote for a Week in the Life last year. We’re still here on the 19th floor overlooking much of Midtown Manhattan, though plans are afoot for us to move closer to Wall Street. The new place had better be roomy: word about the Center for Culture and […]

Chris Humphrey | One Year Later
Take a peek through the window of my office, and if I’m not making the tea or in a meeting, you’ll see a PhD hard at work. Maybe you’ll catch me leaning back on my chair in a reflective mood, or concentrating on a document or spreadsheet. Or perhaps I’ll be silently rehearsing a presentation […]

Adam Capitanio | One Year Later
It’s surprising that a year has passed since my first set of posts on PhDs at Work. On the one hand, it does feel like a long time ago that I wrote them. I’ve met lots of new people through PhDs at Work, all of them people with PhDs like me, all of them doing […]

Rosemary G. Feal | One Year Later
The MLA office is a site of continual activity. The calendar year of a scholarly association like the MLA features thousands upon thousands of recurring activities: books, journals, and newsletters get published; meetings take place; elections are held. It’s the lifeblood of the association: members working on projects that advance our profession. We launched two […]

Tony Kireopoulos | One Year Later
When I contributed to the “Week in the Life” series a year ago, I wrote about projects related to the restructure and administration of my organization, the National Council of Churches, as well as the program tasks related to the specific content of my work. These tasks were writing theological pieces, convening ecumenical and interfaith […]

Kevin Eckerle | One Year Later
Hello everyone, I hope you all have had a restful Thanksgiving holiday! Much like any year, the past 12 months have had their moments of challenge, frustration, and reward. As I reflect on the last year, I’m happy to say that the rewarding moments have outweighed the challenges and frustration. Among the most significant rewards, […]

Alison Fisher | One Year Later
When I was asked to participate as a blogger for PhDs at Work a year ago my transition felt recent. At the time, I had been in my current position as a database developer and account manager at a small business-consulting firm for three years. The transition from the research sciences to technology consulting was […]

Jessica Collier | One Year Later
While it was happening, I was convinced that leaving academia would be the hardest professional decision I would ever make. Breaking away from an academic career, after all, is not simply a matter of profession; it pulls on every facet of one’s identity. Still, I couldn’t have been more wrong. December 11, 2014, was the […]

Maria Irchenhauser | One Year Later
It’s been an exciting year since I wrote my guest blog post for PhDs at Work in February 2014. At that time, I was responsible for the German business operations at DWPub. We were in the early days of developing a campaign for ResponseSource, our Journalist Enquiry Service which we had just launched in Germany […]

Peter Temes | One Year Later
It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by since my week blogging for PhDs at Work. The year has been a good one for my business, the Institute for Innovation in Large Organizations. We’ve increased the number of members to 50 – our goal – and have returned to the pricng structure we […]

Kristen Gwinn-Becker | One Year Later
A year has gone by? These were the first five words out of my mouth after receiving the email notification that it was time to write this One Year Later piece. Wow! How could that be? The activities I wrote about a year ago – seemingly endless travel for on-site collection reviews with clients; the […]

Christopher P. Thornton | One Year Later
There was a time, not too many years ago, when I feared that I had lost my way – failed at my dream of being a professor of archaeology and conducting research the rest of my life. With passion for my subject matter, and a healthy dose of narcissism, I had always wanted to contribute […]

David Craig | One Year Later
It’s been one year and a month since I posted my week-long blog about what I do at work, and I’m thinking, “Has it really been over a year?” One of the shortcomings of non-academic careers (mine, at least) is the absence of personal projects that have perceptible arcs. Since I started in workplace consulting […]

Pallavi Phartiyal | One Year Later
Last year this time around, I enjoyed sharing my work week with you, and in turn benefitted myself realizing what a fun rollercoaster each day of work brings. Numerous reports, articles, talks, panels, meetings, and staff hires later, I stay as excited and optimistic about our work now as I was one year ago. We […]

Aviad Eilam | One Year Later
2015 has been a year of professional change for me. In April I left my job as a social media marketing specialist at Rosetta Stone for an education technology startup by the name of Pedago. This involved not only transitioning to a different company, but also a very different position and work environment. What I’ve […]