Everything You Need to Know About Your Academic Career but Were Afraid to Ask

A friend of mine passed along this article from Inside Higher Ed (it's a couple of months old, so you may have seen it already) entitled "What They Don't Teach You in Graduate School". Depending on where you are in your academic career, you can either take it as advice on what you should do, advice on what you should have done, or as totally bogus because you know better. The article is aimed at graduate students, but there are insights to be gained by post-docs and junior faculty, as well. I particularly like this nugget:

"Remember that a Ph.D. is primarily an indication of survivorship. Although the public at large may view your doctorate as a superb intellectual achievement and a reflection of brilliance, you probably know deep in your heart that it is not. It represents a lot of hard work on your part over a long period of time."

As with most lists of how to succeed in a given field, this stuff will not apply to everyone.

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I'll keep using that line about PhD's not being an indicator of brilliance as a justification for pursuing a research career without one.