A newfound appreciation, a wiggle, and a pleasant surprise

Reflecting on ten stories from beyond academia

You may have noticed, dear reader, that we are now at the point of having published ten stories from beyond academia. There's nothing quite like a round number to prompt a bit of reflection, so we interrupt our normal programming to bring you some musings on the stories we’ve heard thus far.

These stories have come from people with PhDs in various different disciplines: cognitive science (Stephen & Regine), mechanical engineering (Priscilla), pharmacy (Miranda), pharmacognosy (Pavlina), neuroscience (Malini), experimental psychology (Mark), biochemistry (Liz), and physics (Tom & Phil). 

We’ve heard about the different paths people have taken since transitioning out of academia, including data-centric roles in government, industry, and consulting (Regine, Stephen, Tom), non-academic roles closely related to their PhD topics (Priscilla, Miranda), editing and coaching (Malini), and science communication (Phil). Two of our interviewees had recently moved on from successful professorships (Mark & Liz), and one was even on the way back into academia after several years in research adjacent roles (Pavlina).

Despite the varied backgrounds and career paths of our interviewees (and how fascinating the differences are), we've also seen a few similarities emerge across their stories. There are some obvious similarities, for instance science communication featured in several of our interviews (Malini, Phil & Mark), as did starting and running businesses (Tom, Malini, Phil & Mark). But we’ve spotted some other common threads too, and they are the subject of this moment of reflection.

Photo by Yeshi Kangrang.

A newfound appreciation

Even back when we had an n of 2 (i.e., Jonathan and Sam), we’d seen that while our PhD topics weren’t particularly relevant to our day jobs, the skills we developed during our PhDs had carried over and to a greater extent that we’d expected - we even wrote about this before we started canvassing for stories from beyond academia.

So, in every interview we do, we ask about skills, experiences or knowledge from the interviewee’s PhD that have transferred over into their non-academic post-PhD roles. We expected to hear about both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ skills that had transferred over, and we suspected we might see a few people expressing just how unexpected it was to find this ongoing relevance of PhD skills beyond academia. 

And, indeed, this was a commonly expressed sentiment across these first ten stories we heard. What a relief; it would have been a bit awkward for us if this was not the case…

So, first up in this post, we package up a not-even-close-to-exhaustive selection of PhD skills for which our interviewees have developed a newfound appreciation.

Problem solving

Think about one of the core aspects of doing a PhD: You identify a murky unsolved problem at the edge of human knowledge, then proceed to define and break that problem down into smaller and smaller chunks until you have a PhD-sized research question, and then a series of tractable sub-questions.

This process requires a PhD candidate to be able to both extract the essence of a topic, and to be able to zoom in and out from macro level to the nitty gritty of designing a particular stimulus for a particular experiment for a particular research question. The ability to parse and solve problems is a core competency in many roles, and in the course of doing a PhD you develop both the skills and practices required to excel in this domain.

The carry-over of these skills is self-evident for our interviewees who do research as part of their role. For example, Mark’s background in experimental psychology was crucial in the writing of his new book. But a number of interviewees talked about this skill as extending beyond the research sphere: Priscilla spoke about how her experience of integrating methods from different academic disciplines has changed her approach to her role now that she’s back in industry, and Pavlina talked about her research training giving her the skills to quickly extract meaning from piles of evidence.

Communication

There’s a bit of a stereotype out there that academics aren’t good at communicating. And sure, you can probably think of a time when you encountered an academic presentation that seemed like it would never end, or a journal article that had so many nested clauses you needed to take a break and grab a cup of tea.

But communication is a domain in which PhDs can shine (and there seems to be an increasing emphasis on developing verbal and written communication skills in PhD programs too). Don’t just think of journal articles and presentations here - communication is a huge part of grant applications and outreach activities too.

It probably goes without saying that Phil leverages his communication skills daily in his role as a science communicator, and particularly the skill of translating a complex topic for an interested but non-specialist audience (perhaps through song). Other interviewees spoke about using their communication skills in new contexts too: Liz gave the example of turning her skills in representing scientific concepts to the legal sphere, while Stephen mentioned how the PhD helped him to develop his skills in persuasive communication. And of course Malini has spent a good portion of her post-PhD career building the written communication skills of others.

Mindset

Ok, so maybe this one isn’t a skill per se, but it’s a very useful set of traits in the world beyond academia. We already mentioned above that doing a PhD requires you to take your torch of research and peer into the darkness beyond the edge of human knowledge. This isn’t always a comfortable thing to do, and the resilience that this process instills in you is a huge boon in other roles.

This came across in these first ten interviews, with a consistent theme emerging about the resourcefulness, dedication and ability to be a self-starter that the PhD process engenders in candidates. In particular, Priscilla, Stephen and Malini mentioned that their PhDs have given them the confidence to take on challenging projects; Tom referred to his willingness to have a go as a secret to his success. Regine even gave an example that goes against another stereotype of PhDs that we’ve heard - that PhDs will want to know everything before doing anything - noting that her PhD made her comfortable with acting under conditions of uncertainty.

A bonus

And if all that wasn’t enough, here’s a little bonus that seems so obvious but also so true: 

Mark pointed out that inside academia, having the title ‘Dr’ doesn’t signify particularly much. After all, no big deal being one PhD in an environment filled with PhDs.

But outside of the ivory tower, it can be surprising to realise just how much the title can pack a punch.

The wiggle

The second common theme that emerged in our interviews is something that we’re referring to as the 'wiggle'. Despite us both having young children this is not a reference to the musical group behind “Toot Toot, Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car”, but rather it is a reference to a concept we heard in conversation just recently: the 'archers paradox'. If you're not familiar, here's a quick tl;dr.

Because an arrow leaves the bow from either the left or the right side, when an archer draws their bow, the arrow will be pointed slightly away from the intended target. Hence, the arrow needs to move around the bow once loosed in order to hit the target. This is the archer’s paradox. The paradox is resolved by the flexion of the arrow as it flies along its path; it keeps bending and flexing when in motion, oscillating as it moves toward the target. Hence, the ‘wiggle’.

The parallel with the career stories we've heard so far has probably become obvious: there might be a little bit of a wiggle in a post-PhD career trajectory and this might not actually be a bad thing.

Tom, Liz, Pavlina and Miranda all referenced this idea of not necessarily finding the 'right' role straight out of academia. The first non-academic post-PhD role you try might not be the right fit so you try something else, and perhaps something else again. And, then, in a goldilocks-esque moment, the next try, or maybe the one after that, seems 'just right' (or at least, more aligned with what you're looking for).

We’d heard about the wiggle a few times before we started this interview series (albeit without this catchy name), and certainly each of our career paths have had a bit of movement thus far. And this dovetails with another thing that came up in quite a few interviews: Malini, Phil, Pavlina, Priscilla, and Miranda all mentioned the role of luck and seeking out and being open to new opportunities.

(Of course, not everyone will experience the wiggle, and happily the archery analogy still holds: apparently some modern bows have a cut out, where the arrow doesn’t need to bend around the bow!)

A pleasant surprise

The final thread is that most of our interviewees mentioned experiencing a pleasant surprise when they found non-academic roles actually. might. not. suck!

It turns out that non-academic roles can be just as rewarding, just as interesting, and just as meaningful as what you had imagined an academic role would have offered. Maybe, for some, even more so.

In the interview with Miranda, we discussed this explicitly as a misconception we've heard from some PhD candidates and academics: that a role outside academia must be frustrating, dull, dreary, filled with mindless repetition (you have probably seen a depiction of this kind of work life in any number of sitcoms). Miranda countered this, reminding us that actually some academic roles may look like this, and that plenty of non-academic roles will not!

Stephen, Regine and Tom backed this line of argument in by reminding us that there are a practically infinite number of thorny problems that need to be tackled in the non-academic world, and there are smart people outside academia too, to work on these problems with. This topic also came up in the conversations with both Mark and Liz, who have both moved beyond academia from successful professorships: they'd attained that pinnacle of academia, moved on, and realised that the non-academic world is filled with meaningful and fascinating work.

And as one final pleasant surprise, Regine found an unexpected joy in having a manager. The portrayal of having a manager as a pleasant surprise? Now that’s one you don’t come across often in sitcoms…

Conclusion

So there you have it: a few reflections from ten stories that it has been our absolute privilege to help share with the world.

Of course we've only singled out a couple of threads we've seen in these stories - if you found another theme that resonated with you, please drop a note in the comments. We’d also love to hear your feedback on these interviews: Have they helped you? Reassured you? Scared or inspired you? Please drop us a comment or get in touch via our shiny new Sequitur page on LinkedIn.