I have not updated in a bit but I am definitely not sorry about it! There have been great triumphs in the last couple of months that I’d love to discuss: 1) I began wrapping up experiments and have since had my final committee meeting. The committee (i.e. the professors who help me throughout my…
A Response to the “Fear of Becoming ‘Nonacademic'” post
Our friend Fatimah PhD (see: Podcast Episode 2 and BeyondTheTenureTrack.com) sent in a great response to my Fear of Becoming “Nonacademic” post. She says: The fear of losing your academic identity is one of the biggest challenges of considering a nonacademic career. Who will I become? How will people know how awesome and accomplished I am if I…
Crafting the Perfect Presentation: A Failure
Not long ago, a former colleague who is currently teaching at another university in NJ invited me to give a guest lecture. At first, I was incredibly honored then instantly scared. Who am I, a lowly graduate student, to give a talk to a university genetics class? I struggled to frame the type of talk…
Value of Quiet
For a long time, I lost the “value of quiet”. With access to billions of hours of audio in our pockets, it’s so easy to constantly to consume. For me, I always listened to the familiar: songs I’ve loved since high school. They never change, are nostalgia inducing, and help me get through monotonous tasks that…
Life is like a game: Specifically, StarCraft2
I’m surprised how much I’ve learned about life from playing StarCraft 2. If you’re not familiar, StarCraft 2 (SC2) is a real-time strategy war game set in a space age between three main factions. Typically games place two players on opposite sides of a symmetric map with only a base and some workers. The players’…
Be Your Own Top Priority (And Why It’s Not Selfish)
When asked “What is most important in your life?” your answer might sound like this list: my family, my friends, my work, or my religion (to just name the most common answers). But understood in each of those is that you are there to contribute to your family, your friends, your work, or your religion. If there…
Improve Your Goal Setting for 2014
When it comes to changing into the person you want to be, you have a leg up on evolution because you can be intentional. Evolution is random and messy, but you can think, plan, strategize, and succeed with an end in mind. You’ve made progress on some of your life goals this year but you’re not…