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A reader got in touch to tell me about an infuriating experience at a recent conference. I asked her to write it up as a guest post, and here it is. Professors: stop the madness. Tell graduate students the goddamned … Continue reading
Category Archives: Stop.Acting.Like.A.Grad.Student
I am always telling clients to stop “sounding like a grad student.” But the trouble is, clients don’t understand all the ways that they do this. Some are obvious. “While a grad student in the English Ph.D. program, I…..” is … Continue reading
Previously I told you to banish the words “unique” and “burgeoning.” Here is a new set of painfully overused, excruciatingly tedious, annoyingly self-important, and frustratingly vacant words to be banished in 2014: Banish these adjectives: real-world (what does … Continue reading
Grad students tend to veer between two extremes: I know nothing and I know everything. The latter position is an over-compensatory response to fear of the former. As you gain experience you find a middle ground of calm confidence. However, … Continue reading
This is a repost of an older post. It follows sequentially from last week’s on the five-year plan. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In response to the flood of inquiries about what, exactly, a 5-Year Plan should look like, following on last week’s post, … Continue reading
This is a re-post of a previously published post. In the wind-down weeks of Spring, we will focus on big-picture planning for your career trajectory in the immediate and longer term. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When I trained my own Ph.D. students, I … Continue reading
Discussion of negotiating the tenure track offer continues apace. Last week I was included in an email exchange between Rebecca Schuman and Mike Tarr, Department Head of the Psychology department at Carnegie Mellon University. Mike got in touch with Rebecca … Continue reading
Click on this for the full comic (or scroll down): Thank you, marvelous reader Ainsley Seago, coleopterist and comic artist extraordinaire! … Continue reading
On Twitter today I got pinged on a discussion among @ArchaeologyLisa, @DrIsis, @LexMcBride about how much publishing is necessary for the tenure track job market. The discussion was prompted by today’s post on the Isis the Scientist blog, Writing At … Continue reading
Two pet peeves from the world of grants: A grant proposal must not contain the phrase “I need to,” as in “for my revisions of the manuscript I need to pay closer attention to feminist critiques and read more deeply … Continue reading