I’m writing this blog post while my toddler watches a cartoon in the background, and I feel drained by the constant need to multitask. This morning, I peeled clementines for her while leading a Zoom meeting, trying to keep my hands out of frame and appease her without needing to mute my audio. I’m currently five years post-PhD graduation, and have worked remotely ever since: through my husband’s process of immigrating to the U.S., COVID-19, and parenthood. I think often about the lessons I’ve learned since finishing my doctorate about work-life balance. Because my life was so much less complicated during graduate school, I had the luxury of “winging it” when it came to work-life balance, and I didn’t achieve it very effectively. Now that I have to actively grapple for work-life balance as I change diapers while returning phone calls, I have a much different appreciation for what I could have done differently during graduate school.
Read More »Month: March 2024
Learning to Manage Anxiety and Impostor Syndrome by Kehinde Adepetun
I have been thinking about my struggles as an undergraduate student recently and this article marks a significant moment, as it is the first time I am opening up to share my deeply personal journey of mental health challenges to wellness. I am an undergraduate of microbiology and just like many of you, I have faced my own battles with impostor syndrome and anxiety in my academic career. In this article, I will take you through my journey and explain how I have made impostor syndrome and anxiety work for me by turning them into my allies. When I say turning them into my allies I mean that rather than allowing them to hinder my progress, I have channelled their energy into becoming a self-aware and resilient student.
Read More »5 Things You Might Lose When Leaving Academia – and What You Might Gain by Dr John Ankers
Recently I wrote about coaching academics at crossroads in their careers. I focussed on the practicalities – but the emotions involved in such forks in the road also play a huge part in our decisions, and challenge our mental health. I agonized over the decision to leave for the last three years of my time in academia. I was torn between a job I used to love but had grown to dread, loyalties to the research, and to a young family that I was helping to support. Privately, I suffered panic attacks, night sweats – I ended up in hospital with heart issues. And still, I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. Looking back, I was seeking permission – and while my family gave it without question, over and over again, I was denying it to myself.
As individuals, PhDs choose widely different paths – some stay in academia (facing the stress of fierce competition), others switch roles or leave academia for something new. While every candidate, and every position, is different, career crossroads are common and frequent – life-changing decisions that happen regularly! It’s no wonder that wellbeing can suffer – especially when trying to weigh up different factors in work and life.
Here are some issues that gave me and some of my academic clients pause for thought before a leap to new career paths. Some may be obvious, others maybe not. The hope is that, forewarned and forearmed, you can choose what you take from where you are now as you progress, and ultimately feel better about your decisions, whatever they may be.
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Voices of Academia 