Looking back at the post-doc journey

This week we have a guest post by an academic who has stitched post-doc contracts into a career that provides a desired work-life balance. 
(Name withheld, but known to editors).
 

So you’ve finally graduated with your PhD…. now what? Well, believe it or not, there is life after a PhD, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a full-time position in academia.

I was perhaps unusual in doing a PhD, as I started for fun (yes, fun!) and personal interest, rather than with the goal of a career. My final year was a whirlwind of tying up loose ends: book in a time to graduate, finish off my tutoring contract, sort through the endless amounts of paper generated over the years (it’s amazing how unimportant those articles are once you’re all done and dusted – I filled the recycling bin!), and generally go through a mourning period as I adjusted to life beyond.

Yes, that’s right I mourned. I went through all the typical stages: 

• Shock & denial
• That such vital part of my life for so long had ended so suddenly, and it does end suddenly. One day working over 8 hours to polish the last parts, the next day it’s like hitting a brick wall – that’s how sudden an ending it is when you hand in. You feel lost.
  

• Anger
• I was angry at the system (no jobs), and in part angry at myself for handing in - I could have done more! I wanted a job darn it! I had  slogged for years, proved myself, and yet no, it wasn’t to be. So my anger was both directed outwards and inwards. Which is quite funny really. I did not start a PhD in the hope of having an academic career, yet here I was angry because I wasn’t having one! What was wrong with me? (Eventually I shook off the anger….but it’s still amusing to reflect on years later.)

• Bargaining
• I submitted my thesis for examination towards the end of one academic year, and got it back five months later at the beginning of a new academic year. I took a few days to do the changes and wondered what to do for the rest of the year after writing some articles...I know, I’ll tutor both semesters! I realise that I was delaying the inevitable ‘leaving of the nest’, but back then I think I was still hopeful for a job. Still hopeful that I could prove myself. If I could go back in time, I’d probably tell myself to just leave and make a clean break.

• Depression and Reflection 

• Ohhhh this so goes with the bargaining above! Although I say I’d tell my past self to just leave, that year was actually quite useful in terms of reflecting on all I’d been through. Plus, it was a useful transition winding down from academic thinking ( the joy at being able to read a ‘normal’ book without analysing it like I’d been doing for years was pure bliss!). One thing to take note of: you’ve trained your body and mind for a couple of years to work at a high pace, then you just stop…it does take time to adjust to a lower level of intensity. It is a shock to the system, I don’t know whether I was depressed, but I did feel down sometimes because I was no longer working on something big.

• Acceptance         

• That it was time to move on - that hit me sometime in the second semester after it was clear there were no jobs coming up. I still had some tutoring and marking to do, so I worked out the last day of my contract, circled it on my wall calendar to give myself an incentive…and knuckled down to finish with a flourish. Cleaning out my office on the last day was really cathartic…not that there was much to get rid of by then.

So life goes on. Ironically, since my leaving I have ended up being asked to do some contract work at the university. Over the last few years I’ve done research, transcribed, developed questionnaires, written articles, polished articles, written reports, and polished reports. I’ve contract marked for various papers in multiple departments, and undertaken comprehensive literature searches for staff looking at writing a paper, but with no time to sort through the chaos that is out there in journals. I work for staff who have previously employed me, as well as those who get my name through word of mouth. Such jobs can range in duration from being merely a week to being occupied for over a year.

I have a more varied life now post doc, than I ever had before. Plus there is a certain amount of freedom in being able to pick and choose the work I want to do (and that I find interesting) and when I want to do it (yes, they fit in around my schedule, not the other way round!). In a nutshell I get to live my life as I see fit, and go play part-time in academia. For the moment it’s the best of both worlds

I’ve made a niche for myself. A niche that works for me. A niche that other completed PhDs sitting around twiddling their thumbs, asking themselves “what now?” might find appealing. Certainly, if you Google “what to do after the PhD” you’ll find numerous sites all detailing what that person did, and the stages of ‘grief’ that they went through after realising that an academic career may not eventuate immediately, or even at all (for instance, see this recent post at the Thesis Whisperer - Ed). It seems that increasingly a PhD won't lead to a full-time academic career - but sometimes what you end up with turns out to be better than you expected.