In my previous posts, I discussed my exit from the academy and questions to better understand a pivot to a non-academic career. In this third post, I discuss practical strategies as you navigate new job application processes. When I started applying for non-academic jobs, I felt directionless and did not know how to start. Providentially, I stumbled upon the simple realization that I can leverage skills and expertise gained in graduate experience to navigate these new unknowns. By adopting familiar practices of … [Read more...] about Leaving Academia, Part 3
liminal space
Leaving Academia, Part 2
In my last post, I shared about my unexpected and abrupt exit from an academic career. In this post, I discuss how my examination of two questions helped me pivot to life outside the academy and become thankful for my graduate experience. Now what? As it became clear that I would not have an academic job, I felt lost and overwhelmed. Having given no serious thought to a non-academic career, I wondered if my academic apprenticeship had any value in preparing me for life outside the academy. And I did not know … [Read more...] about Leaving Academia, Part 2
Leaving Academia, Part 1
Leaving academia is hard and difficult. In this new short series on “Leaving the Academy”, I hope my experiences will encourage you as you explore and wrestle with God's calling for your life as you transition to a perhaps unplanned non-academic career. Editor's note: For more of Josh Wu's work for ESN, see this link. For the better part of a decade, my life ambition was to become a professor. I was confident that hard work and a few providential breaks would land me a tenure-track political science professor … [Read more...] about Leaving Academia, Part 1
Encountering God in the Liminality of Graduate School, Part 2
In the first part of a two-part reflection, Scott Santibanez shared some theological reflections on the liminal space of graduate school. In Part 2, he shares some of his own story. It was 1991, during the summer between my first and second years of medical school. I was in the basement of a Christian clinic in Times Square. The clinic provided free medical care for homeless people in New York City. I was filling up a tub with warm soapy water so one of our homeless clients could soak his feet. And I loved doing … [Read more...] about Encountering God in the Liminality of Graduate School, Part 2
Encountering God in the Liminality of Graduate School, Part 1
I once had a seminary professor who liked to talk about something he called liminality. The term comes from the Latin word limens, which means “threshold.” Liminal space is a place of transition, of waiting and not knowing. People who are in liminal space exist in the threshold between their previous life and a new one. “It is the doorway or portal between statuses,” anthropologist Jack David Eller writes, “the road that links the origin and destination.”[1] With its years of training and preparation, graduate school … [Read more...] about Encountering God in the Liminality of Graduate School, Part 1