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transitions

Leaving Academia, Part 3

industry network photoIn 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 research, replication, and resilience, I became more organized, confident, and ultimately successful in the job application process. [Read more…] about Leaving Academia, Part 3

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In Transition? Find an InterVarsity Campus Group

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It’s that time of year when many people are moving from campus to campus, starting new endeavors, and trying to find community in new places. If you’re in transition now and looking for a Christian fellowship where you’ll be moving, check out InterVarsity’s handy Chapters page, where you can search the whole United States for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA fellowships, including graduate and faculty chapters.

If you’re looking for a fellowship outside the United States, the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) is the international movement that InterVarsity USA is part of, and you may be able to connect with a local fellowship by contacting IFES.

Even if you haven’t arrived in your new location yet, it’s worth getting in touch with a Christian fellowship ahead of time. You may find that local Christian fellowships are willing to help with practical questions like where to live and how to find roommates, and many groups have fall kickoff activities they’d love to welcome you to in advance. For some of the Emerging Scholars Network’s resources on transitions visit Advice for Entering Graduate School, Graduate School Survival Kit, Graduate School Journey, posts tagged transition, and posts tagged transitions (including a recent series by Christian Brady and another by Scott Santibanez).

Praying God’s blessing upon all our readers and the next steps they are taking this summer/fall. God is present with you each step of the way.

To God be the glory!

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How Did You Do It? Faith and My Dissertation

virginia tech library photo
Photo by NHN_2009

Last fall, I defended my Ph.D. dissertation, and in May I attended my graduation at Virginia Tech’s Blacksburg campus. My studies were challenging, especially since I was changing my discipline, from engineering to Science and Technology Studies (STS), which is built around a core of history, sociology, and philosophy. Fortunately, I had some advantages as a “non-traditional” student. First, I was accustomed to research and writing after a long, successful career as an engineer. Second, my STS interests ran deep. And finally, I had strong support from my wife and family. With God’s grace, I did not find the work to be impossible. The greatest stress resulted from my own decision—against the advice of my adviser—to take a job in 2014 teaching and helping to start a new engineering program (whew!) before I finished my dissertation. I am glad that my Ph.D. quest is over, and I look to God for how to best use my expanded education for His glory.

Friends have noted that Christian theology is at the heart of my dissertation, and they wonder how my work was received at a secular university. They seem interested in how I “got away” with proclaiming the Christian gospel in the course of my studies. How can I explain my success in what is assumed to be a hostile environment?

With few exceptions, my engineering experiences were free of conflicts of faith. Still, I grew interested in the place of technology in God’s plan. I remain concerned that endless debates over human origins distract us from considering what Christ would have us do in the present as we help shape the future. With this interest, I began taking STS classes part time during my last two years of engineering work.

Early on in my studies, I was surprised and pleased to learn that Christianity is broadly recognized as an important factor in the scientific revolution. This begged the question of why some segments of the Church are so distrustful of science, while accepting its fruits in medicine and technology without question. I looked for a dissertation topic that would highlight such concerns, and my adviser suggested I study transhumanism. Its focus on technological enhancements to human beings is essentially religious, with its goal of immortality and the creation of a godlike artificial superintelligence.

So here lies the answer to my friends’ questions: my desire was to study relationships between Christianity and technology, and God brought me to a subject I had never heard of, yet one that cried out for a theological examination. Yes, I ran into some opposition, but 1 John 3:13 says we should not be surprised “that the world hates you.” I was not surprised by skeptics, but I did not assume that I would be hated. My interest in STS scholarship was genuine, and with few exceptions, the Virginia Tech faculty, fellow students, and my advisory committee supported me in pursuing my interests.

No doubt, Christian students in secular universities experience a wide variety of responses. My success may not be typical. Still, I find in it confirmation of Psalm 37:4: “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” May God lift you up in your studies!

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Leaving Academia, Part 2

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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 where to start looking for advice or tips that could help guide me in my pivot to life outside the academy.

By God’s grace, my thoughts and self-reflection began to focus on two questions: what was I passionate about, and what was I good at? I spent time thinking about and identifying the pursuits that gave me the most joy in graduate school and the practices that I excelled in. Answering these two simple questions gave me insights into the non-academic jobs and careers I wanted to pursue. It also helped turn my bitterness and resentment into gratitude and thankfulness.

The first question I asked was what I was passionate about, what I enjoyed most during graduate school. At the end of an exhausting graduate career, it was difficult to find any part enjoyable. But as I disaggregated my graduate experience into categories of activities, I identified specific pursuits that were most enjoyable. I realized my passion for the testing of arguments and challenging of claims with empirical evidence. I also enjoy mentoring students to think more deeply and systematically about the world. While non-academic jobs would not have the exact mix of these two activities, I knew that I should focus on jobs and positions that would give me opportunity to continue pursuing these passions.

Second, I asked myself what I was good at. At first, I was tempted to do a complete career reset and think of graduate school as useless training you can never use again. However, I began to appreciate the skills and expertise I had acquired. Seminar classes with heavy reading requirements taught me how to skim large volumes of text and identify key takeaways. Completing long research projects like the dissertation helped me set goals, self-motivate, and manage deadlines. The constant contestation of ideas, theories, and claims sharpened my ability to deconstruct arguments, interrogate evidence, test logic, craft rebuttals, persuade skeptics, and update my beliefs. This gave me confidence that what I learned to do in graduate school could translate into jobs and careers outside the academy.

In identifying the passions and proficiencies I was blessed with during graduate school, I gained new clarity into the types of post-academic careers I would find interesting and could excel in. I began to see how I could use the skills I was good at while pursuing activities and responsibilities I was passionate about. That led me to work in market research, where I help clients leverage best available evidence to make data-driven decisions. I also have the chance to teach and mentor younger staff to deepen and grow their reasoning and analytical abilities.

More importantly, God used this time to help me surrender my bitterness and resentment. I realized how graduate school shaped and helped me hone practices of information processing, reasoning, and learning that would be valuable in non-academic domains. I could more joyfully and confidently, as Paul exhorts in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “give thanks for all circumstances.” I still struggle with knowing and believing that my graduate experience was not wasted even though I do not have an academic career. But I am encouraged by people in the Bible whose early career training proved useful in unexpected domains, like David whose shepherding experience prepared him to defeat Goliath, or how Paul’s rabbinic training gave him the intellectual credentials to engaged the learned elite. And I am humbled and reassured that our sovereign and loving God has a purpose for how I can serve Him with the skills I gained as a graduate student in new domains outside the academy.

If a pivot out of academy is a reality, or even a possibility, I encourage you to think about what you are passionate about and what you are good at. I hope and pray that in thinking about and praying through these questions, you too will gain insights into the types of non-academic careers you would find meaningful and be more thankful for God’s faithfulness. I don’t know what insights you may arrive at, but I am confident that God can and will use the passions, skills, and expertise gained in graduate school in the new careers He is leading you into.


Image courtesy of MarcoPomella at Pixabay.com

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Leaving Academia, Part 1

leaving college photo

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 position. I believed that God had called me to a life in the academy, to be a witness pointing peers and students to Christ. Like Paul on Mars Hill in Athens, I dreamt of being a learned scholar and teacher who integrated my faith with scholarly passions and practice.

However, eight years after I started my graduate studies, my academic career was over.

I felt lost. I had never given serious thought or consideration to a non-academic career. I had always thought that going to industry or the private sector was at best “selling out” and at worse, a sign of intellectual failing. I was bitter as people seemingly less qualified than me from less highly ranked departments were hired for positions I applied for. I wondered if I had wasted so many years of my life. I worried how I would provide for my family, especially with a baby on the way. I was embarrassed and humbled, knowing that I would never feature on my department’s list of notable recent placements. And I was disappointed, confused, and even angry at God.

Now nearly two years removed, I am starting to understand why God allowed and brought me through such a trying period and tumultous exit from the academic world. And I am thankful for how these trying times led me to know myself more and dispelled my misplaced expectations of God.

I realize I had unconsciously made a quid pro quo bargain with God. I would serve Him while in graduate school with the unrealistic and ungrounded expectation that God would provide me with a tenure track job, because He owned me something. I elevated my intellectual life and potential academic career to be core to my identity. I had made the pursuit of a tenure-track position an ultimate good, an idol and false hope I had staked my life upon.

I also realize I had too narrowly construed God’s calling and purpose for my life. By coming to believe that being a professor was the only way I could serve God’s Kingdom, surely I could expect God to ensure an academic career for me. I was trying to back God into a corner, to bend Him to my will and force Him to make good on His end of the “bargain.”

I am glad and relieved God did not “give in” to my foolhardy expectations. Had I landed a tenure-track position out of graduate school, I would have probably been too prideful, too trusting in my own accomplishments, and too sure of my ill-defined ambitions.

But God is faithful and gracious. When he brings us through trials, he does not abandon us to hopelessness, doubt, and uncertainty. When all of my academic teaching options were exhasuted, God remained faithful and helped me find other potential career opportunities I had never thought of. In a whirlwind few months after being rejected at the last academic position where I applied and starting to apply to non-academic jobs, I would end up starting a new job in market research two days after my PhD commencement.

If you are transitioning out of academia, either by choice or by the lack of viable jobs, take heart in the promises of God. As Paul declares in Philippians 1:6, we are to be “confident that He who began a good work [in us] will carry it on to completion.” I encourage you to think and consider how your experiences and accrued skills can be used to pursue the welfare of those around you and serve God in non-academic settings. The character molding and ambition defining work God is doing in you is not done. He will bring it to fruition, perhaps in ways you did not expect or even initially want.

While it can be sad, depressing, and humbling, leaving academia is not the end of the world. And if you are making the same exit from academia I did, my hope and prayer is that you too will gain new insights into the motivations of your ambitions, your understanding of God’s calling for your life, and your confidence in our loving and sovereign God.

 

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