I used to joke that I had a ‘DIY PhD’. Neither I nor the rest of my cohort received much guidance about how to ‘be’ scholars. At most, we might hear something along the lines of: ‘Not like that’. Only if we happened to ask the right people the right questions could we learn about the ins and outs of writing, research, and publishing: how to write an abstract; how to apply for funding; how to write and revise an article; or how to propose a book.
Let me be clear: I was extremely privileged. I had my family’s moral support, I was at a prestigious university, and my supervisor was a brilliant scholar. But as someone getting her doctorate in a foreign country whose academic systems she didn’t understand very well, I often felt a bit lost. In addition, while most of my fellow doctoral students had grants or stipends of one kind or another, I paid for my studies with a government loan and whatever I could earn from a variety of odd jobs on the side (more on that another time).
Things weren’t much clearer once I’d finished my doctoral studies. Instead, I had new questions: What kinds of jobs could I apply for? How should I apply for them? What kind of writing did I want to do, and for what kind of audience? And where could I go for advice about how to do any of this?
If academia has a hidden curriculum, professional life and the publishing world also have their own unwritten rules. These rules are hard to learn without a lot of trial and error. This newsletter is my way of sharing what I’ve learned during twenty years of research, writing, and work in and out of academia. It’s because of what I’ve learned that I’m where I am today: running a research project funded by a major grant, publishing books for both academic audiences and the general public, and talking about my research on television and on the radio.
And this is the biggest thing I’ve learned: it’s almost all DIY. This can be scary, but it’s also great! Because while it may seem like you’re entirely at the mercy of institutions, supervisors, colleagues, and fluctuating job markets, there is a tremendous amount you can do to shape the career path you want to follow. You have more control and more options than you might think.
I hope what I share here will help readers with their research, writing, and career development. And I hope it will remind readers that, no matter how much of this might be DIY, they don’t have to DIY it alone.