As I walked through the streets of Chicago towards the Gratz Center, anxious to start this three week journey, I was buzzing. Who would I meet? What would I think? How much could I learn about non-academic jobs? Headed into the start of the National Humanities Without Walls Predoctoral Workshop, I could not have imagined how much there was to explore.
I’ve been driven by this concept of “alt-ac” since I began my graduate career. Even before a collection of professors in my department warned my cohort that we should be realistic about our job prospects within the academy, my course was set. Through my graduate studies, I planned to pursue a career that would bring me into the exciting world beyond the boundaries of “traditional” jobs for people with PhDs in the humanities. Although I had my sights set, the tricky business of getting there still loomed ahead.
The first morning of our workshop was exhilarating. As the fellows bonded through creative ice breakers courtesy of Megan Stielstra, the nerves and tension that existed in the room eased. As we relaxed, we were immediately pushed into exercises that focused our minds into reframing our work. Reframing our expectations. Reframing our experiences. This process has followed us along, creating road blocks for us to push past during our first week together. Every day, different speakers joined us and urged that we think outside the box to imagine our research and skills in new ways.
In our first week, we discovered what it meant to work in higher ed, archives, design studios, and more. We were treated to sessions that were eye-opening and allowed us to change the way we understood ourselves as scholars and future employees. Several speakers challenged us to think on our feet and adjust immediately to tasks set before us. Through this practice, we learned how to market ourselves successfully in unique environments and anticipate what might come next.
Over several sessions, we considered our values and how those fit within our career goals. Seeing my values laid out before me in black and white for the first time was incredibly helpful. Moving through the rest of the first week, we all benefitted from this commitment to our ideals. As we explore more career options before us, we are now conscious of our values that cannot be compromised. After establishing what our career and personal values were, we began the important work of identifying our “transferable” skills. Under the guidance of Mearah Quinn-Brauner, a career advisor at Northwestern, we reflected on the critical skills our graduate programs teach us and how to translate those skills into a broader scope. By focusing on our unique abilities and perhaps thinking of certain areas that need more development, we can craft our career search to lead us to meaningful positions.
With the help of Paul Gordon Brown, we were able to fine-tune our web presence to better serve us in our work. Learning how to leverage the social media sites available to us, we spent time cultivating our online persona to ensure that it matched the values we acknowledged. This session was particularly useful as we began to read our “digital compass” to build our brands. We workshopped our LinkedIn profiles, learned how important Twitter can be in bringing together people and organizations, and thought about professional websites. While some fellows were more well-versed in social media than others, everyone took away vital tips that assisted us as we work to establish our online reputations. Finally, our week ended with a session on the art of networking with Claire Rice of Arts Alliance Illinois. During this session, we discovered that “networking” did not have to be a dirty word, and that with practice, we could use networking effectively to realize short and long term goals.
After this whirlwind first week, the HWW 2017 fellows were full of questions and ideas. Armed with knowledge of career values and transferable skills, we reflected upon our commitment to the humanities and how we can move beyond the academy with purpose.
HWW Career Diversity Summer Workshops 