The trouble with academia is, you set out to master a field but you end up demanding perfection of yourself, forgetting that perfection is not possible. Real mastery is not an outcome but a process, ie, embracing continual curiosity and being unafraid to confront what you don’t know to open the door to learning more. Karen and Kel talk about recovering this beginner’s curiosity by asking: Who is the inner/outer critic telling you you’re not good enough, and remembering that no external validation will make you achieve “perfection” -especially when the systems of validation are racist, sexist, classist, and exclusionary. As Toni Morrison says: the goal of racism is distraction. In the end, you can say this: I don’t have prove it to you I just have to deliver it.
Karen and Kel talk to Professor Erin Cech (Sociology, U of Michigan), the author of the forthcoming book, The Problem with Passion (U California...
Academics are bailing in unprecedented numbers, and academia has finally started to notice. Karen was interviewed twice in the past couple weeks–once in Nature,...
Recorded before the coup, this episode delves into practical advice about interviewing. Mostly focusing on academic jobs, but with insights for interviews more generally,...