Episode 2.20: Navigating the River

Karen and Kel talk white water rafting as metaphor for your job search. In rafting you can’t fight the river – it’s bigger than you! And you have to find the spaces between the obstacles – like the rocks, branches, eddies, and forks in the river that are too shallow…  How is this like the academy?  Well,  some rivers are just not navigable. And you might have a terrific kayak (a great PhD based on a brilliant dissertation) but if the river isn’t navigable… you’re not getting down it. And maybe that river was navigable some time before, for other people… but it isn’t now, for you, because conditions have changed. In this episode we remind you that the river is NOT the tenure track job search/academic career— the river is your income stream (see what we did there?) and navigating it means you need to find that V in the rapid, that spot where the water (and you) can find a way through. And that means getting clear on what you actually want to aim toward, rather than at what you “can’t do,” because that’s the only way you and your kayak can move forward!

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