GradSchooled with Fatimah Williams, Ph.D.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”  This question suggests that having a career means arriving at a fixed point. When that notion gets challenged by job loss, constricting industries (hello, COVID-19!), or the sudden confrontation that a desired career path is no longer of interest, fear often bubbles up. Therapist and licensed clinical social worker Nathaniel Amos, MSW, LICSW offers us tools to:

• Engage in “the brave act of being vulnerable” by asking for help. He reminds us to identify people who feel safe and who have the capacity to hold the process where it is without judgment. 
• Manage unmet expectations of self, family, community, and industry. These expectations are highly raced, classed, and gendered, and therefore experienced differently by each of us. 
• Navigate “the middle” -- that space when you are no longer who you used to be, but have not arrived at the next stop in your career-life path. How to look toward the future with an abundance mindset even in moments of profound uncertainty like our current COVID-19 economic landscape. 

We laugh a lot in this episode and even channel the world’s favorite academic Brene Brown and Queer Eye’s Jonahthan Van Ness to really drive home our points. Join us for this reprieve.

Resources Discussed:

psychologytoday.com

therapyforblackgirls.com

Join the discussion and connect with GradSchooled host, Fatimah Williams, Ph.D.

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/fatimahphd

Instagram: @fatimahphd

Website: www.beyondthetenuretrack.com/podcast

How does a sociology professor with no tech experience come to found an award-winning retail technology startup? I interview Tope Mitchell about her career transitions from sociology graduate student to corporate insights director to tech founder. Sidebar: if you’re a researcher and don’t know what insights are, you definitely want to listen to this episode.  Her curiosity for applied sociology combined with her relentless desire to create a more inclusive world for her young daughter led her to a $30K startup award and a new career in record-breaking time. 

Resources Discussed:

Black Women Talk Tech Conference

Join the discussion and connect with GradSchooled host, Fatimah Williams, Ph.D.

Elite elder businessmen, stuffy boardrooms, C-suite titles... These are the images that come to mind when we think of boards. Paul Smith, CEO, Future Directors Institute, is working to change that by training the next generation leaders to govern world changing not-for-profit and for profit organizations. Whether you are a new professional with little experience or a seasoned professional looking to deepen your leadership profile, you will learn how to leverage boards to grow your influence, career, and income.

Topics in this episode:

>>  “Do I belong in the boardroom?” 

>>  How to distinguish yourself from other prospective board members with a BVP - Board Value Proposition.

>>  How to “network your career.”

>>  Key professional skills you will learn or strengthen as a board member -- some of these may even get you a raise on your 9-5 job.

We are all experiencing a new way of working. Many of you are nearing graduation, preparing for promotion or looking for ways to monetize your skills while we wait out this stay at home season. In this week’s episode, I provide four simple steps you can take to move your professional development forward even while we’re on modified schedules and working from home. I’ve put it off one of these for at least a year now (!), but there’s no time like the present to jump in.  If you’ve never heard of “social listening” or you aren’t sure how it can apply to your job search, you don’t want to miss this solo episode. 

Resources Discussed:

> GenM

> General Assembly

> Skillshare

> Coursera

> LinkedIn Learning

Join the discussion and connect with GradSchooled host, Fatimah Williams, Ph.D.

Website: www.beyondthetenuretrack.com/podcast

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/fatimahphd

Instagram: @fatimahphd

“You are so smart.” Most high achievers have heard others describe them this way since their youth. As a career transition professional, I wondered how being smart may be getting in the way of high achievers trying new interests, developing new skills sets and exploring career possibilities. I found a few answers in Mindset by Carol Dweck, Ph.D. 

Dweck challenges high achievers - and the people who educate and parent them - to rethink our praise for natural ability over continuous, dedicated effort. When we expect to be intrinsically good at a subject, methodology, or even a new job, we settle into a fixed mindset which can produce anxiety, feelings of personal inadequacy and even project abandonment -- all because we don’t excel at a new area right from the start. 

In this quick solo episode, I dig deeper and discuss:

• 4 ways to disrupt the fixed mindset so we can enjoy new pursuits and become more patient with our progress.
• My personal experience with managing the disappointment of a reviewer’s stinging comment on one of my research fellowship applications. (It wasn’t pretty!)
• Why graduate students and researchers, in particular, must embrace a growth mindset to achieve professional milestones. 
• 2 key reasons for anyone starting a new career, leadership role, or a new job to tap into a growth mindset.

Listen to this episode and learn why brilliance is not a requirement for success. 

Books Mentioned:

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.

Join the discussion and connect with GradSchooled host, Fatimah Williams, Ph.D.

Website: www.beyondthetenuretrack.com/podcast

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/fatimahphd

Instagram: @fatimahphd

Let’s face it, career transition is often accompanied by discomfort. This episode Priscilla Jabouin (The Dream Career Expert) and I discuss how stretching beyond your comfort zone is a normal and necessary part of the journey toward change. Priscilla discusses what is needed to achieve authenticity in life: “Are you fully expressed? Are you feeling free? Are you feeling empowered?” (20:30). 

Too often people are closed off when it comes to the possibilities of what they could do in their professional life. Priscilla emphasizes the importance of making a total mindset change in order to open yourself up to the possibilities of finding fulfillment and meaning in your career. As an international workshop presenter, career counselor and advanced yoga teacher, Priscilla’s mission is to help as many people as possible wake up to a career they love!

As we dig deeper, Priscilla discusses her own transition journey as she explores the possibility of relocating from Canada to New York to live out her dream. We discuss the importance of sharing your dreams with others and building a system of support. Priscilla also gives some advice to international job seekers on how to break through the barriers and find a position in a new country. 

Keep Up with Priscilla:
Website: www.mymaptohappiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priscillajabouin/

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Dr. Sophia N. Johnson is a political economist and the Assistant Director of the Program for Economic Research at Columbia University. She is also the host of The Feminist Perspective, a NY-based public affairs television series featuring wide-ranging, in-depth conversations with cultural influencers, and offering interdisciplinary perspectives from which to understand the diversity of human experiences, from class, race, ethnicity, nationality and transnational movements. 

After finishing graduate school, Sophia felt lost. She had no clue what direction she wanted to take her professional life. In this episode, we discuss how career coaching and self-exploration helped her to recognize her successes and believe in what she had accomplished. Sophia shares how she started to understand the patterns in her life, and how she came to utilize the seeds she had planted in grad school to view herself as independent of her degree. 

Sophia is an advocate of saying yes to different types of experiences instead of sitting on the sideline waiting for the perfect professional opportunity. This mindset helped her find work that felt like an extension of the many facets of herself. 

Keep Up with Sophia:
The Feminist Perspective airs Wednesdays at 9pm pm LMCTV (Channel 75 Optimum / 36 Verizon)

Mieka Polanco holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology, and has recently transitioned from academia to international development. As an academic, Dr. Mieka Polanco wrote and taught about punishment, juvenile justice, and mass incarceration. In development, she focuses on social disparities, and ensuring that aid programming is attentive to marginalized and vulnerable populations.

In this episode, Mieka shares how a professional fellowship at a government organization served as a stepping stone to test the waters for a bigger career change. When Mieka made the transition from academia into government work, she was shocked by the differences in the professional culture and was often accused by colleagues as being too academic. We discuss how she learned to negotiate with different stakeholders and found space to practice honest, rigorous research.

Mieka reveals how working with people outside of academia opened her up to diverse backgrounds and perspectives. This exposure pushed her to become mentally sharper about her research and allowed her to become more flexible in her ideas.

We also explore how hobbies can grow into a flourishing side business. Mieka discusses how she developed her soap-making side-hustle while holding down her full time, tenure-track position. Mieka is an example of experimenting to suit her evolving career-life needs. 

Resources Discussed:
ProFellow 
AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships

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Facebook: @theGradSchooled

My guest this week is Dorianne St. Fleur, an HR expert, career strategist, and leadership coach. Dorianne is the founder of the digital career development agency, Your Career Girl. She has 10+ years experience working in HR for top industries and understands how to succeed in corporate America. 

In this episode, Dorianne and I discuss the importance of mindset in the job search process, and Dorianne reveals how to grow your self-worth using her “VIP” process:

1. Value – Understand what you have brought to the table in the past and how it has contributed to the bottom line of past positions.
2. Impact – Acknowledge the impact your work has had and speak to what you do.  
3. Power – Communicate your value and impact with power and confidence.  

Successful networking happens through forming connections with the “gatekeepers” of companies and industries. Dorianne and I discuss  some practical tips on how to successfully use Linkedin and network at events, conferences, and career meetups to form meaningful connections with people in your field.

Then, Dorianne answers questions from two listeners looking to transition from academia into an industry career. She discusses the importance of not putting yourself in a box when it comes to professional descriptions and how to demonstrate your knowledge and skills in a way that is sure to wow recruiters and hiring managers.

Books Mentioned:
Letting Go: The Path of Surrender by David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.

Keep Up with Dorianne: 
Website: https://yourcareergirl.com/
Deeper than Work Podcast: https://yourcareergirl.com/podcast

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Facebook: @theGradSchooled

Angel Acosta walks us through the “cultural dexterity” required to navigate the many worlds he lives and works in as a doctoral student, education consultant, international speaker, and first generation immigrant. He entered his graduate program as a nontraditional student who simultaneously worked in a college access nonprofit, and unlike his doctoral program peers, he was not an educator by training. 

Angel says, “When I coached with you, I was hungry for clarity. I wanted to curate a profile, a resumé, and way of thinking about all the work I was doing and texts I was reading in a way that didn’t feel scattered. I wanted to be more intentional and understand what this doctorate meant about who I was becoming and what I could do professionally.” (28:31)

Angel is a true intellectual who reflects deeply on his lived experience in the context of social structures, but he doesn’t stop there. He shows us how to take action to move through uncertainty.

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