Maura Slocum, a Peace Corps alum, is deeply passionate about soil science but faced unexpected challenges during her Ph.D. journey, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This disruption, coupled with academic burnout, led her to reconsider her career path outside the academic sphere. She found the transition difficult, partly because her Ph.D. program did not adequately prepare her for nonacademic opportunities. Many Ph.D. graduates face similar frustrations, highlighting a systemic issue in graduate education regarding career preparation beyond academia.
‘I just love that people think of it as dirt-one entity-but it's a very important system,’ she says.
‘He worked with these soils in West Africa... anthropologically and chemically... that’s exactly what I’d want to get a Ph.D. in,’” she recently recalled.
‘The mental toll academia had taken on her ultimately led Slocum to seek out nonacademic jobs,’
‘...many who spoke to Inside Higher Ed said that their universities did little to prepare them to take that route,’
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