Advice to Future PhDs from 2 Unusual Graduating PhDs, The Blog is the New CV & Twitter the New Business Card (A Must read for anyone doing or considering a PhD)

Advice to Future PhDs from 2 Unusual Graduating PhDs (Updated)

The Blog is the New CV & Twitter the New Business Card

Next week I will be attending my official graduation from The Fletcher School to receive my PhD diploma. It is—in a word—surreal. I’ve been working on my PhD for almost as long as I’ve known my good friend and colleague Chris Albon, which is to say, a long time. Chris is also a newly minted political science PhD and recently joined the FrontlineSMS team as the director of their Governance Project. Needless to say, our paths have crossed on many occasions over the years and we’ve had many long conversations about the scholar-practitioner path that we’ve taken. With graduation just a few days away, we thought we’d write-up this joint post to share our pearls of wisdom with future PhDs.

First: blog, blog, blog! The blog is the new CV. If you don’t exist dynamically online, then you’re not indexable on the web. And if you’re not indexable, then you’re not searchable or discoverable. You don’t exist! Blog-ergo-sum, simple as that. Chris and I have been blogging for years and this has enabled us to further our knowledge and credibility, not to mention our network of contacts. The blog allows you to build your own independent brand, not your advisor’s and not your program’s. This is critical. We’ve received consulting gigs and keynote invitations based on blog posts that we’ve published over the years. Do not underestimate the power of blogging for your professional (and yes, academic) career. In many ways, blogging is about getting credit for your ideas and to signal to others what you know and what your interests are.

Second: get on Twitter! Malcolm Gladwell is wrong: social media can build strong-tie bonds. Heck, social media is how I originally met Chris. If the blog is the new CV, then consider your Twitter account the new business card. Use Twitter to meet everyone, everywhere. Let people know you’ll be in London for a conference and don’t underestimate the synergies and serendipity that is the twittersphere. Chris currently follows around 1,200 people on Twitter, and he estimates that over the years he has met around half of them in person. That is a lot of contacts and, frankly, potential employers. Moreover, like blogging, tweeting enables you to connect to others and stay abreast of interesting new developments. Once upon a time, people used to email you interesting articles, conferences, etc. I personally got on Twitter several years ago when I realized that said emails were no longer making it to my inbox. This information was now being shared via Twitter instead. Like the blog, Twitter allows you to create and manage your own personal brand.

Third: decide whether you want an academic career, a professional career, or both. The path you chose will require you to take different turns to excel and get ahead. Chris and I chose the combined scholar-practitioner route, which we personally find the most rewarding, flexible and exciting path. If this route appeals to you, then be sure to use the research papers you write for your coursework as an excuse to interview individuals and organizations that you may want to work with in the future. This allows you to learn more about the organizations themselves and to actively network during your studies. Moreover, your resulting papers will be stronger and more interesting, not to mention policy-relevant. This means both your professional contacts who your interview and your professors will gain from your research. Indeed, being in graduate schools gives you more time to think and explore issues in depth—a luxury that many practitioners simply do not have. You get to delve into the literature and fuse those insights with those gained from your interviews and hands-on research. The result is a solid and unique research paper, both academically and policy-wise.

Read the rest at the Peace & Collaborative Network