Creating a Five-year Plan for your doctorate
By Felix Quayson
Often, Doctoral students are faced with two career choices when they pursue their Doctorate; going to industry or staying in academia to work. However, for a lot of Doctoral students, they do not have a structured plan on how to apply their learning and experience to work in industry or academic settings. This is a result of failed planning and not having a structured plan on how to tailor their doctoral learning and experience to get ready for life after academic studies.
Thus, I highly recommend to Doctoral students to create a five year plan for their degrees and careers. Having a plan makes your life and livelihood as a Doctoral student more structured and meaningful. It brings a sense of pride and joy, and awareness that you are the master of your livelihood.
In this article, I outlined how and why creating a five year plan for your Doctoral study is the best decision you would ever make for yourself.
“creating a five year plan for your Doctoral study is the best decision you would ever make for yourself.”
THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN
I would suggest to Doctoral students to either invest in electronic calender software, buy a calendar organizer book, or use the calendar app on their website/phone to set the five-year plan. I personally like to use my phone’s calendar app because I carry the phone with me all the time and I use it to organize my time on meetings, events, conferences, traveling, publications, writings, deadlines etc. I use the app calendar because it is instant, fast, and notifications are accounted for in my development as a scholar. Before the start of every semester, I set the time of my courses, events, scholarly activities such as research milestones, teaching, and service to the profession. When setting my calendar up, I choose the following reminder notifications for 10 minutes, 30 minutes, a day in advance, weekly, or recurring event for specific dates and time throughout the year or semester. For example, I set my due date for AERA Conference proposal due date and in the text I include what needs to be submitted, the goal of my proposal at the conference, and why it would help advance my scholarly work. I highly recommend to Doctoral students who have their eyes set on industry careers to invest in a calendar organizer to track their five-year plan, development, and progress.Â
“Publishing can become a difficult milestone to achieve if you do not have a structured plan to gauge your performance and accountability.“
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INCLUDE CONFERENCES IN YOUR FIVE-YEAR PLAN
Doctoral students engage in conferences with their peers, faculty members, and professionals from industry and academia; however, they often miss the opportunity to track their interactions, progress, and learning after conference events. Having a structured plan would make it accessible for you to track your networks, conversations and follow-up with professionals you meet at conferences, and have clarity of focus on your career decisions. It is important for you to attend conferences to network with others regardless of your decision to stay in academia or go to industry.
“Having a structured plan would make it accessible for you to track your networks, conversations and follow-up with professionals you meet at conferences, and have clarity of focus on your career decisions.”Â
INCLUDE PUBLICATIONS IN YOUR FIVE-YEAR PLAN
I would advice Doctoral students to set dates, goals, and milestones to publish in journals (be it industry or academic), write op-ed, write to magazines, and publish in newspapers. Writing and publishing can help professionals and executives in industry and academia to recognize you, your professional work, and the credibility that you have on topical relevance to issues. It signals to your peers in industry and academia that you are willing to learn to contribute to your field and profession. Publishing can become a difficult milestone to achieve if you do not have a structured plan to gauge your performance and accountability.
“Doctoral students are good in everything in academia except for planning for their career after doctoral studies“
INCLUDE CAREER DEVELOPMENT IN YOUR FIVE-YEAR PLAN
Doctoral students are good in everything in academia except for planning for their career after doctoral studies. Many Doctoral students suffer from career development and not having clarity on where they would like to work. In academic setting, their professors and advisors gaslight them about their exceptionalism with a Doctorate, and tying their worth of careers to their degrees. Career development is more than having an academic degree and it cannot be decided with gaslighting tendencies. I would advice Doctoral students to go to career centers, take career personality IQ tests, apply for jobs that fit your educational training, join professional associations and social networks, and network with professionals outside of the academic setting (especially for students who would like to go to industry). Having a plan would make it easier for you to track your career development progress.
About the author:
Felix Quayson has earned degrees in Education and Health, and professional certification in teaching English as a second/foreign language, research certifications from The Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI Program), and professional credentials in Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education where he is completing Certificate in Media & Technology for Education. Felix research interests is in Education Science focusing on workforce education, EdTech, STEM, & Higher Ed.