GradFUTURES Podcast GradFUTURES at Princeton University

Join Leonard Cassuto (author of Academic Writing as if Readers Matter (forthcoming), The New PhD and The Graduate School Mess, among many other books) and Ph.D. student Hellen Wainaina to discuss graduate education's past, present, and future.
Their wide-ranging conversation touches on graduate student-centered graduate education, mentorship, academic employment, teaching in a global context, writing for the public, tenure, PhDs as "information specialists," academic freedom (and academic responsibility), how universities can help prepare graduate students for a range of careers, and much more!

Join Natalie Berkman *18 and Ph.D. student Hellen Wainaina for an engaging and personal conversation about how priorities can shift during graduate school, and how a supposed plan "B" can turn out to be a plan A. 

How might we imagine the tenure track in ways that account both for individual preference and for societal impact? In what ways is the landscape for Ph.D.s changing, and how might graduate students best navigate this changing landscape? 
Join Barry Lam *07 and Ph.D. student Hellen Wainaina for an engaging and personal conversation about the ways they are rethinking what a Ph.D. can be. You'll be encouraged to center your own strengths, values, and preferences, and you'll hear firsthand how academia's relationship to publicly-engaged scholarship is changing--and why it must!
Led by Princeton graduate student Hellen Wainaina, the GradFUTURES podcast centers on the futures of PhDs: both those in training at Princeton, and Princeton graduate alumni who are in and beyond academia. The podcast tells the professional development stories of graduate students, graduate alumni, and those who partner and collaborate with them. 

In our third episode, Hellen talks with Jason McSheene, *15, a Medical Science Communications Specialist at Meditech Media. Jason earned his PhD from Princeton’s Department of Molecular Biology. While at Princeton, he created and co-hosted a podcast, “PhD in Progress” with his peers to  have honest, authentic conversations about their professional perspectives and aspirations.
Jason talks about fulling his purpose, to champion education, equity, and empathy, through a myriad of  professional and personal opportunities: “Something that I have stumbled upon and that people, much wiser I am, have known for a while is: you don’t need to address all your passions and interests with one thing.”
In order to break the expectation that his career would fulfill all of his passions, Jason says he first had to recognize when he was having fun in graduate school. He recalls studying how the professors he admired were able to do their work. "I loved their work, but I [realized] I can't write grants all day, everyday," he says. Rather, than pursuing the research professoriate path, Jason chose to focus on what he enjoyed doing. "What I did love: I loved giving lab meetings even if I didn’t have all the data. I enjoyed the process of trying to create a story behind the science," he says. "I enjoyed putting together presentations, I enjoyed the scientific story.”
Knowing his personal commitment to biomedical research along with his passion for science communication and scientific literacy, Jason has pursued multiple paths to fulfill his purpose. It has taken both his professional work as a medical writer and his involvement with the Board of Education in Hamilton Township, NJ,  where he was elected and serves as a board member, to live out his values. He advises incoming and current graduate students to be honest with themselves: “No one is going to be able to tell you what you should do or shouldn’t do. Take the time to really understand, or at least acknowledge, when you’re having fun and what is resonating with you.” He maintains, “Figuring out those trends in one's life is fundamental to living a life that you feel is being lived more well than not.”

We are joined by Sarah-Jane Leslie *07, Class of 1943 Professor of Philosophy and former Dean of the Graduate School, to talk about the founding vision of GradFUTURES and to address the misconception that doctoral training is only about preparing students for academic positions in universities. “Too often doctorate education is seen as a value only in training the next generation of professors,” Leslie elaborates. “Actually, it is valuable in so many more ways.” Rather than view going into careers beyond the academy as a failure or a “lesser” pursuit, Leslie emphasizes the need for diverse career paths that fit all types of backgrounds, personalities, and working styles.
Sarah-Jane, who has done extensive research on academic gender gaps and found that they are most pronounced in disciplines that emphasize the need for “raw brilliance,” goes on to suggest that implicit, hidden biases in academia must be explicitly addressed in graduate school.  “As you open up access to higher education to groups that have been underrepresented, there can be soft skills—unspoken norms, if you like—amongst people whose backgrounds are more closely connected to higher education, but that won’t be known and won’t be shared by people who have been historically underrepresented,” says Sarah-Jane. “We can level the playing field by teaching these things explicitly.”
Join the conversation, access the show notes, and discover fantastic resources to empower your professional future at gradfutures.princeton.edu. 

In this inaugural episode, we talk to Ann Kirschner *78, University Professor at The City University of New York, author, and entrepreneur. Ann reflects on the unexpected turns her career has taken since earning a Ph.D. in English at Princeton. From working in the early days of cable television to becoming the first digital strategist for the National Football League, where she launched NFL.COM and SUPERBOWL.COM, Ann weighs in on the value of "knowing what you know," understanding the value of graduate education beyond the academy, and the adjunct system and the future professoriate, and the dignity of work.
Join the conversation, access the show notes, and discover fantastic resources to empower your professional future at gradfutures.princeton.edu.