Neil de Grasse Tyson eloquently summarized the difference between content literacy and disciplinary literacy, while highlighting a foundational flaw in American public education. To wit, de Grasse Tyson observes, “We are seduced by the right answer rather than the journey to the answer” (de Grasse Tyson, 2011). Content literacy advocates that the student must be taught how to read in the subject disciplines, while disciplinary literacy challenges students to think in the subject disciplines. Within the secondary education discipline of history—here explicitly differentiated from the broader and more vaguely defined social studies discipline—disciplinary literacy discussions emphasize thinking, reading, and writing like professional, often academic, historians. More specifically, and in the language of the profession, historians engage in highly specialized practices of qualitative analysis, including critical engagement with multimodal evidentiary sources, construction of source driven arguments, and the construction of causal driven narratives of continuity and change over time. Although disciplinary literacy within the secondary history classroom challenges students to think, write, and read as historians, the practice should not seek to prepare students for careers as professional historians. Rather, disciplinary literacy should seek to increase student engagement in order to foster deeper learning in preparation for the rigors of 21st century citizenship. Conceptualizing Disciplinary Literacy Disciplinary literacy advocates—including K. A. Cullen (2016) and W. G. Brozo (2017)—have argued that explicitly instructing students in subject-area specific domain methodologies of knowledge acquisition, analysis, and construction further prepares students for the demands of the 21st century than either only content literacy or content knowledge approaches. For T. Shanahan and C. Shanahan (2017), content literacy are those “skills that can be applied usefully to learning in all disciplines,” such as memorization, while disciplinary literacy is specific to engaging in the knowledge construction of subject matter experts, such as historiographic analysis in history. Cullen (2016) develops the definition further by identifying disciplinary literacy in a continuum that includes basic literacy skills such as automatic cognitive processes and intermediate literacy skills such as utilizing graphic organizers. According to Cullen (2016), “in spite of certain similarities, the ways that mathematics, history, science, and arts texts are assessed, viewed, read, discussed, debated, critiqued, and written about often require the use of specialized strategies that differ” according to field specific normative practices. These normative practices are taught to practitioners—often through guild-like academic graduate programs—who perpetuate them through the secondary source text creation process. Brozo further extends Cullen’s argument in defining disciplinary literacy as the need to explicitly provide students with instruction in the “unique language and communication processes of each subject area” (2017, p. 13). As T. Shannon (2012) concludes, “The idea of disciplinary literacy is that students not only have to learn the essential content of a field, but how reading and writing are used in that field.” Disciplinary literacy provides students with the strategies, practices, and processes to understand why content is learned rather than how to just learn. Proponents of disciplinary literacy demonstrate notable consensus that providing students with direct instruction in subject-specific normative communication processes enables students to improve adolescent literacy and to deepen student engagement with content knowledge, which, according to the advocates, results in a host of broader benefits and gains. The importance of disciplinary literacy, according to a variety of proponents, is that by reducing the barriers between student understanding and content knowledge texts educators can deepen adolescent engagement with learning processes, thereby, increasing preparedness for the realities of 21st century citizenship. E. B. Moje (2013) alludes to why emphasizing disciplinary literacy can improve subject matter learning: “Subject matter learning is not merely about learning the stuff of disciplines; it is also about the processes and practices by which that stuff is produced…. Some of the power of knowledge comes from being an active part of its production, rather than from merely possessing it.” The latter, possessing knowledge, in an internet connected world has decreasing utility. J. Mehta and S. Fine (2019) conclude that classrooms that emphasize content “knowing” over authentic content “using” and “knowledge creation” frequently disengage students from the learning process. Both Cullen (2016) and Brozo (2017) argue that a disciplinary literacy approach can increase student engagement with resulting higher literacy rates, graduation rates, and, presumably, life productivity rates. C. Juel, H. Hebard, J. P. Haubner, and M. Moran (2010), identify two explanations for how disciplinary literacy increases student engagement. First, “disciplinary habits of mind can extend students’ reading comprehension by providing scaffolds for thinking” (C. Juel, H. Hebard, J. P. Haubner, and M. Moran, 2010, p. 14). Second, disciplinary literacy prepares students to engage with a defining attribute of 21st century society, the unprecedented access to information and the need to sift through a Pandora’s Box of content (C. Juel, H. Hebard, J. P. Haubner, and M. Moran, 2010, p. 15). In adopting a disciplinary literacy-based pedagogy—or informed system of practice—classroom practitioners face numerous challenges, not least of which is identifying what literacy strategies define a particular content subject-area. Disciplinary Literacy in History The secondary education field of history draws practices of literacy from a vibrant field of guildlike historians based in academia, government, and various public venues ranging from museums to research consultancies. While some specialized subfield practitioners—notably economic and science historians—engage in quantitative data analysis, a large portion of the profession focuses upon practices of qualitative analysis, including critical engagement with multimodal evidentiary sources, construction of source driven arguments, and the construction of causal driven narratives of continuity and change over time. Doctoral programs in history, where much of the disciplinary normative practices are created and disseminated, prepare practitioners to overcome Leopold von Ranke’s maxim, wie es eigentlich gewessen, that an historian cannot experience the past (S. Wineburg, 2001, p. 63). Ergo, historians attempt, as C. Monte-Santa argues, to read “evidence from the perspective of those who created it” through disciplinary specific reasoning practices, including “recognizing biases in sources, comparing evidence, situating evidence in context, and taking into account different perspectives and multiple causes” (2010, p. 541). In an important distinction from certain social sciences and from political science, Monte-Santa notes that “historians do not look for generalizable rules that can be applied to future situations but rather for specialized understanding of the particular circumstances surrounding an event or person that no longer exists” (2010, p. 541). The advanced training professional historians undergo and the trajectories of academic and non-academic careers further demonstrate the importance of developing specialized understandings of particular periods of time. As P. Novick (2009) demonstrates in his history of the historic profession in the United States, historical specialization enables, in theory, each practitioner to contribute a small brick to what von Ranke imagined as the great collective edifice of history. Indeed, as alluded to above, the very types of historical texts an historian is trained to interpret and engages with to construct narratives of the past frequently determines an individual area of specialization. The Journal of World History. Comparative Studies in Society and History. The Journal of the Early Republic. The Journal of the Society of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Diplomatic History. Agricultural History. Journal of Economic History. Journal of Family History. Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. Local Population Studies. The vast number of professional, peer reviewed academic journals of history provide some insight into the texts historians engage with and how these texts are utilized. Texts—more aptly thought of as artifacts of the past—according to Monte-Sano, are seen by historians as “opportunities to construct arguments and situate topics in a historical context by making connections among related issues” (2010, p. 541). Unlike Cullen’s claim that texts used by historians “contain historical events,” Monte-Sano demonstrates that historians construct narratives of the past through overlapping texts (Cullen, 2017; Monte-Sano, 2010). Historical events are constructed from texts. Broadly, historians divide texts into secondary sources—generally used for constructing contextualization or for engaging in professional discourse—and primary sources. The latter comprise artifacts created by witnesses of the past. For an oral historian of the Civil Rights movement, these witnesses might still be living. For an historian of the Classical Maya, these witnesses might be archeological ruins and ground penetrating radar surveys. Historians specializing in the eighteenth century might exclusively utilize textual evidence such as diaries, letters, and published books, which require advanced understandings of etymology, contemporary events and interests, and broader period influences. Most importantly, the professional historian works with what might be considered messy texts often found in libraries and archival collections. In large manuscript collections, hundreds if not thousands of pieces of textual evidence have been preserved and the historian must quickly and efficiently identify valuable textual sets that can contribute to a specific project and those that, however interesting, are ephemeral. As Wineburg notes, much of the thrill and skill of historical research is in finding these artifacts of the past (2001, p. 83). Monte-Sano quickly passed over research in analyzing the difference between novice and expert historical thinkers, while Cullen effectively reduced research to reading (Cullen, 2017; Monte-Sano, 2010). Many of the secondary education theorists of disciplinary literacy noted the centrality of research to historians, but selectively emphasized the discursive and constructivist aspects of the profession. To transform research into historic narratives, historians engage in discursive processes that include informal discussions with similarly themed experts, formal workshop discussions often sponsored and organized by academic institutions, presentations before professional organizations, and instruction of “near” expert students, including those at the doctoral level. Historians do not sit around and, as Woodrow Wilson once exclaimed, list “one damn fact after another” (Wineburg, 2001, p. 82). Instead, historians use the discursive processes to evaluate interpretations of textual evidence and historiographical—the history of history—hypotheses, while constructing new, revised, or expanded discourses on the past. As M. Reyes (2020) succinctly writes, historical conferences are “a place where historians gather to discuss ideas and the latest works on a particular subject. A conference is where scholars, particularly younger ones, develop the skills of public speaking and communicating historical findings to a wider audience.” Through the discursive process, historians translate textual reading—research—into narratives of the past that can withstand the scrutiny of other members of the profession. Normative practices within the discursive process determine with whom an historian might discuss a project (from a mentor in the early phases of the project, through peer experts in similar fields of research, to senior members of the profession) and how that project might be discussed (question and answers, reactions to formal presentations, participation in development workshops). Many of my colleagues in a history doctoral program learned as much from lunchtime conversations with more experienced researchers at the National Archives & Records Administration as they did from formally their doctoral supervisors in the guildlike process of dissertation production. The discursive process in the history profession supports the transformation of raw qualitative data into an evidence driven argumentative, peer reviewed essay or book. Professional historians—whether in academia, government, or public research—produce predominantly written narratives and analyses of the past. Cullen, again partially correct, queries: “How do historians learn about their discipline? They do a log of reading and writing” (2017). Historians engage in a great deal of writing, but they do so to create their discipline. As I am prone to quipping to my students, “The past happened, history is what the sources tell us.” Monte-Sano makes a similar, if more technical, argument: Historical interpretations rely on the public display of evidence to substantiate claims: that is, a claim cannot stand without evidence to support it. The inclusion of examples, details, footnotes, and quotations exemplifies this aspect of reasoning. […] Making the case for a particular interpretation in writing is the keystone of history qua discipline. (Monte-Sano, 2010, p. 541) The methods of constructing written historical argumentation, again according to Monte-Sano, “indicate key aspects of disciplinary reasoning, including recognizing biases in sources, comparing evidence, situating evidence in its context, and taking into account different perspectives and multiple causes” (2010, p. 541). Even the disciplines deliberate adoption of the Chicago Manual of Style’s system of footnotes reflects the profession’s focus on constructing evidence driven arguments. Indeed, graduate students are explicitly taught how to both read the narrative text of an historic monograph and simultaneously read the footnotes or endnotes for the evidentiary argument. In my own experience, many a seminar was spent chuckling over a particularly barbed endnote directed at some long-retired practitioner. A. Goudvia and S. Harvey identify these disciplinary reasoning methods through four generative practices: interaction with multiple texts to build knowledge, questioning for specific purposes, evaluation of authorial purpose and perspective, and analysis through inference (2012, pp. 52-57). Increasingly, training in historical writing also includes language bias training to encourage historians to think about how language selection in their writings convey personal biases that might impact their historical narrative (Wineburg, 2001, p. 113). If history is the constructed understanding of the past, then the writing of history is the act of that construction. Applying Disciplinary Literacy in History to the Secondary Classroom With formal training in professional academic history, including a doctoral program with a multi-archival dissertation, and experience outside of academia in historic preservation with the National Park Service and research consulting with two nationally recognized firms, the discipline of history—how to read, research, and write like an historian—is something that I have not only been trained in, but have performed as a professional. Similarly, as a multiyear veteran of the secondary education classroom and having taught the curricular gamut from 9th Grade Western Civilizations to 12th Grade electives in Genocide Studies, best practices in content literacy are routine parts of my daily pedagogy. Systematically reflecting upon historical disciplinary literacy and applying those analytical functions to the classroom curriculum, though is new and potentially revolutionary in fostering deeper student engagement. For example, one of the greatest challenges I have faced in curriculum design remains World History, which at my present school and many schools following the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Curriculum Framework is taught in the 10th Grade. Currently, my curriculum hinges upon a dense, “fact” driven textbook, W. J. Duiker and J. J. Spielvogel’s (2019) World History 9th Edition, and a series of additional readings from peer-reviewed journals and academic monographs. The latter fully embrace the disciplinary literacy of history with each article or chapter centered upon an author created argument that is supported by subordinate theses through which evidence is evaluated. Duiker and Spielvogel’s textbook, though, is not argument driven, but content driven and seldomly introduces or explains the evidence supporting their claims. History, in their textbook, does not represent the disciplinary literacy of argumentation, but the presentation of a static, unchanging factoid driven recounting of the past. The textbook does not encourage the students to practice discursive disciplinary literacies owing to the lack of argumentation. Similarly, the textbook seldomly aids in student argumentative writing through various primary document-based questions. While the textbook excels at providing contextualizing information from a verified source, the cost in student time never quite seems to align with my own experience of disciplinary literacy. Throughout my experience as an historian, I never consulted a textbook to provide myself with contextualization. A particularly positive unit that I developed for the 2020/2021 academic year further demonstrates the power of disciplinary literacy to foster student engagement, while causing me to question the utility of the world history textbook. Over the course of three months, students have engaged with M. Rediker’s The Slave Ship: A Human History (2007). In reviewing the assignment sheet for the extended reading project, which is available here, I can now differentiate the content literacy strategies—for example requiring the students to use Cornell Notes—and the disciplinary literacy strategies. Amongst the latter, I have included guided reading questions so that students practice how to query a text, chronological reasoning exercises like timeline construction, geo-spatial and environmental analysis to understand how weather and natural features impact human decision making, and etymology explorations to understand how the author was able to construct an historic narrative of subaltern people. Furthermore, I have started to recognize that the students are more engaged with Rediker’s monograph because their discussions and writings are more aligned with disciplinary literacy. The challenge, therefore, remains to adapt the entire course to a disciplinary literacy model by first removing the textbook and then to develop a robust text set with supports for developing contextualization strategies. As an historian, I learned to find contextualizing information in various secondary sources, encyclopedias, and multimedia sources, including documentary films. I can imagine a course centered upon D. Christian’s Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (2011) and punctuated with book driven explorations into critical moments in world history, such as C. Townsend’s Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs (2020) and A. Bollard’s Economists at War: How a Handful of Economists Helped Win and Lose the World Wars (2020). Such a multi-text, disciplinary literacy approach also has the benefit, as Cullen (2016) argues, of fluidly integrating culturally responsive teaching by enabling a greater breadth of historical authors into the curriculum and by exploring the historical underpinnings of contemporary social justice issues. While I now understand the importance of disciplinary literacy and have started to develop methods of directly incorporating the practices into the curriculum I teach, there are still foundational questions about what disciplinary literacy instruction looks like in the everyday. The devil is, invariably, in the details. ConclusionsThrough creating opportunities for deeper engagement with the content fields, disciplinary literacy challenges educators to know more than how to teach and to have the skills of today’s professional practitioners to teach. In so doing, educators can more fully prepare students for the rigors of 21st century citizenship, including—in history courses—the ability to process and evaluate vast amounts of information. In applying my professional training and knowledge as an historian to the secondary classroom, I recognize that I am uniquely placed to implement disciplinary literacy. How other educators, particularly early career educators, can make such a pedagogical commitment remains to be seen and perhaps requires solutions beyond the individual. References Annenberg Foundation. (2017). Reading and writing in the disciplines. Retrieved from https://www.learner.org/courses/readwrite/
Bollard, A. (2020). Economists at war: How a handful of economists helped win and lose the World Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brozo, W. G. (2017). Disciplinary and content literacy for today's adolescents: Honoring diversity and building competence. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Christian, D. (2011). Maps of time: An introduction to big history. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. De Grasse Tyson, N. (2011). Called by the Universe [Interview]. Science Network. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKOoTRE1HUc Duiker, W. J., & Spielvogel, J. J. (2019). World history. Boston, MA: Cengage. Cullen, K. A. (2016). Steps to success: Crossing the bridge between literacy research and practice. In 1183676117 885967087 K. A. Munger (Author), Steps to Success: Crossing the Bridge Between Literacy Research and Practice. Geneseo, NY: Open SUNY Textbooks. doi:https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/steps-to-success/chapter/12-culturally-responsive-disciplinary-literacy-strategies-instruction/ Goudvis, A. & Harvey, S. (2012). Teaching for Historical Literacies. Journal of Educational Leadership, 69(6), 52-57. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar12/vol69/num06/Teaching-for-Historical-Literacy.aspx Juel, C., Hebard, H., Haubner, J.P., & Moran, M. (2010). “Reading through a disciplinary lens.” Educational Leadership, 67(6), 12-17. Mehta, J., & Fine, S. M. (2019). In search of deeper learning: the quest to remake the American high school. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. McCollough, D. (Presenter). C-SPAN. (Producer). (2011). Five lessons about history for high school students [Streaming video]. Retrieved from https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4673073/lessons-history-high-school-students Moje, E. (Producer). (2013). Disciplinary literacy: navigating literacy contexts in secondary school [Webinar PowerPoint]. Retrieved from https://my.lesley.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_73535_1&content_id=_2045939_1 Monte-Sano, C. (2010). Disciplinary Literacy in History: An Exploration of the Historical Nature of Adolescents' Writing. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 19(4), 539-568. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20799341 Novick, P. (2009). That noble dream: The "objectivity question" and the American historical profession. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Rediker, M. (2011). The slave ship: A human history. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Reyes, M. (2020, July 18). Why do hsitorians go to conferences? Retrieved February 07, 2021, from https://contingentmagazine.org/2020/01/11/why-do-historians-go-to-conferences/#:~:text=They%20are%20a%20place%20where,findings%20to%20a%20wider%20audience Shanahan, T. (2012, January 23). Disciplinary literacy is not the new name for content area reading [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/disciplinary-literacy-is-not-the-new-name-for-content-area-reading#sthash.rzMfXPnj.9IGTwdAN.dpbs Shanahan, T. (2015, July 10). Disciplinary vocabulary [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/disciplinary-vocabulary#sthash.a0rpgK18.YR0KBdCH.dpbs Shanahan, T. (2017, July 30). Don't let content area reading experts confuse you about disciplinary literacy [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/dont-let-content-area-reading-experts-confuse-you-about-disciplinary-literacy#sthash.y05lECU8.tGV5QVTm.dpbs Townsend, C. (2020). Fifth sun: A new history of the Aztecs. New York: Oxford University Press. Wineburg, S. S. (2001). Historical thinking and other unnatural acts: Charting the future of theaching the past. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. My alternative academic career plan launched at Plan B, a burger restaurant across from the National Archives where I discussed a yearlong contract with a national historical research firm. I was in the seventh year of my doctoral program at Georgetown University and had been told I would not receive a department stipend for the following year. Over the last four years, aside from graduating, I have pivoted my career from academia to government research to independent secondary education. While I consider myself more comfortable than those blighted souls on the adjunct and contingent faculty career path, my professional development has been fraught with dashed hopes, hundreds of applications, and a struggle seldomly captured in the pithy, eternally optimistic articles about the glorious opportunities for humanities PhDs outside of academia’s hallowed halls.
My path to the booth at Plan B was far from direct. Having grown up in the 1990s, I had imbibed the mantra that class mobility, always assumable upward, could be achieved through hard work and education, the very definition of a meritocratic system. Like many others, I mortgaged my future on an undergraduate degree from which I progressed through an MA in history to a PhD in history. Along the way, there were numerous warning signs that academia might prove to be a siren song, but I was filled with a youthful arrogance that convinced me I could be one of the chosen few that survived to the world of the tenure track. Fueled by a naïve romanticism that a life of the mind was far superior to the materialistic goals of my friends and relations, I concluded that no sacrifice would be too great. Over the course of my doctoral program, both my youthful arrogance and naïve romanticism were gradually eroded. The cost of living in Washington, DC, meant that my doctoral stipend, tenuously awarded on a year-to-year basis by a cryptic committee of sage full professors, could never be fully relied upon. Thankfully, the District has no shortage of opportunities for the overly educated yet underexperienced and I was able to gain flexible employment with the National Park Service as an interpretive ranger through a student temporary employee recruitment program. Since discontinued, the program was intended for undergraduates, but my original manager was thrilled to have a doctoral student for the price of an undergraduate. My five years with the National Park Service seemed like a decently paying aside as I worked my way through the stages of doctoral study, but as coursework and comprehensive examinations gave way to the research and writing process, I started to become more cognizant that my part-time federal job had opened me to an interesting new world, the world of public history. My part-time work with the NPS, which included managing a small oral history project and internship program, gave me enough interesting small talk to garner the attention of a project manager at a national historical research company. After meeting at a Georgetown symposium on what you can do with a history degree, he asked me if I would be interested in the occasional short-term contract. I jumped at the opportunity and over a three-year period worked on projects ranging from researching industrial polluters for environmental lawsuits to developing educational products for primary and secondary school students. Between the NPS, these occasional contracts, and my stipend from Georgetown, which now included teaching undergraduate courses as the instructor of record, I was making a respectable income albeit, while regularly clocking eighteen-hour days. By the time I reached year seven in my doctoral program, I had a lengthy resume filled with an eclectic mélange of work experience that I discussed with my new employer over burgers at Plan B. In the final year of my doctoral program—the eighth year at Georgetown and my fourteenth year of university education—I realized that I not only enjoyed teaching, but also had some talent in that direction. Years of entertaining visitor audiences with the National Park Service and adjuncting at Georgetown University and Pepperdine University’s DC campus had taught me the rudimentary skills of successful instructional practice. As my dissertation wound-down and my contract position soured—too much micromanaging and an increasing realization that advancement would be slow with the growing uncertainty of large federal research contracts—had me throwing myself onto the academic job market. There I met with absolutely no success. As my graduation date approached and I sat once again in Plan B hoping for another yearlong contract, I realized how tenuous working year-to-year could become. I had no safety net, neither high earner spouse nor comfortable parents that could support me through a lean year. So, reading the pithy articles about Plan Bs and knowing I preferred teaching to researching fulltime, I started to apply to independent secondary schools. Not having a public teaching license—which would have required another graduate degree and years of testing—I knew I was limited to independent schools. What I did not realize was that these schools were very leery of recently minted PhDs fleeing the desolation of academia. After more than fifty applications, I had secured only three interviews and one job offer. The offer came from a bottom tier independent school on the verge of collapse in a northern suburb of New York City. I would later learn that four candidates before me had refused the job offer, but as desperate as the school was, I was more so. I spent the next two years in an incredibly toxic work environment, where my value as an educator was assaulted on a daily basis. By the second term of my last year, my direct supervisor had forbidden me from teaching basic writing skills, while the head of school had sold the campus. The school provided me, though, with the one critical aspect my PhD had left me with a dearth of, experience. With classroom experience at the secondary level, the support of two placement firms, and over one hundred and twenty applications, I was able to secure a position with a much better independent school. Financially, I am much better off than any contingent faculty. I make a modest salary that values my PhD as worth five thousand dollars a year and my two years of experience as worth another five thousand a year. My school provides me with a large apartment and all utilities in exchange for working in the residential life program. I have fourteen weeks of paid vacation each year. I have health insurance and even a modest 403B retirement account. I have successfully pivoted from an academic doctoral program to a career in secondary education. The pivot was far from easy and required teaching myself an entire profession, while working fulltime in that profession. Perseverance and blind luck helped as much, if not more so, than the doctoral diploma from Georgetown. Which brings up the question of whether the doctoral degree was worth eight years of my life? I am a better history teacher because of my doctoral degree. My content expertise allows me to teach across the history curriculum not only comfortably, but imaginatively to better engage students. In a profession obsessed with authentically challenging students, I can speak as one who worked as an historian for the federal government and private sector. The PhD, though, was often a hinderance, something that needed to be explained away, as I searched for a job and competed with applicants with MEds and BEds. Indeed, my MA combined with actual secondary teaching experience might have served me better. For those considering a pivot away from academia to independent secondary education, I would caution that the process is difficult without experience. I would encourage doctoral students to pursue either professional degrees or professional experiences outside of academia, while completing their PhDs. You must do more than a PhD. The doctoral skillsets are valuable, but only when paired with experiences that hiring officials can understand. As Plan B, the DC restaurant, astutely concluded, B could stand for burgers, beer, or bourbon. A doctoral student’s career options need to be similarly imaginative and varied. |
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