Late-Night Talk: Desmond Felix. A PhD Career Can Be Linear If You Learn To Adapt

I'm not sure that we have the actual empirical evidence to say that once you get your PhD that you don't develop lifelong collaborations, right? I think it's probably really varied.

I think some people... hold on to some of those relationships that they formed during their PhDs and some people don't.

But I will say like, I can certainly understand why some people are reticent to hold on to those relationships because some of those relationships, may have been, uh, really, um, unproductive, very difficult, very like emotionally, um, challenging, right? There's a lot of power dynamics in the academy.

And I, I know from mentoring, um, dozens of doctoral students that some advisors are really fantastic and some advisors are not.

Um, some advisors give their students a lot of, uh, agency, but also direction.

And some people, um, uh, you know, sort of create really toxic, dependent relationships where grad students feel constantly like beat down and never really like they're contributing.

And that can feel really icky.

Like, why would you want to maintain a relationship with somebody who kind of berated you, you know, a constantly, even if maybe they had like good intentions to try to get you to think better and to be your best self.

Um, it doesn't feel good, right.

To, to cultivate, um, or to, to hold onto a relationship in which you feel really emotionally scarred by.

Um, and so for sure there are, um, those are some of the reasons I think people wouldn't hold onto those relationships.

And I think other people, um, I do try to encourage people, don't be dependent on your advisor.

Really try to have a team of people who are supporting you.

When I was in grad school, my advisor was amazing in many ways.

And there were ways in which he wasn't really helpful to me.

And so I reached out to other professors.

I also reached out to a lot of professors who are emeritus status because they really wanted to engage with students like they were kind of at the part of their career where they're Legacy is what they're able to pass down to next generations.

And so I had coffee with several professors who were like in their 80s and their 90s.

And they would read my work and they would give me feedback and they were like such amazing sources of wisdom.

And I didn't have those kinds of like... those power dynamics weren't there in a way because they had nothing to prove and they had a lot of time for me.

So, so yeah, my advice to people is like, if your relationship with your advisor is not working out, like make sure you are really diversifying the people who are on your team.

And hopefully those relationships will carry on as you pursue your career, regardless of whether you stay in academia or not.

I'm not sure that we have the actual empirical evidence to say that once you get your PhD that you don't develop lifelong collaborations, right? I think it's probably really varied.

I think some people... hold on to some of those relationships that they formed during their PhDs and some people don't.

But I will say like, I can certainly understand why some people are reticent to hold on to those relationships because some of those relationships, may have been, uh, really, um, unproductive, very difficult, very like emotionally, um, challenging, right? There's a lot of power dynamics in the academy.

And I, I know from mentoring, um, dozens of doctoral students that some advisors are really fantastic and some advisors are not.

Um, some advisors give their students a lot of, uh, agency, but also direction.

And some people, um, uh, you know, sort of create really toxic, dependent relationships where grad students feel constantly like beat down and never really like they're contributing.

And that can feel really icky.

Like, why would you want to maintain a relationship with somebody who kind of berated you, you know, a constantly, even if maybe they had like good intentions to try to get you to think better and to be your best self.

Um, it doesn't feel good, right.

To, to cultivate, um, or to, to hold onto a relationship in which you feel really emotionally scarred by.

Um, and so for sure there are, um, those are some of the reasons I think people wouldn't hold onto those relationships.

And I think other people, um, I do try to encourage people, don't be dependent on your advisor.

Really try to have a team of people who are supporting you.

When I was in grad school, my advisor was amazing in many ways.

And there were ways in which he wasn't really helpful to me.

And so I reached out to other professors.

I also reached out to a lot of professors who are emeritus status because they really wanted to engage with students like they were kind of at the part of their career where they're Legacy is what they're able to pass down to next generations.

And so I had coffee with several professors who were like in their 80s and their 90s.

And they would read my work and they would give me feedback and they were like such amazing sources of wisdom.

And I didn't have those kinds of like... those power dynamics weren't there in a way because they had nothing to prove and they had a lot of time for me.

So, so yeah, my advice to people is like, if your relationship with your advisor is not working out, like make sure you are really diversifying the people who are on your team.

And hopefully those relationships will carry on as you pursue your career, regardless of whether you stay in academia or not.