How to Grad & Beyond with Betul

You got through graduate school, found a job and started working full-time for the first time. Everything looks perfect.

Yet, there is a hidden struggle we as former graduate students ignore to address: mental load of transitioning from academia to industry. By nature and by our research training, we are great at many things: data, analysis, project completion, ownership, presentation and so on. However, industry environment is different from academia in some ways that need some getting used to. For example, unlike academic projects – which can have single owners -, projects in industry jobs almost never do. That means we need to develop a strong sense of collaboration and need to learn to be patient when waiting for other people to finish their parts. Industry is also more focused on speed. We usually can’t spend years on a project, which you can do in academia (e.g. dissertation). That means we need to let go of perfectionism to some extent.

I know we tend to power through instead of taking it easier on ourselves. That is what got us through graduate school. But the transition from academia to industry is not mentally easy. We should acknowledge this difference and make time for ourselves to adapt instead of expecting perfection from the start. Believe me, that approach will help you achieve more in your new job.