Want fries with that?
A few weeks back, I wrote about the temptations of graduate school for adults with learning disabilities — particularly those of us who are “twice-exceptional”. If you’re great at a certain subject, if you enjoy it, if you get validation from your professors in that area, why not consider a PhD program?
If you’re also incredibly weak in the clerical skills required of most entry-level jobs, if your self-esteem has taken a beating over the years because of your learning problems, if you get into the work force and find that the only positions you’re considered for are retail and food service … well, grad school has GOT to be better than this, right?
So you did it. You got into grad school. Only now your friends who graduated last year are back in their crappy service sector jobs while juggling two or three adjunct faculty positions. They can barely make rent, they have no benefits, and you’re beginning to wonder if you’ve been snowed.
What do you do now?
What you do is you come up with a Plan B. As Alexandra M Lord writes in her article, Every PhD Needs a Plan B, it is possible — and for adults with learning disabilities, I would say it is necessary — to simultaneously prepare for academia and the job market. You get an internship.
Lord writes that a paid or unpaid internship (especially a non-teaching one, if you’re already getting teaching experience as a TA) is an ideal way to round out your resume with new skills and experiences. It will also provide you with valuable personal contacts outside of academia. And since most internships have a learning focus, it’s unlikely that you’ll spend all of your time doing those administrative tasks that your learning disabilities make such a nightmare. In other words, when you’re not helping with admin stuff, you’ll have an opportunity to show your strengths.
Read her full article here. For an article on someone whose squash hobby (the sport, not the food) became her career, check out “A PhD in Squash?”
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