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ACADEMICS ONLY

Getting Be Yourself


9 Ways to Be Yourself

122. Education is a buffet; be something unique.  Some courses are meaty and some are refreshing;  some professors are fiery and others are more chill.  You don't need to be like everyone else.  By being your best genuine, earnest self, and you’ll be adding variety to their educational buffet.

. “25. “Don’t become a parody of yourself.”  Good teachers slowly start to exaggerate the things they’re good at, and they eventually take it over the top and become a parody of themselves.  Dramatic teachers will overfocus on drama. Entertaining teachers will overfocus on entertainment.  Cool professors teachers will overfocus on coolness, and so on. [Read more].

26. “Fun people accidently say stupid things.  Don’t beat yourself up.” Some academics over-edit everything they say before they speak.  If you're more spontaneous, you won’t be happy if you try too hard to change.

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28. Don’t apologize for who I am or hide from it.  I’ve had senior colleagues give me well-meaning advice that I should never mention to anyone that I shop at Walmart, play sax in a rock band, go to church, host board game nights, do stand-up comedy, or go thrifting.  What you love doing isn’t worth being self-conscious over.  If those things are that big of a deal at your school, you’d probably be happier at a different school anyway. [Read more]
 
29. The more 1-on-1 fun stuff I do with different colleagues outside of work, the more I love my job.  The crazier the stuff we do, the more we both seem to love it and remember it.
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Share Your Insights and Ideas

What have you created or found that's been useful and could be helpful for other PhD students, new professors, or independent scholars?  ​
​
  • A pdf handout on teaching 
  • Tips on surviving grad school
  • Favorite career-advice articles
  • A paper submission checklist 
  • A list of inspirational quotes
  • A productivity aid you use
  • ​​​​The goal-setting system you use
  • Your most useful go-to websites
  • Helpful academic How-to articles
  • A method to keep perspective or manage stress

​Send an email to AcademicsOnly@yahoo.com if you have something you think would be useful to share with others on this website
, or if you have ideas on how to make this more useful to you or your students.

Stay in touch

If you want to know when new tools added, blogs written, videos made, or whatever, we can send you an update that points out what might be relevant to you.
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