This post is to help me sort out my thoughts on revising my first first author paper to submit to my PhD advisor at the end of this month and eventually, when it's ready, to submit to academic journals for publication. You might ask: why am I doing this now, when I'm pursuing other interests besides a traditional academic career? What's in it for me?
Well, there's several reasons:
- I may be outside of higher education and science research right now, but I haven't completely ruled out returning to that arena is some non-traditional way (i.e., not as a traditional professor at a research institution). So working on this paper and having a publication or publications from my PhD research can only help this endeavor.
- I would like more "science cred" for the non-higher education academic ventures I am pursuing at this time: private school science and math teacher, school science lab manager, and independent science educator.
- I would like more people (including non-academics) to have access to my research, because I believe the work I did is very relevant to current climate and environmental issues.
- In some ways it's closure on the PhD chapter of my life. My experience in graduate school may not have been typical, but it had a very profound effect on my self confidence and forced me to reexamine my dreams and ambitions. I
- I want something of mine in the scientific literature
That's about it. I'll be back for updates on the paper. If you've been wondering what I've done recently, please check out author Juliette Wade's YouTube channel "Dive into Worldbuilding." I was a guest recently talking geology. You can watch all her videos here: Dive Into Worldbuilding
Stay tuned for more!
