I did a master’s degree in Urban Planning at McGill, and I discovered that transportation planning was fascinating to me and I had more questions that I wanted to explore. I wanted to dedicate time to thinking about and solving problems that I probably wouldn’t have the opportunity to solve outside of that PhD setting.
I consider myself very lucky that I had a supervisor who really valued making sure that his PhD students got a chance to teach. I co-taught a class with my supervisor and got to develop lectures and exam questions. I also gave a lot of guest lectures in different classes that were related, either very specifically or a little bit more broadly, to the research I was doing.
In my first year, I received a MEDA (McGill Engineering Doctoral Award). One of the best things that came out of the MEDA is that I met some of my best friends at the welcome reception. At the reception, there were not that many women compared to men, and we ended up sitting at the same table and introducing ourselves. We started chatting and we are very good friends still to this day. That social bond right at the beginning of the PhD had a huge influence on my wellbeing. The MEDA funding also helped that entire group of friends develop doctoral research that ended up landing all of us jobs we are very happy with in various countries around the world.
After my PhD, I applied for public and private sector jobs and I also did some interviews for Assistant Professor positions, but I wasn’t successful with those. I had some opportunities for postdocs, but I wasn’t really sure whether that’s exactly what I wanted to do.
I ended up going into private engineering consulting working as a transport planner, and I absolutely loved it. I worked with a great team. It was very interesting and I had a great time, but it was not an easy transition, emotionally. I felt very isolated from McGill because my perception of what McGill was communicating to me was that the story of a successful PhD finishes with a job as a professor.
Developing business skills relevant for industry was not a big challenge though. I had taken a business course at McGill for non-business students that helped me learn some of the vocabulary that business analysts use. And besides, your PhD isn’t just science. It’s human resources, it’s project management, it’s figuring out legal agreements for data, etc. There are so many parts of the PhD that are not just calculating something or developing theory.
I am now working in the Netherlands at Utrecht University as an Assistant Professor in Urban Accessibility and Social Inclusion. I had been working in the private sector for a while when a job opportunity opened up. At the time I wasn’t actively looking for an academic job, but I just saw this particular opening with a group of great researchers that was interesting to me and in a really nice location. I thought to myself “let’s just try and see” and I ended up getting the job.
I moved to the Netherlands first while my husband was finishing his PhD at McGill, and now we’re both living very happily in Utrecht. It’s a great place to live and I am very happy with the academic environment. It’s a different university system compared to Canada, but I’m still working on the questions and the research that I’m interested in and teaching also.
I think it’s important for students to know that you don’t just choose one job after your PhD until the end of your life. You can switch. Maybe you’ll need something now that you won’t need in 10 years. I think that’s a much more honest way to think about it, but I never heard that dialog during my PhD. I never thought switching between industry and academia was a real possibility.
When I started my PhD, I would have appreciated being reminded that the PhD is really the time to learn, because there are very few other moments in your life where you get that opportunity. Especially in the first two years when you’re not rushing to get papers done, you should be selfish about that time. Take the time to read and learn and reflect and talk to different people. It’s not the time to fear failing your comprehensive exam or not completing your PhD. It’s a time to live in the moment of what you’re learning.
This story was adapted from an interview conducted by TRaCE McGill. Click here to read Dea’s full interview.