Nathan
Vanderford

The Skills Great Leaders use to Successfully Navigate Change

Leaders are constantly navigating decisions and actions that are critical to the well-being of a project, situation, and/or organization. The importance of these decisions and actions becomes even greater when significant change is occurring, or must occur. In addition, the way in which leaders navi...


Nathan
Vanderford

Managing Your Personal Finances

In the US, the month of April is synonymous with federal and state income tax deadlines. For millions of Americans, Tax Day is a dreaded day. A more positive outlook to take, however, is that tax season is a government-facilitated reminder of the need to focus on your personal finances in gener...


Nathan
Vanderford

Don’t Avoid All Risk: On Becoming a Skilled Risk Manager

Imagine if a start-up company in an emerging market called you today and offered you your dream job with all your dream benefits and in your dream geographic location. Would you take the job without reservation? Or would you immediately envision the risks involved in a start-up company in an unprove...


Nathan
Vanderford

Ignore Fear: A Key Step to Being Happier and More Successful

Fear is defined by many as being afraid or apprehensive. We all have thousands of fears, many of which are very rational. These rational fears ultimately prevent us from being hurt in some way. We also all have hundreds or thousands of irrational fears. These irrational fears canprevent us from doin...


Nathan
Vanderford

On the Failure Myth

There is a heart-wrenching myth among us PhDs, which is that PhDs are failures if they do not obtain a tenure track faculty position. The “failure myth” has been perpetuated for decades and has thus been heard by most all graduate students and postdoctoral fellows (and many others…). This ...


Nathan
Vanderford

Visiting goals at year-end and planning for the new year

I’m not a New Year’s resolution practitioner, but what I do like to do at the end of the year/beginning of a new year is to think about my goals. Goal setting is a best practice for all professionals and especially those who are looking to make personal and professional advances. What you have t...


Nathan
Vanderford

Just Publish!

Do you want to write, be an author, or publish? Well, here’s my advice…but first, some history. I published academic journals several times as a graduate student and as a postdoctoral fellow and, even after transitioning out of research a little over four years ago, I have continued to publis...


Nathan
Vanderford

New Study Highlights the Utility of Being a Multi-skilled Employee

Data from a study released recently by Northeastern University aligns with common trends emerging about the perception of the role and responsibility of higher education and its primary clients i.e., students, in regard to preparing future employees. Among other important conclusions, the results hi...


Nathan
Vanderford

PhDs Are Everything

Over 50% of PhDs work outside academia (Science and Engineering Indicators 2012) which means that many PhDs are indeed working in a variety of different jobs, and most importantly, this means that the majority of PhDs are not pursuing tenure track faculty positions. Despite this, a perpetuating stig...


Nathan
Vanderford

The Relevance of Graduate Education

Do you think that the majority of graduate education programs today are providing relevant education and training to their students in relation to the jobs that graduates are actually obtaining? The National Science Foundation’s report titled Science and Engineering Indicators 2012 indicates th...


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