Work-Life Balance

An Honest Conversation: Parenting in the Academy

By James Steur, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Parenting is both a fulfilling and demanding experience, and parents in academia face unique professional challenges at all stages in their career. Parents in the academy juggle a high volume of research, teaching, and…


Coping with COVID-19: A Graduate Student’s Reflections

By James Steur, a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign About one month ago, I wrote a blog post about strategies for networking at the 2020 MPSA Conference. To be frank, given the last few weeks, my post about networking and my own research seem…


How to Thrive in Graduate School (Whatever That Means)

By Colleen Wood of Columbia University In addition to thematic panels, the 77th Annual MPSA Conference offered a wide range of roundtables on professional development including practical discussion of fieldwork and research tools and bigger debates on pedagogical practices and public engagement.…


Two Paths to the Palmer House: Planning for the #MPSA19 Conference

By Colleen Wood of Columbia University Being a first-timer at MPSA is often synonymous with attending and presenting at any political science conference for the first time. For those graduate students who will be presenting their research for the first time, the weeks leading up to MPSA are…


Work, Well-Being, and Social Connections: Advice from a Graduate Student on Finding the Correct Proportions

By Kevin DeLuca of Harvard University “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” - Some wise person For academics, I think the saying is backward: “If you, an academic, love what you do, you’ll work every day of your life.” The line between work and life in academia is often…


Juggling Academic Time and Technology: Advice from a Millennial

By Garrett Pierman of Florida International University The digital age is in full swing, especially in academia. In class, our students, if they are allowed, are browsing, tweeting, liking, and sharing across the web. They are also, one can hope, occasionally taking notes. Maybe you’re doing much…


Do Academics Stink at Work/Life Balance?

And is this scaring away students? By Alex Ellison At the 2018 Midwest Political Science Association Conference in Chicago, IL, I attended the session, Trying to Balance Work and Life with Joel Raveloharimisy from Andrews University, William Raymond from Benedictine College, Marjorie Hershey…