Name: Kaidi Wu (she/her)
PhD: Social Psychology, University of Michigan, 2020
What was your main area of research?
My main area of research was cultural psychology. I built a concept called "hypocognition": lacking a linguistic or cognitive framework for a concept or idea. For example, cultures hypocognitive of mental disorders manifest physical ills. People hypocognitive of "benevolent sexism" fail to see their occurrences in everyday life. Dominant groups in society hypocognitive of social privilege fail to see disadvantages endured by marginalized groups. I was able to design interventions that reduce hypocognition and improve social attitudes.
What is your current job?
I am the Founder of Academic Trailblazer, and I reside in California.
I coach PhDs to achieve fulfilling careers.
I love that I have intellectual freedom and time freedom –– two of the most valuable assets I could ever dream of back when I was laboring for the 9-to-5. There is no gatekeeper, no middleman. Success and failure rest solely on my shoulders. The sky is the limit in what I can achieve.
Running a business is one of the few ways to call the shots on your life, to have the ultimate "job security", to decouple time from money. I can scale it up or down. I can sell my biz when I've had a good run. I get to live out different careers while I'm alive. There are very few traditional jobs that give you the opportunity to do so.
How did you find this position? What were the career steps you took to get to where you are now?
I founded the business.
PhD graduate ➡️ postdoctoral fellow ➡️ UX researcher ➡️ senior UX researcher ➡️ founder
Why did you decide to not pursue a career in academia?
It was an incredibly difficult decision. I'm an academic at heart. Being a university professor is a rare W-2 job that provides you the uncharted freedom to explore the questions that interest you in-depth while you get paid to do it.
I went on the academic job market for 5 years, even when I was in industry. I had a professorship offer, but I didn't take it due to immigration constraints.
Working in a corporation gave me clarity of what I despised. I wrote down everything that suffocated me in a 9-to-5 job, flipped them into aspects of life that I desired. I also wrote down everything I loved about academia.
I hired a coach to help me take the first step in taking my career into my own hands. I started speaking, writing, creating videos online, attracting opportunities and partnerships I could never have dreamed of, and founding my business in the process.
I discovered many, many academics working outside of academia: YouTubers, TikTokers, Twitter, Substack writers, digital nomads, comedians. They built an avid audience/readership hungry for their original ideas, sold best sellers, made a living off of writing, researching, creating, all outside of the confines of traditional academia. That gave me courage and conviction that building a business for yourself is not only possible, but far more predictable, stable, and secure in the long-run than any W-2 job you can have.
What advice do you have for someone getting their PhD and looking to pursue a career outside of academia?
Everything is hard: academia, industry, entrepreneurship. Choose your hard.
Academics make the best entrepreneurs. The only thing stopping them is taking the first step:
Money is not tied to skills. Money is not tied to experience. Money is tied to the amount of value you create, for anyone who sees your worth. When you stop thinking 250K is a lot of money, the sky becomes the limit of how much money and freedom you can create for yourself in the long-run:
Here is a guide on what industry job titles really mean: https://kaidiwu.ck.page/4083a330e1
I cover more practical advice and job search strategies on LinkedIn, but I've found broadening perspectives and shifting prior beliefs to be the most difficult aspects during the career transition ("Where you want to go"). Everything else ("How to get there"), you will figure out along the way.