Academia to Industry

Background

I have been thinking a lot about my experience transitioning from academia to the tech industry and my misconceptions of how prepared I actually was. I realize now, that I was prepared in all the wrong ways and what I would do if I could go back and do things differently.

Writing

- From minimum word counts to being as concise as possible.  
- The corporate dialect - I understand but can’t quite speak or replicate myself.  
- convey thoughts directly and efficiently.  
- To leave feelings at the door.  

Deliverables

- There is rarely a template.  
- Many tasks do require some bit of magic to pull answers out of a hat.  
- Make sure to clarify what is internal vs external deadlines.  
- How many revisions are needed.  
- Some companies prefer deliverables in a certain format - pptx.  
- Some companies prefer text heavy vs not slides.  

Communication

- Everyone is different.  
- Coming in it was typical to be expected to bend your preferences in favor of others.  
- It is okay to speak up if you feel someone is not respecting your time.  
- Learning everyone’s communication styles is hard.  
    - You may not always work with someone who matches your work/communication style.  
- Don’t be afraid to suggest things that might improve processes.  
- For the love of god document the things you would need to inform someone about if they came in the middle of a project.  
- You probably cannot be yourself.  
- Professionalism is still necessary even if you think something is stupid.  

Overall things that helped

- Finding a mentor to trust.  
- Befriending people around the same age.  
- You can be social even if just with those you think you’ll like.  
    - You dont have to make small talk with everyone.  
- Find someone who you can ask all your dumb questions to.  
- Be honest with your manager about the things you’re struggling with, self awareness shows you’re trying to make an improvement.  
- Find someone who is in the same position but higher up that can validate your thoughts, feelings, and intuition about a topic or process.  
- I still believe the corp world would be better if people were just real about things.