Julie Kientz on making her way from small town geeky outcast to uni professor (Part 1)

Changing Academic Life

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2y ago 41:25

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Dr. Julie Kientz is a professor and Chair of the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington in the US. In part 1 of our conversation, Julie shares her fascinating journey from first wanting to be a vet to then getting into a small town college to do computer science and then eventually doing a PhD at Georgia Tech and later getting a tenure track position. Her telling of the story is rich with reflective insights and nuggets of wisdom, whether it is about the about the value of good mentors, advice to PhD students, doing a job search as part of an academic couple, how to survive that first year as a faculty member, making decisions and managing boundaries, and parenting alongside work. In Part 2 we will focus on her path into leadership and being a department chair.

They were such good mentors. And life changing.

The first year is all about survival. So many things you have to learn in that first year [as Assistant Professor].

I learned I can’t do it all so I developed this [decision] framework: will I have fun doing it, will I learn something from it, … am I uniquely qualified to do it?

There are a lot of parallels between mentoring and parenting

Overview (times approximate):

02:22 Julie introduces herself and how she got into computing

05:00 Discovering research and the life changing impact of good mentors

09:25 Getting into Grad School and doing her PhD

11:57 Challenges/experiences doing a PhD and learnings as advice to other students

16:47 Finding her post-PhD path

18:40 Doing a job search together with partner

25:08 Surviving the first year

29:45 Making decisions about service, learning about setting boundaries

34:14 Managing parenting and being more focused and strategic with work

41:25 End

Download a full transcript of the conversation here.