Where can Ph.D.s work if we give them the opportunity for new work experiences and the support for understanding their career options, strengths and preferences? At the American Council of Learned Societies, we’ve been investigating the outcomes of the Mellon/ACLS Public Fellows Program through the career trajectories of its alumni. This postdoctoral fellowship program aimed to demonstrate the value of advanced training in the humanities and interpretive social sciences. Over the course of 10 cohorts (2011–2022), ACLS placed nearly 200 recent humanities Ph.Ds. in two-year positions in government, nonprofits, policy organizations and cultural institutions.
Five years after the fellowship, alumni were in all kinds of positions, from directors at nonprofits, deans at universities, managing editors at publications and full-time faculty. One notable finding was that 18 percent of the alumni of the program’s first six cohorts were working as consultants or independent contractors five years after the fellowship. This mode of work, whether working for a research consulting company, starting your own business or freelance editing or writing, is an attractive option for some. What drew fellows to this work and how can current Ph.D.s decide whether this path is right for them?
Observe Where and How the Work You’re Passionate About Is Done
A number of fellows became freelancers because during the fellowship, and their subsequent full-time jobs, they learned that the kind of work they especially enjoyed doing was more frequently done on a contract basis.
One Public Fellows alum, Susannah Laramee Kidd (F ’15), became interested in research and evaluation work at the end of her religion Ph.D. She was excited to take up her fellowship as a research analyst working under an experienced evaluator with the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. At the same time, it became clear to Laramee Kidd that there were few full-time positions in arts research and evaluation. During her fellowship, she consulted a bit and took a workshop on independent consulting with the American Evaluation Association. After working for a small consulting firm, she became a full-time independent consultant in early 2020 doing research and evaluation and strategy for place-based arts and cultural programs and other community development initiatives.
Another fellowship alumnus, Craig Eley (F ’14), is now a freelance audio producer and editor. His fellowship placed him as a digital producer for a Wisconsin Public Radio show, but it was not primarily an audio production position. Before the fellowship, during his American studies Ph.D., a professor recommended he investigate how his historical area of research, sound technologies, operated in the present, and he took some electives on audio production, which he incorporated into his later work.
After this, Eley worked in an administrative capacity at a humanities center and a consortium of humanities centers. At the time, there was a podcast boom, and as Eley describes, “The audio and sound stuff kept knocking at my door, and so I finally stepped through that door when the time was right.”
Deciding freelance work is right for you, then, requires research into two areas:
- The shape of the labor market; and
- Your own interests and preferences.
Fellows recommended keeping track of both during your degree and in subsequent jobs. Write down the things you’re doing and how you feel about them. You can use that information to make further decisions.
Follow Your Interests
For some fellows, the work they’re doing now was a side project that they became increasingly invested in until they decided to give it a go full-time. Public Fellows alum Umi Hsu (F ’13) worked as the arts manager at the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs during their fellowship, stayed with the DCA for several years and then was the director of content strategy at One Institute. A Ph.D. in ethnomusicology, Hsu had long been interested in experimental and artistic sound production but only incorporated this into their professional life during their fellowship. They created a community sound project called LA Listens and then produced a podcast at One Institute. Hsu also started Bitter Party, a “postcolonial ethnographic pop band,” transforming historical popular music from East and Southeast Asia.
As Hsu describes it, “I thought, this is what I love to do. And I didn’t know that I would love this until I did it. It was through hands-on practice that I realized, what if I can do more of this and less of the other stuff?” In October 2023 they received the opportunity to work as an artist in residence at a sound studio in Taiwan, developing a long-standing autoethnographic sound project.
This was a key message from fellows who explored independent consulting: Stay curious and embrace your side interests, both during your Ph.D. and afterward, as you never know where they’ll lead. Don’t be afraid to dedicate some of your limited time to things you’re passionate about.
Independence and Flexibility
Fellows were also drawn to the level of independence and flexibility, of both time and focus, in independent work. This might make it particularly attractive to those who are used to self-managing their work and following their interests through the long haul of the humanities Ph.D.
This ability to choose the work, clients and collaborators was attractive to Susannah Laramee Kidd. “It’s more about flexibility on how I do the kind of work that I work on and how I get to collaborate with people.”
Haley Swenson (F ’17) became a parent during her early freelance years and appreciates how she can schedule her work around her son’s schedule and her wife’s work. Swenson, a Ph.D. in women’s, gender and sexuality studies, was a deputy director at her fellowship organization, the think tank New America, when she left to become a freelance researcher and writer. During the pandemic, she burned out on managing and missed interviewing and writing. Going freelance in summer 2022, for her, was “a chance to get back to the work.”
At the same time, it is important to consider whether you prefer external structure in your work life when deciding whether to go freelance full-time. Stephanie Malak (F ’18) was a fellow at the Los Angeles Review of Books and emerged into the challenging labor market of 2020. She worked freelance full-time for a while out of necessity, but she is now in a full-time administrative position as senior associate director of internship programs and special initiatives for Barnard College’s Beyond Barnard, which she prefers.
Still, she’s kept the hustle she used finding side work during her Ph.D. and when she was freelance and is a freelance developmental editor with Ideas on Fire and the translations editor for The Common, a literary magazine. She sees freelance work as a way to keep her foot in the scholarly areas she engaged through her Ph.D.
The Business of Freelance
Independent work has its challenges. Health insurance is one of the top concerns, and more than one fellow mentioned that their ability to be an independent contractor is enabled by their partner’s health insurance. Having another household source of income also helped with the ebb and flow of freelance work.
One of the positives of freelance work—the ability to take on different kinds of work, according to your interests—can also be a strategy to diversify income streams. Umi Hsu flagged that arts employment is, if anything, more fickle than the academic labor market. They have been exploring work they can do in parallel to sustain and inspire their independent artistic work. For instance, they’re working with the Digital Transgender Archive to produce a podcast series using rare tapes from the archive.
Haley Swenson manages this uncertainty by maintaining a reliable 12-month contract with a former employer for 10 hours of work a week. That allows her to make decisions in some of her writing work driven not solely by economics (a challenge in the current state of journalism).
At the same time, several reported that they initially struggled with taking on too much work—a real concern for freelancers starting out who are reluctant to say no to future clients. It may take a while to get a sense of which projects may “mushroom,” as Susannah Laramee Kidd puts it. Initial negotiations with potential clients are an essential part of figuring out a balance between project scope and fee. Memorandums of understanding between collaborators and clear contracts can help keep everyone on the same page when conflicts arise.
This was another key lesson from our conversations—the time taken up by the business side of being a freelancer: invoicing, finance, taxes, scheduling meetings, business development and so on. Craig Eley points out that, “You have to love the work, but you also have to realize that a lot of it is doing completely different kinds of work.” It requires a lot of organization—something Ph.D.s often learn through completing their dissertations.
Networks and an understanding of the industry in general are also essential to a full-time freelance career. Swenson says there was a real advantage to having had a position within a think tank and knowing how the sector works. She recommends thinking about people and organizations you might want to hire you in the future while still in graduate school. Internships, summer jobs and other opportunities to collaborate can be invaluable. Informational interviews can be key to seeing what’s out there.
Final Thoughts
Through our research on Public Fellows’ alumni career pathways, we have found that career trajectories are often not as straightforward as they may seem on LinkedIn. While many program alumni stayed in their roles for years beyond the fellowship, others moved across sectors, from nonprofits to teaching to higher education administration to consulting (with some working in multiple of these sectors at any one time).
Career discernment is a process that unfolds multiple times in the course of a working life. For current students or Ph.D.s considering exploring consulting or other nontraditional professional opportunities, going full-time freelance is not a now or never, and it may not be a forever. But it is something to consider. A humanities perspective, Craig Eley says, can be a valuable addition to clients.
As Haley Swenson points out, “one of the concerns Ph.D.s I talk with have about jobs is ‘Will I still be able to do the things I care the most about?’ Think about consulting/freelance if that’s the way you want to go. I think there’s huge untapped potential for academics to engage with the public about things we think about in the academic world.”
