Transition Q & A: Sunny Chan, co-op program specialist
PhD to life. Her biggest piece of advice? You absolutely must take the lead for yourself.
Sunny Chan earned her PhD in English literary studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is currently a co-op program specialist at Ryerson University’s Career and Co-op Centre, and also works as a creative writing instructor, artist, and freelance academic editor.
What did you hope for in terms of employment as you completed your PhD?
Shortly after I reached ABD (“all but dissertation”), I noticed that signs I wasn’t fully invested in a traditional academic track for my career were beginning to add up. My main interest in being an academic was my writing, but everything that I published and enjoyed working to make publishable wasn’t in my field of specialization. I came to the realization that if it was the main reason holding me to this idea of academia, I could just . . . keep writing and publishing in the fields I like without being an academic, since they clearly wanted my work anyway. [....]