Carissa Wilbanks
Carissa is a fifth-year PhD student who specializes in literature and culture of the U.S. South. Before coming to Brandeis, she received her B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2017. This year, she looks forward to spending more time working on her dissertation while also pursuing various opportunities that will allow her to buff up her professional skill set.
“In the traditional academic model of the past, all-but-dissertation (ABD) PhD students were encouraged to keep their heads down and focus primarily on their writing, perhaps with a few breaks in which to prepare conference presentations or rework chapters as potential journal submissions. Now, however, employers in both academia and industry are looking for a much more varied set of experiences and abilities in their candidates. In order to be a competitive applicant in our fast-approaching job searches, ABD students today need to consider how the skills we’ve honed during our years in graduate school might transfer to other potential career opportunities.”