Escaping the bubble

In this post, Olivia Langford, a PGR in the Shakespeare Institute, shares her experience of a placement with the Royal College of Physicians, the ways it has enriched her research and CV, and her tips for other PGRs considering a placement.

As a PhD student belonging to the College of Arts and Law, opportunities to work with non-academic institutions are perhaps more limited than other disciplines. However, wanting to gain valuable and real-life work experience, increase my range of skills in a field I would like to enter post-PhD, increase my networking connections, and, let’s face it, escape the bubble of academia for a little while made me want to pursue a placement.

The Royal College of Physicians, London.
Image credit: Paul the Archivist, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I was lucky enough to carry out my placement with the support of AHRC Midlands4Cities, who as well as funding my travel expenses, actively encourage and facilitate placement opportunities for all their students. Whilst M4C have a number of placement partners, I wanted to identify my dream institution to work with who I felt could aid my project and who I felt I could benefit during my placement. After visiting them for archival research, I chose the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) in London and based my project around analysing their collection of recipe books from c.1580 – 1660, considering the recipes relating to maternity. This was closely tied to my thesis research, which considers non-English motherhood in William Shakespeare’s plays. The RCP were very accommodating from the outset and helped me to not only put together a feasible project, with mainly remote working involved, but also one that had a suitable timescale as the placement would involve a more relaxed approach to my thesis development. Not every institution will have the staff, time and funding to enable this to happen, however, so it is worth getting in contact with them initially to see if the organisation will suit your individual requirements.

It is important to identify what you hope to gain from the placement, both in relation to your project, and additional skills that the placement organisation may offer you. Before my placement started, I agreed with my primary contact at the RCP that I would publish a blog post on their website, aimed at the general public. This improved my writing capabilities, as I gained experience of being able to produce content for a non-academic audience. I also outlined that I would aim to write an article on my project findings, which the RCP were happy to support. The RCP provided special collections handling, such as knowing how to work with rare and delicate manuscripts whilst I was on-site, and this has really improved my experience when considering heritage jobs post-PhD. I gained skills whilst carrying out the placement itself, such as developing my palaeography skills whilst transcribing the early modern recipe books, which has expanded the scope of my thesis research. It is worth considering how you could use your placement research to improve your public impact and engagement – for example, I presented my placement findings at the 2023 Fertility, Folklore and the Reproductive Body conference.

Outside of all these listed skills and outcomes, however, it is important to consider whether being out of your comfort zone may make you a more capable and flexible researcher. Having lived all my life in a small town in the West Midlands, travelling to London, working in an office and seeing the busy behind-the-scenes of a heritage organisation was all incredibly new, but also incredibly enriching, to me. Take account of your finances, family and research commitments, but also consider broadening your horizons – your placement may just be the beginning of a brilliant career!

2024: a year of good enough

Happy New Year! Despite it being a bit of a cliché, there’s something about a new calendar year and the promise of longer days ahead which makes it feel like a good time to make promises to ourselves about the future. Here’s my suggestion to you for 2024: this is the year you will be good enough.

Photo by ROCKETMANN TEAM on Pexels.com

The media is full of suggestions on how we can be The Best but this year, how about focussing on being good enough?

It doesn’t matter how long you spend writing, re-working and editing your writing, it won’t survive an encounter with your supervisor (or examiners or peer reviewers) completely unscathed. And quite rightly, too – it will be improved by being seen by fresh eyes or by taking into account a different viewpoint. So don’t waste time on trying to make your writing perfect, just ask yourself, is this good enough for review? If you’re concerned that the lack of polish will affect the feedback you receive, be specific about what you need: is the overall structure about right? do the key arguments make sense? have I included enough criticism and synthesis in this literature review?

This shift in perspective can also help when you experience an overwhelming urge to compare yourself to colleagues. Everyone’s research is unique, so of course your skills and expertise will also be unique to you. You don’t need to be the best at anything, only good enough to carry out your unique research tasks. When planning your development activities, plan what you need to be good enough, rather than spending time over-shooting what’s required. In many cases, this will indeed result in you becoming a local expert in a particular skill or method, but there’s no need to make that your key aim or to worry if it doesn’t.

Often, a desire to do things brilliantly acts as an inhibitor to getting things done at all – as many procrastinators will know to their cost. Reminding yourself that the task you are trying to start only needs to be good enough can remove a powerful barrier. A first draft only has to exist. Good enough work is infinitely better than no work. Let go of your inner perfectionist and find increased productivity.

There are all sorts of areas of your life where trying to be good enough rather than the best can help: browsing job vacancies, parenting, housework, keeping in touch with friends, to name just a few more. Be proud of what you can achieve and stop yearning for perfection.

In 2024, good enough is good enough.

Employer Engagement during the PhD

In this post, Alice Kinghorn, PGR External Engagement Project Officer in Careers Network, shares her tips for engaging with employers outside of academia to gain insights into different careers, develop key skills, and build your network.

Engaging with employers outside of academia during your PhD can be daunting. Whether this be through an internship, attending careers event, or building informal relationships with employers, many PhD students have reservations. Perhaps you are concerned about your supervisor’s support in seeking a career beyond academia, or maybe you’re worried about the time needed to build a professional profile.

There are, however, an increasing range of external engagement opportunities (to meet, interact, and develop relationships with employers) that don’t require the time commitment of an intense work-placement or internship. This blogpost explores two ways to do this: building a professional network through LinkedIn, and attending events with external employers. Both are useful ways to gain insights into non-academic careers and to develop professional skillsets.

The University of Birmingham’s LinkedIn profile page, with the “Alumni” section highlighted.

Have a Conversation with your Supervisor

You may be worried about your supervisor’s response if you want to explore opportunities beyond academia, either because they want you to stay in academia, or because they are concerned about time away from your studies. However, recent research at the Universities of York and Sheffield have shown that supervisors of PhD students who undertake external engagement opportunities appreciated the valuable skills they had gained. These included professionalism, adaptability, confidence, and interpersonal skills.

External engagement and support from employers does not replace your academic supervisors. Instead, it can provide critical insights into the world beyond academia. Consider explaining to your supervisor that you are interested in exploring career opportunities. They may even share employer and industry contacts with you.

Use LinkedIn to Grow your Network

LinkedIn is a great tool to grow your network in sectors you are interested in outside of academia without having to dedicate time to attending an event. A good starting point is to see where alumni in your research field are currently working:

1. Head to the University of Birmingham’s LinkedIn page
2. Click ‘Alumni’
3. Search ‘PhD’
4. Filter your subject in ‘What they studied’

Scroll down to start viewing search results. Where do alumni work now? Where have they worked? Are there any fields you are interested in?

Ask to connect with people in your field of interest. In your message, explain who you are, and why you would like to connect. What insights would you like to gain? Why do you think the connection is worthwhile? Growing your professional network this way is quick and easy, allowing you to keep up-to-date in sectors of interest.

Attend Employer-led Events

A further straightforward introduction to external engagement is through events organised by the postgraduate team at Careers Network. Here, you can learn how to draw on transferable skills, key differences working within and beyond academia, and how develop your professional skillset.

For example, engaging with employers requires a different skillset than talking to an expert academic audience about your research. Can you think instead about the skills gained during your research? Project management, problem solving, data analysis, presentation, and interpersonal skills are just some of those that you will already possess. Employer led discussions increase your exposure to external engagement whilst highlighting skills that employers are looking for, how to talk about these skills in interview, and how to develop them during your studies.

To further develop your skillset through employer led events, sign up to the PG Skills Canvas Course. See the latest events on the University Graduate School Events page.

What do you want to be known for? Your go-to question for the new academic year

As the new academic year starts and we welcome new PGRs to the UoB research community, Holly Prescott, PGR Careers Advisor from Careers Network, shares a useful question to help everyone prioritise the many opportunities presented throughout a research programme.

I love this time of year. Not for the anticipation as to who’ll spot the first Christmas advert… but for meeting new PGRs from the across the University embarking on their postgraduate research journeys.

That said, as PGR Careers Adviser, I feel a bit conspicuous turning up to inductions: why am I there to talk to people about what they want to do after their PhD before they’ve even started it? I try to make it clear that I’m not there to pin people down to the career they want to pursue from day one. Instead, I’m there to plant a seed, and to encourage people to go through their research degrees regularly asking themselves:

What do you most want to be known for?

What do you want to be famous for?

What I like about this question is that it doesn’t pressure anyone to commit to a particular career route or job title. Instead of giving closed, limited answers like ‘I want to be a teaching-focused lecturer in the field of behavioural science,’ or ‘I want to be a policy analyst in the healthcare sector,’ this question instead encourages much broader, more flexible, more holistic answers, like:

• I want to be known for my expertise in international relations. I want to be the go-to person people think of when looking for an expert to talk about relations between X and Y countries
• I want to be known for supporting and advising people. I don’t know quite in what capacity yet, but I know I want to be a go-to person for things like mentoring others and helping them to achieve their goals

Another reason I like this question is that it helps you, from an early stage of your research degree, to be strategic about what you say yes and no too. I’m fully aware that induction and re-induction can feel overwhelming: there is so much information to take in, and so many training and development opportunities presented that you can’t possibly do them all. However, if you have some sense of what you want to be known for, then when presented with an opportunity, you can ask yourself… is this going to help me work towards being known for X, or not? If yes, then consider it. If no, then say ‘thanks, but…’ and move onto something else.

For instance, taking the examples above, person 1 could prioritise getting involved in networks and conferences that will raise their profile in their specific subject area. Person 2 could prioritise getting some mentoring or advisory experience: being a postgrad ambassador maybe, or doing some academic writing advisory work.

I often cite the example of a PGR I worked with a few years ago who wanted to be known for communicating science in an accessible way. She used that as a compass to seek out training and experience in public engagement and science communication, including getting involved in a scientific podcast. By doing so, she ‘accidentally’ made herself into the perfect candidate for a job she didn’t even know was a thing: a role that involved going out and interviewing scientists about how they use particular kinds of microscopes, in order to relate this back so her company can improve their microscopy products.

So, if you need a strategy to help you navigate what to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to this year, make friends with the question ‘what do you want to be known for?’

And, if you’re looking for direction with exploring your career options, then check out Careers Network’s PGR Careers Beyond Academia webinar series taking place in autumn 2023; details of events can be found on the Careers Network Postgraduate events page.

Parenting as a PGR: embracing the challenge

In this post, Ed Clay, a PGR in the Department of Modern Languages and a father of twins, gives his tips for juggling parenthood and PhD research.

Lots of postgraduate researchers refer to their PhD project as their ‘baby’. That is, of course, until they have a real one! It goes without saying that parenting while doing a PhD comes with its difficulties, but none of them are insurmountable, and some may even end up helping to motivate you through to the finish line. I’m sure there are endless pieces of advice for PhD parents out there but hopefully my experiences might help people in a similar position to embrace the challenge.

Ed Clay

In my experience, the most important thing to do from the outset is to make sure you have the right mindset. Stop comparing yourself to PGRs who are not parents and stop feeling like you need to do everything they do. The reality is that you will need to make sacrifices and simply won’t be able to commit to as many conferences and other opportunities as you might like. However, this can also work in your favour because it forces you to be selective and only sign up to those things that you are sure will benefit you directly.

It is likely that you will go through periods of feeling guilty for being away from your children and for not spending all the time you have with them because of your research commitments. I find the best way to overcome this is, where possible, to make sure you have regular family time each day and each week that is protected and sacrosanct, and ensure that you put your research to the back of your mind during all those times. It’s not always easy to switch off like this, but the more you try to do this, the easier you will find it to cope with the feelings of guilt when you are away from them.

In practical terms, I have found that there are other seemingly small changes you can make to your day-to-day research routine which can have a big impact on your family life. If you are lucky enough to have children who sleep relatively well through the night, as ours now do, then try to make the most of the time that you have when they are asleep. I work well in the early morning, so I found getting up an hour or so before the children allowed me to increase my undisturbed working hours significantly per week.

This might seem like an obvious change, but at first I was rigidly sticking to my usual working hours that I had before children, and getting frustrated when my productivity was not as good. This wouldn’t work for everyone and some people much prefer working later in the evening, but it is important to think creatively about how you can block out a decent amount of time for yourself to get research done in a way that doesn’t affect the time you are able to spend with your children.

The main thing to remember when working your way through PhD research while also raising a family is that your research routine will look very different from most other researchers because you obviously need to prioritise your children. However, prioritising your children does not mean putting your PhD work on the back-burner, just that you need to be a little more creative in how your manage your time and be selective on what you commit to. Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ to things that don’t fit with your plans. After all, that great feeling when you finally submit your thesis will make those late nights (or early mornings) all worth it!

How to be your own best supervisor

This post is from Dr Vikki Burns, an ex-Professor and certified life coach. She runs The PhD Life Coach coaching, workshops, and podcast, as well as the UoB online group coaching programme. Here, she explores the importance of the way we speak to ourselves.

As a PGR, we have supervisors and other people around to support us, but a lot of the time we are managing ourselves. We decide when we start and finish work, what we do each day, and what our expectations of ourselves are. We’re also the voice that we hear most often. What is that voice saying? What type of supervisor do you want to be for yourself?

We’re going to start by thinking about what type of supervisor you are at the moment. I coach PGRs all the time and see patterns in how you speak to yourselves and how you treat yourselves.

How many of these resonate with you?

• You have very high expectations for yourself, and beat yourself up when you don’t achieve them quickly and easily.
• You set unrealistic goals and give yourself unclear instructions.
• You tell yourself that you are not good enough to be here, and someone is to going to figure that out.
• You tell yourself you have to do all the things, they’re all important, and that you don’t have time to get them done.

Do those things feel familiar to you? Are these ways you speak to yourself? I bet they are. It’s true of an awful lot of PGRs (and academics!). But I want you to pause for a second and think: would you accept that from a supervisor?

If you had a supervisor that gave you vague instructions, told you that everything was important and there was no way you could get it done, and you weren’t really good enough anyway, you wouldn’t put up with it. Or if you did put up with it, you would see that that person was making your life more difficult and you would wish they were another way. So, let’s stop doing this to ourselves.

You can start by thinking about your dream supervisor. Get a really clear picture of what qualities they have and how they speak to you. Compare that to how you speak to yourself.

I want you to pick out three qualities that your dream supervisor has, the qualities that you need most right now. Is your dream supervisor more compassionate or reassuring? More ambitious? Has more faith in you? Maybe they’re more structured and help you set goals and work out action plans.

Now let’s think about how we can nurture these qualities in ourselves. How can you try and be that boss for yourself? Can you set aside time where that boss plans a little bit for you? Can you write down thoughts that you want to try and keep at the front of your mind while you are working this week?

Remember, it’s not easy to change the way you speak to yourself. We’ve been talking to ourselves our whole lives, and absorbing loads of messages from our environment and from society that aren’t necessarily helpful. So this week I want you to notice when you speak to yourself in ways that you wouldn’t accept from a boss. Notice with compassion, and then consider swapping in the dream supervisor’s voice, the one who’s going to be the exactly the supervisor you need.

Don’t worry if you find this difficult – just notice and persist. Even just pondering the idea that you ARE your own supervisor is a useful reflection. This is going to be a lifelong process. We are going to be supervising ourselves every day on this earth. Let’s start making ourselves the very best supervisor that we can be.

Juggling Priorities: Navigating Parenthood and Postgraduate Studies with Grace

Starting yesterday, the University of Birmingham’s Parents and Carers Fortnight 2023 is a programme of events from the Parents and Carers Network. Natalia Hartono, a final year PhD student in Mechanical Engineering, shares how she balances her research programme with her responsibilities as a parent.

Balancing the responsibilities of being a postgraduate researcher and a parent is a unique challenge that demands sacrifice and unwavering determination. In this blog post, I will share my personal journey, highlighting the valuable lessons I’ve learned along the way. Despite the difficulties, maintaining a positive mindset, embracing personal growth, and having positive supports have been instrumental in navigating this demanding lifestyle.

Embracing Scholarships and Responsibilities

Receiving scholarships to pursue my postgraduate studies was a privilege, but it also came with significant responsibilities. Meeting requirements and achieving milestones demanded substantial time and effort. I am grateful for the opportunity to pursue my studies and acknowledge the sacrifices my family has made to support me on this journey.

Finding Joy in the Journey

Natalia competing in the final of the 2022 UoB 3MT

Participating in university events and competitions has truly enriched my academic experience. Instead of fixating solely on winning, I have always prioritised embracing the joy that comes from the process itself. I firmly believe that the true value lies in the growth and learning that occur along the way, regardless of the final outcome. This mindset is something I am wholeheartedly instilling in my child, teaching her the importance of embracing both successes and failures as opportunities for personal development. By embodying resilience and persistence, I am actively laying a foundation for my child’s future, emphasizing the fulfilment that stems from the journey rather than the pursuit of victory.

The Price of Pursuing Higher Education

Behind the accomplishments lie a multitude of sacrifices: sleepless nights, working on weekends and holidays, and missing out on leisure time have been part of my journey. However, I always make an effort to find dedicated time for my daughter, showing her that she is loved and cared for. While the path has not been easy, my family and I have prioritised my studies, knowing that these sacrifices are temporary and will ultimately benefit our collective future.

Overcoming Challenges During the Pandemic

Starting my PhD and adjusting to a new school for my child in a foreign country coincided with the pandemic’s challenges. Lockdowns and school closures disrupted our routines, but through resilience and unwavering support, we navigated through. My husband’s understanding and our commitment to prioritising our daughter’s needs played a vital role. Night-time chats became our solace, fostering stability. I adapted my study routine to dedicate focused time at night, balancing academics with my daughter’s emotional well-being. This experience taught us the value of flexibility, adaptability, and family support in challenging times, strengthening our bond.

The Power of Supportive Networks and Services

Building a strong support system is crucial for successfully balancing parenting and postgraduate studies. My relationship with my supervisor and research group has provided invaluable guidance and encouragement. Additionally, utilising resources such as Library Services and joining networks like the “Shut Up and Work” community have improved my time management skills and created a supportive environment. Importantly, I’ve also recognised the importance of seeking help when needed and accessing mental health support during periods of burnout.

Navigating the demanding yet fulfilling phase of balancing parenthood and pursuing postgraduate studies requires sacrifice, understanding, consistency, and a positive mindset. Throughout my personal journey, I have come to appreciate the significance of embracing the process and cherishing the valuable lessons learned from both triumphs and setbacks. The unwavering support of my family and the resources available to me have been invaluable. Although the path may not always be easy, prioritising and fostering a supportive environment enable us to navigate this demanding yet fulfilling phase of our lives. Remember, you are not alone—seek support, maintain a positive outlook, and find joy in gracefully managing these intertwined priorities.

PIDs – what are they, and why are they important?

Vicky Wallace is a Research Skills Advisor in the Research Skills Team, Library Services, and in this post she demystifies persistent identifiers (PIDs), their role in research and why you should care. You too can become a PID person!

At a basic level, a PID is a persistent identifier – persistent (in that they are fixed, unchanging), and an identifier (a unique string of characters).  For all PIDs, their persistence is maintained due to the governance of, and between, the PID granting organisations. 

You are probably already aware of, and utilising, two important PIDs:

• DOIs, Digital Object Identifiers, are persistent identifiers designed specifically for research outputs.  They enable accurate data citation, making it easier for people to locate, cite, link, assess and re-use a digital object.  DOIs are well established in the community.
• ORCID is the Open Research Contributor ID.  It consists of a 16-digit code that a researcher keeps throughout their career, enabling effective author disambiguation.  ORCID has been adopted by the scholarly community, with over 10 million members from over 1000 member institutions in 44 countries.  ORCID is mentioned in UKRI’s Open Access Policy.

Whilst PIDs as single entities are useful in the role of access and disambiguation, they also provide the opportunity to link systems together.  This provides three key benefits for research:

• Reducing research bureaucracy
• Increasing efficiency for researchers and others in the research landscape
• Enabling open research

At a recent OASPA/JISC webinar Catriona MacCallum, Director of Open Science at Hindawi, summarised the benefits for researchers individually, including the following:

1. Enables search and discovery, linking the article to other research outputs, researchers and organisations
2. Helps provide persistent provenance and credit for researchers
3. Makes research on research easier
4. Helps with research evaluation
5. Helps make publications, and publishing, more trustworthy
6. Provides a basis for development of new tools and services
7. Enables more efficient tracking and reporting of costs and pricing for publishing services in line with funder/institutional policies
8. Reduces manual labour in the workflows – from comms to credit
9. Reduces the administrative burden for researchers
10. Greater marketing tools and more intelligence
11. Makes science communication more cost-effective and efficient

JISC, in collaboration with the Morebrains Cooperative, are leading a range of relevant work-packages to break down the barriers to widespread PID adoption.  This includes establishing five priority PIDs to maximise the potential for different systems to interoperate:

• People (ORCIDs)
• Outputs (DOIs – Digital Object Identifiers from Crossref and DataCite)
• Grants (Crossref Grant IDs)
• Organisations (Research Organization Registry’s RORs)
• Projects (RAiDs)

Widespread adoption of these priority PIDs would be hugely beneficial for all involved in the research ecosystem.  See Morebrains’ PIDcycle for more information on how and when PIDs come into play, streamlining processes.

To contribute to the PID movement, “become a PID person”.  Meadows et al’s 2021 PIDs 101 presentation suggested four steps to achieving this:

1. get and use PIDs
2. tell your PIDs about your other PIDs
3. share your PIDs with the community
4. join the PID forum

Browse related training opportunities from the Research Skills Team in the Library to get started!

Finding my PhD life raft

Laura Cook is a first-year distance-learning PGR in the Department of Philosophy. She has found a podcast helpful as she has navigated the challenges of starting her programme, and here she explains why.

I entered my first year of doctoral study knowing a PhD would require my deep, sustained engagement, even if balanced with a full-time job. Therefore, in an attempt to feel well-prepared ahead of starting my studies, I subscribed to nearly every ‘How to do a PhD’ guide, YouTube channel, blog and podcast out there! Within a couple of weeks I had cast all the self-proclaimed PhD gurus aside: they either confused me or confirmed my looming imposter syndrome. Only one of the initial tools in my PhD toolbox survived the first few months of life as a PGR, the ‘PhD Life Raft Podcast’.

Photo by Floris Mulder on Pexels.com

Many PhD resources focus on the process of reading, researching, and writing the PhD. The Life Raft tackles these areas but also the personal peaks and troughs we have to navigate in order to get a PhD over the finish line. Dr Emma Brodzinski’s PhD Life Raft Podcast is a great resource because it humanises doing a PhD covering a wide variety of topics both professional and personal. What I have found even more helpful than the podcast is the other offerings Emma has developed that are affordable (often free!), accessible and geared towards postgraduates in the UK system.

In January, I joined a ‘PhD Planathon’, five focused days in the company of other PhD scholars from around the world where we made plans, took personal action towards our PhD and were supplied with some great tools for self-management. This didn’t mean five days solid of workshops, rather it was an early morning Zoom call with a focus for the day and then activities you could dip in and out of as you found useful. I think it worked especially well for me as a distance student as it forced me to be accountable to others and to commit things to paper. It almost functioned as a ‘Shut up and Work’ week, but with advice, research planning resources and questions, and a specific focus to get us going. The PhD Life Raft offers other events like this throughout the year with different areas of focus, there is one coming up soon with a emphasis on shaking off perfectionism.

We are all more than our thesis or our research papers and, as a recent distance student residential week in Birmingham reminded me, we are all very different in the way we approach things.  Before beginning my PhD I had assumed my development would quickly move on to building discipline-specific knowledge and that the ‘soft stuff’ of cultivating my work/study/life balance would fall into place. I am quickly learning this simply isn’t true!  The PhD Life Raft certainly hasn’t solved all my problems, but I have found it useful so far as a source of wisdom from folks on the PGR journey, and perhaps others in the UoB PGR community might too.

Imagining Career Possibilities through Guided Imagery

Last year, Faith van Horne, a PGR in the Department of Theology and Religion, led an activity with Careers Network on guided imagery for career decision-making.

Many career exercises focus on cognitive, logical activities. These ‘left-brained’ approaches include making lists of one’s strengths and experience, applying them to different careers, and so forth. Guided imagery, on the other hand, is a ‘right-brained’ activity, stimulating non-cognitive responses such as those produced by art, music, etc. By engaging your creative mind, guided imagery can stimulate career ideas you might not have otherwise considered.

The American Psychological Association defines ‘guided imagery’ as ‘a mind–body technique involving the deliberate prompting of mental images to induce a relaxed, focused state with the goal of achieving such varied purposes as managing stress or pain, promoting healing, or enhancing performance.’ In the case of career decision-making, the goal is to stimulate creative images and ideas around potential careers. Other aspects of life and well-being can arise as well. For example, one workshop participant noted the presence of a particular family member in the scene they imagined, prompting them to take into account geographical distance from family as they thought about their career. Creative engagement through guided imagery opens up all kinds of possibilities when thinking about potential careers, including other aspects of life than work.