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Chapter 21 - The Delicate Art of Balancing Serendipity and Planfulness in an Academic Career

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 April 2022

By
Stephanie A. Shields
Edited by
Jamila Bookwala  and
Nicky J. Newton
Jamila Bookwala
Affiliation:
Lafayette College, Pennsylvania
Nicky J. Newton
Affiliation:
Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario
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Summary

Planfulness, goal setting, and hard work determine the course of one’s career, as do accident, opportunity, and luck. Career advancement and satisfaction depend on managing these two apparently opposing forces. Serendipity, seizing unexpected opportunities to initiate a new research pathway, and planfulness, thoughtful mapping out of a research program, are intrinsic to determining one’s professional pathway. In this chapter, I offer thoughts about how to use serendipity wisely, and how not to be paralyzed by planfulness through considering when and why planfulness and serendipity paid off or not. Among my conclusions, (1) serendipity takes one in unexpected directions; and serendipity does not always feel like opportunity; (2) there is no way to predict what exactly will work out or not. As in the stock market, past performance is not an indicator of future performance, and (3) timing is not everything, but it plays an oversized role.

Type
Chapter
Information
Reflections from Pioneering Women in Psychology , pp. 268 - 279
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

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