Everyone who earns a PhD has a story to tell, but some stories are more interesting than others. Unfortunately, what makes a story interesting is hardship. Today’s guest, Dr. Daniel Krantz, a freshly-minted PhD in I-O psych from the University of Akron, had to overcome more than his share of obstacles in the past few years. Along the way, he’s learned some lessons about adaptability and perseverance that we can all learn from.
Transcript
This transcript is AI-generated and may not be completely accurate. Please do not quote myself or any of my guests based on this transcript.
[00:00:00] Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:00:00] Welcome to the, the Department 12 podcast, where we talk about anything and everything related to industrial and organizational psychology. I’m your host, Dr. Ben Butina and joining me today is the freshly minted Dr. Daniel Krantz. Congratulations, Dan.
[00:00:15] Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:00:15] Thank you very much. Thanks for inviting me on Ben.
[00:00:19]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:00:19] As we speak you are just one week removed from your dissertation defense.
[00:00:24]My first question is, how are you feeling right now?
[00:00:26] Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:00:27] It feels good. The took, took while to, to finally get it done. So it was yeah, definitely a great feeling, right when they said you pass.
[00:00:36]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:00:36] Yeah, this is pretty great. You still have the new doctor smell, so
[00:00:40] Everyone who earns a PhD has a story to share about it, but some stories are more interesting than others. And unfortunately, what makes a story interesting is the difficulty and the conflict and the obstacles that you have to overcome. And I think that you, in that regard, maybe have a more interesting story than most of us.
[00:00:59]For now I [00:01:00] want to rewind the tape. And go all the way back to where, and when you first learned about IO psychology. So how did you find out about this field?
[00:01:10]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:01:10] That would have been 2012, 2013, something like that, which is after I already had my undergrad and I was working in recruiting at university of Pittsburgh medical center.
[00:01:20]UPFC I was just doing the work, enjoying it. And then we started using these assessments from a company called select international. , I was like, man, where are these personality job assessments? Where are these coming from? These are kind of cool.
[00:01:34]And I just started to look into that more and was like, Oh, there’s this field of IO psychology. I’ve never heard of it. From there, I just keep became really intrigued with how personality assessments and other kinds of selection tools are created everything that goes into making them.
[00:01:49]The directors of where I worked were real kind to introduce me to a couple of the consultants at select international. And I just learned more from there and started the process of applying to [00:02:00] schools.
[00:02:00] And even though during my time in grad school, I wasn’t. Really doing selection, stuff and research, that was kind of my first love that got me into the
[00:02:09] Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:02:09] field. So what was your undergraduate degree in?
[00:02:12]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:02:12] It’s actually a psychology degree as well as business A double major.
[00:02:17]I went to a really small school and undergrad , we didn’t have any IO class or anything. I think it was mentioned once an intro to psychology, the field of IO for 15 seconds, honestly, I might’ve skipped that day. It was mentioned too. So I never heard of it when I was in undergrad.
[00:02:35]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:02:35] Which is a pretty common story, unfortunately. You got an undergraduate degree in psychology, as well as in business. And. You weren’t really introduced to IO psychology until after you had already graduated. So , you’re working as a recruiter for UPFC. You get exposed to these assessments, you start getting curious about, Hey, you know, where did these assessments come from?
[00:02:57] How are they developed? And then you start thinking [00:03:00] about making a career out of this. Was it assessments specifically that appealed to you, or once you got to know IO psychology, were there other topics that jumped out at you?
[00:03:09] Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:03:09] Yeah, it was definitely, it started out of like, Oh, selection and stuff’s really cool.
[00:03:13]But as I learned more, I became interested in a lot of other areas as well. , I ended up getting accepted at university of Akron and my advisor Dr. Jim defender he’s big into emotional labor field. He’s done different research with with nurses . And , cause I worked at a medical center, recruiting nurses that’s what attracted me to him as well. And there’s just so many areas starting at that point of like, Oh, this is a. A big deal as well, looking at how people manage their emotions, manage stress how to maintain healthy levels of engagement without burning out.
[00:03:49] Once I realized that importance of something, I find it interesting. And so, you know, even how we manage performance, how we train and develop people which can also help things like [00:04:00] turnover and burnout as well.
[00:04:01] And so really spread out from there, as I learned more about the field,
[00:04:04] Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:04:04] When you applied to schools, was the thought right from the start I want to get a PhD in this, or did you consider maybe just doing a master’s and then changed your mind later?
[00:04:15]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:04:15] I pretty quickly zeroed in on a PhD. Part of it was for practical reasons of like a lot of master’s programs you have to pay for. There’s more PhD programs that you’re funded for and Already , having a job, I committed to it, if I’m going to , go in a hundred percent into this, I’m going to go all the way.
[00:04:34]Master’s programs they’re not quite as research focused. And I was really curious to see that side of things at a, at a very deep level. I always enjoyed statistics, even though I wasn’t getting a chance to use that skill at all as a recruiter.
[00:04:46] And so I knew as well, the best training for that would be through a PhD
[00:04:50] Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:04:50] program. ,you decided that, look, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to go all in.
[00:04:54] I’m going to find a program where I can get funding to do this and make it my full-time career [00:05:00] while I’m doing it. And then the other focus is, is research based. So you knew it. Wasn’t just about , getting those initials after your name or specifically related to some career outcome you wanted, there were things you were interested in and you knew that getting into the statistics and the research design and all that kind of rigor that comes with a research degree is what you needed to really find that out.
[00:05:23]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:05:23] Back before I started applying, I had always just assumed a PhD is for smarter people. I’m not smart enough to pursue something like that. And it really took those conversations and interactions with the consultants at select international to.
[00:05:37] Build up a just a knowledge and awareness that, Oh, this is something I can do. You know, people with PhDs are nothing that special, especially now that now that I have one. You don’t have to be a genius to get one you know, hard, hard work ethic is much more important.
[00:05:51]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:05:51] Yeah. I had a conversation with an instructor pretty early on in my program as well, and she just said something to me [00:06:00] that it will stick with me for the rest of my life. And she just said, It’s not about being smart enough. You’re smart enough because you’re here. It’s not just like the smartest people that are going to get through a program. It’s more about being a particular kind of crazy.
[00:06:14] And I don’t use that word in a negative pejorative sense towards mental health issues. That’s not what she meant at all. She doesn’t meant that You have the kind of motivation that is going to ensure that you stick with this, despite all the setbacks, despite how hard it is and how many trade offs you have to make in your life.
[00:06:32] If you’re the kind of person that’s going to do that, then you’re probably going to make it through I’m wondering you started the PhD program what’s going on in your life outside of your academic career?
[00:06:41] Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:06:41] When I first started I just got married. That was the big thing at the time when I first started the program. So moving from Pittsburgh to Akron, Ohio and. That was it at the time. It was pretty simple back then.
[00:06:53] Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:06:53] When you think back to that time, what was required of you to step into that world full time how [00:07:00] important was the support of your spouse at that point?
[00:07:02] Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:07:02] It’s funny looking back because my wife actually, she was working at that time for a startup. And so really wasn’t having a regular income, cause it was like a true like startup startup, there’s not much money there. They’re not, they don’t have like big series a funding coming in right now.
[00:07:19]So it was kind of a commitment at first of we’re definitely going to be living cheap, cheap. We have a little bit of savings. We’re each gonna fully support each other to pursue the thing we want to pursue, whether it’s me, you know, doing the schooling side and her helping get this startup off the ground.
[00:07:35]And just making it work with what we had.
[00:07:37]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:07:37] So it was a team effort. And if you both weren’t supporting each other, it probably wouldn’t have worked out that well for either of you.
[00:07:44]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:07:44] It would have crashed and burned at some point.
[00:07:47]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:07:47] I’m assuming that at the university of Akron it follows a traditional kind of path where you have coursework and then comps of some kind and then you’re.
[00:07:56] Working on the proposal and writing the dissertation and then [00:08:00] finally getting to the defense. Is that fair assumption? Yes. Yeah. So when you think on your coursework is there a particular course that stood out in your memory?
[00:08:08] You’re like, wow, that was, that was really influential. Or that really changed the course of my life or just anything that was like, wow, this is really hard or a lot harder than I expected it to be.
[00:08:18]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:08:18] Good question.
[00:08:19] I think it was during my second year it was a more specialized class I can’t quite remember the name of it, but a lot of it was focused on emotion, regulation control, theory, areas like that.
[00:08:30] One of the things that, pretty common in, in courses is that you build up your big project during the course, you’re building up a research proposal to present that you write up.
[00:08:40]That was the first time of really going through that whole process and submitting it for me. And it was a lot harder. I remember going in, I was like I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do. And I was like, all right, all right. I think I got it.
[00:08:53] This isn’t going to be too bad. And the whole process of dotting all your I’s crossing, all your T’s [00:09:00] on, the exact theory that you’re using to present your argument, talking about any competing theories and everything. It was just a lot harder than I thought and harder in a good way, you really have to dive in and know your stuff to bring a good proposal and a good research study to the table. And then at the same time to answer your first question you had, it was in that same class learning about different motivation theories. Specifically my thesis ended up being kind of centered around self-determination theory.
[00:09:30]Which is focused on need satisfaction that different needs that really play a role in in our wellbeing. And I had never really thought from a framework like that before. I I’d say more naturally, it was kind of more like goal setting theory is how I thought. And so getting a very different perspective on worker motivation, focused more on Thriving and wellbeing, as opposed to just performance and goal setting was a very different way of thinking for me.
[00:09:56]That I think changed a lot about the way I approach anything from performance [00:10:00] management or other other areas in the field.
[00:10:02]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:10:02] It’s really interesting because normally when I have these conversations , the topics are flipped.
[00:10:07]I’ve talked to people who are fairly comfortable with the kind of thing that you’re talking about but they’re super intimidated by the statistics. And the course that stands out for them is when they realized, yeah, this statistics is, is really, really hard, but. I can do it and they realize they can do it and they kind of push forward from there.
[00:10:27] It sounds like statistics were always an interest for you. Was it always something that was a strength and came naturally to you? Or were you challenged in that area as well?
[00:10:35] Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:10:35] Definitely
[00:10:36] a bit was challenged. I I’ve always had a confidence in being able to learn statistics. You know, that there’s been a times more, maybe anxiety around some of the coding with things that but as far as understanding statistics and what’s happening, that that all was more natural for me
[00:10:54]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:10:54] You get through the coursework and then the next stage in this whole process is a comprehensive [00:11:00] exam. What was that like for you ?
[00:11:01]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:11:01] At a university of Akron, you have a kind of a couple of days of close book, essay writing and doing certain statistical analyses. And then starting a couple of months later you have the expertise section where you’re a week to write a couple of really big, difficult essays based on our area of expertise.
[00:11:21] Heading into that final semester right before taking comps it was when we had our first kid. And my studying was different than everyone else in my cohort because I was basing it around a newborn schedule as well as, teaching class at the university.
[00:11:33] And so in that sense it was, it was different for sure. A lot more early morning and late nights studying than during the day study,
[00:11:41]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:11:41] Were you intimidated at all by the comprehensive exam or did you feel like , I got this by the time it came around.
[00:11:47]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:11:47] I think I was opposite of most other people in my cohort in that the closed book, comprehensive exams I did not have anxiety about those. Very little, I guess I was always confident in them. [00:12:00] The expertise part the week long writing was more anxiety provoking for me. Partly just because, you have a week to do this and you always know as you’re writing this, these large essays that your, your work can be a lot better, but there’s not really time to make it.
[00:12:14] Perfect. And so, You know, you have to settle at some points as you’re writing.
[00:12:18] Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:12:18] You get to a certain point where we’re like, okay, this is done, you know?
[00:12:22] Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:12:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the cops part is like, you know, you have a certain number hours to just brain dump information. And I don’t know. I guess, I guess the brain dumping thing of like, Oh, it’s going to be done in four hours.
[00:12:33] Like kind of sucks in the moment, but. Oh, it’s about to be done in a couple hours. So it’s fine. It’s kind of my perspective.
[00:12:40]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:12:40] You’ve gotten through the coursework, you’ve gotten through the comprehensive exams and you’re married, you’ve got a newborn and you’re teaching. So are you teaching fright from the very start of this program all the way through ?
[00:12:53]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:12:53] They start us right away with teaching intro to psychology. And so there’s like a at the university of Akron, there’s a [00:13:00] before the actual program starts it’s about a month or two of training to get ready to teach the course. And then once the program starts, you’re teaching.
[00:13:08] Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:13:09] I think is appealing to a lot of people because it’s a way of paying the bill. Right. But I wonder, did your teaching experience influence , your scholarship or your own graduate work?
[00:13:19]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:13:19] I love teaching especially when I got to teach statistics the process of making statistics, understandable to people and interesting to people that a lot of people weren’t in the program were kind of intimidated by statistics, make meaning in the undergrad psych program there.
[00:13:34]So I love that process. One of the things that really stuck out to me during the training to teach was different different ways, I guess that I guess racial differences in how if we , compare white to black, how black Americans are black students are a little bit less likely to seek help from teachers and That’s that was one of the things that always stuck [00:14:00] out to me.
[00:14:00] Okay. If I’m going to be pursuing, you know equity in the class, I can’t really treat everyone the same. You know, I need to to realize I’m really take people From, an individual level as to what they need to succeed and putting in specific efforts to specifically with black students to, to make sure that they are comfortable approaching me with questions and that I approach them and make sure that they’re that they’re.
[00:14:26]Doing well that I can help answer things that they’re struggling with. And so specifically intervening in areas that the research was showing, Hey, this is where some there’s some racial differences here and where certain groups struggle more than others and making sure I’m making an effort to intervene in those areas and not just treating everyone as though this is my class, and I’m going to do this way of teaching with everyone.
[00:14:48]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:14:48] Did you have any trouble making the shift between teaching at the level that you need to teach undergraduates, intro to psych or stats to the more [00:15:00] rigorous level that you’re dealing with the same subjects, but at a much more detailed and rigorous level as a graduate student.
[00:15:07] Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:15:08] There definitely is that struggle at first. You know, with statistics, for example, realizing those concepts that are second nature to a lot of IO people have like something like standard deviation or a normal distribution and making that understandable to people that have no statistical background, you really have to take a step back and put yourself in their shoes to see where they’re coming from.
[00:15:36]Another learning point with statistics specifically, was that something that I thought would be. Easier to pick up and something I thought would be harder for students to pick up was often reversed. I realized pretty quickly, don’t make assumptions. Start from the ground up with everything.
[00:15:51] Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:15:51] So you get through comps, you pass them, obviously. And now you’re into writing a proposal for your dissertation. [00:16:00] What was going on for your life academically and personally during that time?
[00:16:04]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:16:04] I was after comps that year I stopped teaching and I had a a job in an HR department instead.
[00:16:13] So a bit of applied experience instead is our first kid, was he a year old, then you’re too old? A year old, I guess. And so my life at that point, those were the main things. I still had a couple extra courses to take at that time. And then, you know, it makes with the job and the kid. And then my wife had just changed careers.
[00:16:33] She was switched into software development. She kind of taught herself how to how to develop and was just starting in that field
[00:16:40] Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:16:40] at that point. Okay. So lots of changes in life. You’re switching from teaching to working in an HR department. You know, sometimes I think people imagine that once you’re in the dissertation writing stage, that it’s like, Oh, you get up in the morning and there’s like 12 hours of writing.
[00:16:55] And then you put a period at the end of a sentence and you’re done for the day. But for most of us, there’s [00:17:00] a lot more going on in life. And the dissertation writing kind of goes along with that. Now you shared in a status on LinkedIn that, you know, something pretty remarkable was going on in your life right around the time that you offered your proposal, or are you comfortable sharing what was going on then?
[00:17:17]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:17:17] We had our second kid coming and, you know, it’s funny, like. The first kid and I’m sure a lot of parents can, can relate to this the first kid there’s so much excitement and nervousness about everything. And then when the second kid is going to be coming soon, a lot more competence of like, Oh yeah.
[00:17:35] I mean, it’s a little hard, but we’ve done this before a secondary to that. And so as it was leading up to The proposal date. I knew that it was right around the time, the due date. And you know, I made the committee aware of like, Hey, we may have to push this back a week or something, or, you know, in case the the kid comes suddenly And I was so confident a couple months, a couple of weeks before the, the due date, my friend was [00:18:00] like, Hey, do you want to do a marathon in January?
[00:18:02]This was like, it was in July or something at this point. And I was just like, Oh yeah, that sounds fun. All right. Yeah. I’ll I’ll do that. I’ll have time for that. And then In in August the due date come, the due date comes and the kid is born a little bit before the proposal date and everything was great at first.
[00:18:20]And then I think it was her second day that all of a sudden everyone, you know, us and the doctors realize that she really doesn’t have much, much energy. Like she’s sleeping a lot. You know, and so they, they ran some tests because I think her, her oxygen. Jen is oxygen J oxygen nation was low.
[00:18:42]And and then very quickly she had to get rushed to a larger pediatric facility. And it turned out she had a heart issue congenital heart defect. And the name for it was is tap VR.
[00:18:54] Essentially all the, the veins and arteries are just kind of in amines in her, they’re connected to wrong [00:19:00] things. And and so she wasn’t getting good oxygen at all. Blood flow is not the greatest. And so it was quickly decided, Hey, she’s going to need heart surgery in a week. And. So, you know, that’s, it’s really stressful leading up to that point.
[00:19:13]And then she has the heart surgery it’s successful and but it’s still a long recovery process . And so we’re still in the hospital. And then by the time we were able to leave the hospital.
[00:19:23] It was like 3:00 PM and on like a Tuesday . And then my proposal was the next day in the morning. And so I think I gave the next day, I think I gave like a, is probably the worst presentation of my life, but it was good enough to pass the proposal. I remember walking into the proposal and I was like, Oh, I have. Zero anxiety about how this goes. Like there’s just more important things going on right now. So I just presented answered questions and it was just like, if you pass me cool, if not cool, you know? And my dissertation was like a pretty extensive project that while my wife [00:20:00] and and our youngest is an infant is going through a long recovery process where there’s still a ton of cardiology appointments and neurology appointments as well.
[00:20:09] Checking on how she’s doing. My like data collection was a pretty immense data collection where I was basically collecting data 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM every day for that semester. And so it was definitely a pretty draining few months of data collection.
[00:20:26] Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:20:26] Yeah. You know, my own heart is just like pounding in my chest.
[00:20:30] Just hearing that story and just like you it’s, you know, it’s mainly about your trial and, and the heart surgery and the medical problems around that. And all of a sudden, the academic stuff, as important as it seemed maybe a week before, then kind of fades into the background and you realize that like in the grand scheme of things, this isn’t that big a deal and they’ll get through it.
[00:20:53]I think it’s important for anyone considering going through the journey that you just finished up to realize that [00:21:00] Your life doesn’t stop it.
[00:21:01] Doesn’t go on pause for the number of years that you’re going through this program. Life goes on and sometimes, you know, those other things become more important much more important than what you’re doing academically.
[00:21:14]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:21:14] Yeah, definitely. There’s always going to be unexpected stressors that come up.
[00:21:19]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:21:19] You get through the proposal, like you said, it’s probably not your best to have presentation, but it’s good enough. And that’s another lesson. I think that a lot of us learned through this journey is that Good enough is good enough. You know, trying to Polish everything to a shining point is probably not going to serve you very well because you need to keep your head down and keep moving in this case, your proposal passes.
[00:21:41] And now we’re going to do the data collection. We’re going to carry out the plan that was approved in the proposal and write the dissertation. And then it goes through several processes or your writing in stages or chapters. Then you finally get to a dissertation defense.
[00:21:56] But of course as I mentioned earlier, life hasn’t stopped for you [00:22:00] personally. Life also hasn’t stopped in the world around you. So for the last year or so depending on when you’re listening to this episode a good bit of context you might want to be aware of is we’re in the COVID-19 pandemic.
[00:22:12]So how does your life and your academic work change as a result of all that’s happened in the last year?
[00:22:20]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:22:20] Fortunately that semester of gathering data, which was right before the pandemic, fortunately, I got all the data I didn’t expect to. I thought I was going to be kind of bleeding into March and April, which would have been during the pandemic.
[00:22:34]I thought I’d be collecting data then too, but I got it all in somehow in that first semester. And You know, so the start of the next semester, I’m starting to figure out, you know, you know, data cleaning, figuring out how to do some of the analyses I had to do and things. And then, yeah. And then the pandemic hits and and so you know, pretty quickly, or, you know, we’re pulling our kids out of daycare.
[00:22:58]Our youngest had [00:23:00] been delayed putting her into daycare because during the long recovery process, she’s her immune system is down because of all that’s happening inside of her. And so we were just in the process of having her part-time and daycare and planning to work to full-time, to daycare.
[00:23:14]But you know, pull them, pull them both out completely. And at the same time, my wife has a has a full-time job from home as a developer. And we’re in this tiny little apartment with not much room to hide if you’re trying to do work and there’s two little kids around. It turned everything upside down and as a doctoral student, I’m not the the income provider for this family.
[00:23:35]And so my wife’s job is definitely a hundred percent takes priority. And we went through this process of establishing a schedule with our oldest kid that I guess was three at the time. And the schedule, like a daycare schedule to keep things flowing like our own little in the house, daycare stayed home daycare, we called it and and doing all that it [00:24:00] quickly became pretty difficult, I think to get regular work done.
[00:24:04] And I really had to start being like, okay, one step at a time. You know, they’re napping for 45 minutes here. I think I can figure out this one next thing. And then, you know, cause a lot of dis a lot of the dissertation, it really, you really have to get into deep thought to do it. It’s hard to hard to make progress sometimes if there’s, you know a lot of distractions all at once.
[00:24:25]And so Yeah, it really I guess became a, a balancing act where definitely the, the kids and and just keeping kind of good family wellbeing was the more important part than getting my dissertation done as quickly as possible.
[00:24:39] Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:24:39] You made a good point about so much of the work that you have to do requires deep thought and concentration on interrupted time. And this whole process was designed for full-time students who live at a university. But most of us don’t find ourselves in that position where we have, hours in a university library of uninterrupted time. So you had to [00:25:00] learn to fit that work into the small spaces where it was available.
[00:25:05]And that’s probably a. Skill and the ability that’s going to serve you well for the rest of your, your career and your life as well. So very hard times. But sometimes we adapt and surprise ourselves at how well we can adapt. And it sounds like you found a good way through that. And found a balance point among a lot of competing priorities and got to the dissertation defense, which was about a week ago.
[00:25:31]And now you’ve exhaled you’re feeling pretty good. I’m sure about what you’ve accomplished and, and rightfully so and proud of, of what you’ve done. And I’m sure grateful for the support you’ve had from your spouse what’s next for you?
[00:25:45] Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:25:45] The next thing is I haven’t been able to go all in yet on the job search so that the process now I’m able to get more time into that.
[00:25:55] It had been awhile since I had really applied to jobs over the years. So [00:26:00] remembering who you are writing cover letters and doing all this, it really takes a while. It can take a lot of time to apply to one job and then. You know, and then write adapt that cover letter to another job.
[00:26:09] And so I’m finally at a place now as a, I guess, as a family were able to devote more time to the job pursuit of things. And then at the same time, trying to Yeah finish up and work on, you know, a couple of research projects and figuring out how to get my dissertation published taking a segment of that.
[00:26:27]And you know, our kids still aren’t in daycare, so it’s still working around that as you know, with the kids while I’m doing all that.
[00:26:33]Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:26:33] And, you know, I think you, you point to something that’s unique to apply to fields like ours is that we can’t disappear entirely into one world, either academia or, you know, the.
[00:26:45] I want to wish you the best of luck in your job search. Hearing your story. You seem like the kind of person who’s going to do.
[00:26:51] Great. That you have a great sense of perseverance and being able to adapt to changing circumstances. So here’s one more changing circumstance for you and [00:27:00] back in the world of full-time employment. If you could give some advice to anyone listening, who is where you were when you were doing that recruiting job at UPMC and just getting interested in IO psychology and thinking about, maybe I want to go into a PhD program in this.
[00:27:17]What advice would you give that person?
[00:27:18]Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:27:18] I’d say one thing I think I learned as I went through it is to stop focusing on the. The end goal at the end of the five years for me a little bit, you know, a little bit longer of getting the PhD and then starting your life with your new education don’t focus on that.
[00:27:37] Focus on. What you’re going to be enjoying while you’re in grad school. Specific things in the research that you’re excited to learn specific applied experiences, focus more on what you’re going to be finding interesting and what you’re going to be learning as you’re going through the program, as opposed to thinking about the end goal of what comes next.
[00:27:59] Ben Butina, Ph.D.: [00:27:59] Great [00:28:00] advice. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us today, Dan and I wish you and your family the best. All right.
[00:28:06] Daniel Krantz, Ph.D.: [00:28:06] Thank you very much for having me.
