19. Be Adventurous

Academia is really great at training grad students and faculty to silo themselves into disciplines that don't get much crossover or exposure to other disciplines. (If you're in a field with a lot of disciplinary crossover, that's awesome.) Many hiring and promotion guidelines, disciplinary journals, hiring committees, etc., prioritize/privilege those who have stuck with the field and not branched out. (Of course, your mileage may vary.) For those of us who have been trained to not branch out or for those of us who think it would be a waste of professional time to branch out, this episode is about the benefits of being adventurous.  This episode was recorded in Austin, Texas, where I was attending a regional conference facilitated by the edtech company TopHat and their (mostly) STEM educators. I am neither a STEM person nor an edtech person, but I decided this conference was my opportunity to be adventurous. And, needless to say, I had a fantastic time and learned a lot that I can apply to my own teaching and administrative role.  As always, I would love to connect with you on LinkedIn and feel free to drop me a line about topics you're interested in me exploring for future episodes.