ABOUT

Hello, and welcome to the Online School for UNconventional Academics. My name is Stephan Si-Hwan PARK and I am the founder and chief interviewer at the UNCON SCHOOL.

About Stephan Si-Hwan PARK

I am a trained marketing manager who worked in ad agencies in New York and Munich. The biggest client I worked for was Volvo Cars, organizing events for several hundred people at a time. However after one year of consistent 70+ hour workweeks, I needed a drastic career change. Therefore I enrolled into the Master program East Asian Economy and Society at the University of Vienna to learn more about my cultural roots. I liked  my studies so much that I graduated summa cum laude and applied right away for a research position that became available at the Department for East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna. I was lucky and got the job. Since 2011 I have been working full time as a researcher and lecturer while pursuing my PhD. I love teaching and I am passionate about my research that lies at the intersection of creativity and online education. My goal is to develop ways on how to uncover the full creative potential of students through the meaningful use of educational technology.

WHERE SHALL I START?

–> PLAN YOUR ACADEMIC CAREER

Being a young researcher and PhD candidate myself I have noticed that there seem to be very few resources on how to plan an academic career. Therefore I came up with the simple idea of interviewing the best professors of our time from all academic disciplines on how they would plan their academic career today. I am conducting all interviews via video skype, record them and share them with you for FREE. I hope that all videos will become a valuable source of inspiration and knowledge for the next generation of young, ambitious and UNconventional academics. Click here to start planning your academic career for free.

BUT WHAT IF I WON’T MAKE IT AS A PROFESSOR?

–> LEARN META SKILLS (=SKILLS THAT ARE VALUABLE FOR BOTH, ACADEMIA and BUSINESS)

However one thing that I personally identified as a very scary aspect about pursuing an academic career is that there is absolutely no guarantee in ever making it as a professor one day. Walking the academic career path is a high stakes endeavour and staking everything on one career card (becoming a professor) is too risky – at least for me. I rather diversify and spread my career risk by developing skills that I can use within AND beyond academia. Furthermore I am interested in learning from entrepreneurial academics who successfully built a business based on their academic expertise and skills. If you are interested in receiving a pragmatic, actionable and free business education that is tailored for academics, watch all courses here.

SOUNDS INTERESTING?

–> FOLLOW MY JOURNEY ON UNCON TV

UNCON TV is a weekly mini-video blog in which I document my journey as a young academic and online entrepreneur. My goal is to help and inspire young and ambitious academics to make a contribution to the world that goes beyond mere academic work and reaches as many people as possible. Start following my journey.

Can you identify with our mission? Read the comments or ADD YOURS.

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