The SSE Sponsorship Highlights present personal stories from individuals who have received SSE funding. This month we highlight the Diverse Careers Workshop at Evolution 2019. Continue reading to hear more about the workshop from the Diverse Careers Committee.
The SSE generously funded a workshop on career exploration for graduate students and postdocs at this year’s Evolution meeting. The workshop, titled “Leveraging Your PhD: Careers In and Out of Academia”, offered participants concrete tools for exploring career options beyond tenure track faculty roles, with a focus on networking and informational interviews. The event also provided participants opportunities to speak with evolutionary biology Ph.D.s employed in a diverse range of institutions and fields, including museums, community colleges, academic administration, science writing, crop breeding, and tech start-ups.
Based on pre and post workshop surveys, participants reported feeling significantly more prepared and confident about finding jobs outside academia. When asked in a follow up survey what they found to be the most valuable part of the workshop, they gave the following responses:
“I used to feel unskilled, but now I feel that I can sell the skills that I have/will gather during my Phd. Also knowing about informational interviews, that (is something) I was unaware about.”
“I loved the techniques for career exploration and meeting so many people with different careers after graduate school. I feel like knowing about other options is the hardest part for me.”
“The roundtable discussion because we got to speak with a diverse array of panelists working outside of academia.”
“All of the panel were super helpful in explaining their past and supportive to the participants.”
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