Karen Kelsky is
Ouch!
I'm afraid I resemble that remark. I do the best I can to help my students prepare for their careers, but I don't think I do it very well. I simply don't know much about the world outside colleges and universities. I have some plausible guesses about what the rest of the world is like, but that's what they are -- plausible guesses. I can give pretty good advice on how to prepare for a job at a university or college, but I'm afraid I'm of little help to students who decide to look for jobs in other places. I can mention things like USAjobs.gov for jobs with the federal government and I can rattle off the names of a variety of NGOs that might hire biologists, but I don't have first-hand experience that tells me what kind of preparation students will need for those sorts of jobs. It's something I need to do better. If anyone reading this has advice for me -- and my students -- please share it with us.
My advice to students: (1) Pester your advisors (that includes me) for advice on how to ensure your success -- the way you define success. (2) Share the good advice you receive with your peers -- and with your advisors (there's a lot that we need to learn, too).
[a] former tenured professor at a major research university, I am now running an academic-career consulting business. That's right: I am doing graduate advising for pay. I am teaching your Ph.D. students to do things like plan a publishing trajectory, tailor their dissertations for grant agencies, strategize recommendation letters, evaluate a journal's status, judge the relative merits of postdoctoral options, interpret a rejection, follow up on an acceptance, and--above all--get jobs. And business is so good I'm booked ahead for months. (source)Her recent column in the Chronicle of Higher Education takes Ph.D. advisors (that's me) to task for being part of an "absentee professoriate", not because we neglect the research training of our advisees, but because we neglect their professional development.
Ouch!
I'm afraid I resemble that remark. I do the best I can to help my students prepare for their careers, but I don't think I do it very well. I simply don't know much about the world outside colleges and universities. I have some plausible guesses about what the rest of the world is like, but that's what they are -- plausible guesses. I can give pretty good advice on how to prepare for a job at a university or college, but I'm afraid I'm of little help to students who decide to look for jobs in other places. I can mention things like USAjobs.gov for jobs with the federal government and I can rattle off the names of a variety of NGOs that might hire biologists, but I don't have first-hand experience that tells me what kind of preparation students will need for those sorts of jobs. It's something I need to do better. If anyone reading this has advice for me -- and my students -- please share it with us.
My advice to students: (1) Pester your advisors (that includes me) for advice on how to ensure your success -- the way you define success. (2) Share the good advice you receive with your peers -- and with your advisors (there's a lot that we need to learn, too).
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