LBI 610: Careers in Bioscience
Explore Your Future in Bioscience!
This one-credit course, offered every Thursday afternoon in Spring 2024, invites Ph.D. students to discover the diverse career opportunities available in the biosciences. Led by Dr. Vicki Singer, students will delve into various professional paths, from academia and industry to government and beyond. The goal is to help each participant identify a career direction that resonates with their strengths and interests. This class emphasizes career exploration and networking rather than application skills, but personalized career counseling and workshops are available upon request.
What You Will Learn
By the end of this course, you will have a clearer sense of where your Ph.D. can take you and what career paths align with your unique strengths and interests. We will cover:
Self-Discovery: Gain insights into your personal strengths, weaknesses, and passions as they relate to bioscience careers.
Industry Knowledge: Understand the various types of organizations that hire bioscience graduates and the market sectors they operate in.
Career Mapping: Learn about different organizational roles and functions, and how to fit your unique skill set into these roles.
Real-World Insights: Hear directly from professionals across fields like academia, forensics, cosmetics, therapeutics, diagnostics, and government. They’ll share their experiences, career trajectories, and how they’ve leveraged their advanced degrees in bioscience.
Job Identification and Pitching: Learn how to identify specific jobs that match your profile and how to pitch yourself effectively to potential employers.
Assignments and Activities
Your journey in this course will involve active participation and thoughtful engagement with various assignments designed to deepen your understanding of career possibilities:
Self-Assessment and LinkedIn Profile: We start with a self-assessment exercise to help you understand your career preferences. You’ll also create or update your LinkedIn profile to reflect your professional brand.
Research and Reflection: You'll research different employer types and market segments, organizational functions, and roles that align with your skills and interests. Each week, you'll refine your choices based on what you learn.
Career Exploration Paper: Throughout the course, you'll work on a paper where you’ll articulate your career goals, explore specific job opportunities, and reflect on how they match your skills and interests.
Final Presentation: In the final week, you’ll present your career “pitch” to the class, sharing your journey and your professional aspirations.
Class Schedule
Week 1:
We begin by setting the stage, covering course objectives, and starting with self-assessment exercises. You’ll also create or update your LinkedIn profile.
Week 2:
We’ll explore the types of employers and market sectors relevant to bioscience careers. You’ll identify three areas of interest and research these further.
Week 3:
This week focuses on organizational roles and functions. You’ll choose roles that align with your self-assessment results and begin to think about how you might fit into these positions.
Weeks 4-8:
Panel sessions with experienced professionals from diverse fields such as academia, forensics, cosmetics, therapeutics, diagnostics, and government. They will share their career stories, offer insights into their industries, and discuss how their advanced degrees have shaped their career paths. You will refine your career choices and work on a reflective paper, exploring specific roles and employers that align with your personal strengths and interests.
Week 9:
We’ll recap key messages from the panels, synthesizing what we’ve learned. You’ll finalize your paper, incorporating your reflections and insights.
Week 10:
We’ll prepare for the final presentations. This is your chance to craft a compelling narrative that presents your career story and pitch.
Week 11:
Final presentations! You’ll share your story with the class and receive feedback from peers and instructors.