The following review is a very informative guest post by the highly regarded CMBer Adityarup (Rup) Chakravorty.
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A couple of months ago I was attending a talk by Dr. Alan Dove, the science journalist (you may be familiar with him in the context of the irrepressible podcast “This Week in Virology). He was talking about how more and more graduate students were pursuing “alternative” careers once they received their PhDs, and one thing he said struck me as being very logical, yet something that I had not thought about until then. He said, “The PhD was supposed to expand my options, not restrict them”, and that got me thinking harder about what career options I would have if I didn’t allow the doubt-clouds to obscure my job-search horizon. As I talked to people and trawled the internet for information about these “alternative” careers, I came across the website VersatilePhD.com. And it was good.
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A couple of months ago I was attending a talk by Dr. Alan Dove, the science journalist (you may be familiar with him in the context of the irrepressible podcast “This Week in Virology). He was talking about how more and more graduate students were pursuing “alternative” careers once they received their PhDs, and one thing he said struck me as being very logical, yet something that I had not thought about until then. He said, “The PhD was supposed to expand my options, not restrict them”, and that got me thinking harder about what career options I would have if I didn’t allow the doubt-clouds to obscure my job-search horizon. As I talked to people and trawled the internet for information about these “alternative” careers, I came across the website VersatilePhD.com. And it was good.
Versatile PhD (just going to call it VPhD from now on) was
started in 1999 by Dr.
Paula Chambers while she was getting her PhD in Rhetoric and Composition at
Ohio State University.
Initially it was geared towards students in the humanities and social sciences,
but eventually expanded to include the STEM fields as well. As of July of this
year the website has a stated goal of being of value to academics from the STEM
fields as well. VPhD is focused on what are called “non-traditional” career
choices for someone getting a PhD. What that means is that academic careers are
not really explored in this website; instead you get information on a plethora
of other possible careers such as consulting, IP law and science writing.
VPhD has both a “Free Community” and a “Premium Content Subscription
Service”. Luckily, as students at UW-Madison we do not have to worry if a
particular section is freely available or not. The University subscribes to
this website and so we get access to all the premium content that we might
need. You can go here,
and then click on the University of Wisconsin-Madison link. You will need to
log in using your Wisc-ID and password, and then register at the Versatile PhD
website (the first time only). Then, you are in.
While there are many valuable resources at VPhD, I would
like to focus on three that I found to be very useful. Coincidentally – or
maybe not – these three resources are also highlighted at the VPhD website.
1. Hiring Success Stories
These stories are a unique feature of VPhD and I love them because they
are an incredible opportunity to get a personal and inside look at successful
job searches. Graduate students and post-docs who have been hired write about
their experience during the job hunting process. The success stories range from
a neuroscientist being hired as a Program Administrator at a cancer non-profit
to a molecular biologist hired by a technology licensing firm, and many others.
These individuals share what position they were in right after their defending
their dissertation, how they zeroed in on what they wanted to do, what steps
they took to get their current job and they even include their cover letters, resumes
and/or CVs! This resource provides a huge amount of information and guidance
for anyone who is debating pursuing a so-called “alternative” career within the
STEM fields.
2. Career Autobiographies
These autobiographies are similar to the hiring success stories. The
difference is that the people writing these are more established in their
field, and there’s more of a “story” feel to them. These stories have been
quite useful to me as they chart the many twists and turns people’s careers
take as they grown and learn about what they value and want to do with their
lives.
3. Archived Panel Discussions [Career Panels]
Ever so often VPhD will host an online career panel where
premium members (aka us) can ask questions of individuals who are pursuing a
career in a particular field. The most recent STEM career panel was one
discussing science writing and communication as a career. This is a field that
I am interested in, and while I cannot tell you exactly what was discussed (The
privacy rules of the website prohibit that) I can tell you that the discussion
was very informative and useful to me. In the past, VPhD has organized online
panel discussions about career choices such as entrepreneurship, patent law and
science policy. These discussions are then archived so they continue to be accessible
to any premium member. It has been quite useful – and admittedly somewhat
reassuring – for me to be able to learn how other graduate students and
post-docs have been able to progress into career paths that they found
fulfilling and enjoyable.
In addition to these resources there are also forums where
members can discuss various professional, financial, emotional, personal,
you-name-it-onal, issues in a supportive, informative and somewhat private
environment (This is a premium feature so it adds a layer of privacy to the
discussions). There is also a “Jobs” section at the website. I would highly
recommend this portal to any CMB student who may be considering a career
outside academia.
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(General disclaimer, neither CMB nor Rup are affiliated with VersatilePhD.com, this is done for the general good of grad student-kind). Thanks, Rup!
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(General disclaimer, neither CMB nor Rup are affiliated with VersatilePhD.com, this is done for the general good of grad student-kind). Thanks, Rup!
