From this course, I have re-examined and redefined myself. I have a clearer design for career goal after graduation. In the following parts, I will review what I have learnt and my progress.
The truth of labor market for PhDs
Before I took this course, I was a student who just concentrates on lab work. The thing I concentrated on is how to publish papers and when I can graduate. I did not have much information about the labor market and what choices I have after graduation. I thought maybe I would apply for a position as a researcher or professor. However, from some graduates’ experience, I also found that the positions for professors and researchers are competitive, so I was really confused for a long time.
And this course helps me to know the reality of labor market for PhDs. Form the module 2, I learnt the fact that only one third PhD graduates can obtain teaching positions in university and many of them have a salary not compatible with what I thought PhD should obtain. In order to deal with the lack of academic positions, we should see more opportunities outside university and develop the skills to adapt to the market. For example, it is necessary for us to acquire training for career because our daily work mostly only concentrates on science. So I think this course is really helpful to me. It shows us the reality of labor market and motivates us to think more and make a plan for job hunting after graduation and make preparations for it.
With the reality of the labor market, I thought about the career development from three aspects:
- The reality of positions: what are the possible positions for me, including academic positions and non-academic ones? What do they look like?
- Self-portrait and job match: Who am I? Which positions I prefer or suitable for? What competences do I need to obtain my desired positions? And what are the competences I already have?
- Career design and development: For the competences I have not obtained, how can I develop them? How should I design and archive my career?
With these questions, I continued to learn our course, and finally I obtained the answers.
The characters of positions in academic and non-academic fields
In the module 7 and 8, I have known the characters of positions in academic and non-academic fields. For academic positions, both advantages and disadvantages were shown to us. For example, on one hand, Dr Ollivier Dyens claimed that the professor job is his dream, with which he worked as a boss for himself and was paid to work with passion. On the other hand, the paper <<Dérives de la recherche et détresse psychologique: une recherche qualitative>> ( Chantal Leclerc et al, 2016) told us that the unhealthy competition can cause enormous stress among teachers, when they are pushed for all the administrative tasks to perform. And about 25% teachers suffer from psychological problems.
Learning this module, I thought the story about a PhD student graduated from our laboratory many years ago. He is a Chinese whose research concentrates on structure biology. After graduation, he took a post-doc position in McGill University and then competed as an associate professor in Laval University. However, after he has obtained the position and build his own lab for many years, I found that he also suffers from psychological distress. As an immigrant, he needs to learn French to give classes to students and get the position of full professor. Furthermore, the competition for funding application is also aggressive. The overall stress pushed on him together for long time, and this gives a result of psychological problem.
From this experience, I evaluate the academic positions from more aspects, not only my interests on research projects but also the funding opportunities and psychological health.
For the non-academic positions, I learnt several points from the videos of Mr. Daniel Gariépy. Working in the company, PhD graduates always do the different projects with what they did in PhD studies. Therefore, they need to transfer the research ability to the new projects. And Mr. Daniel Gariépy also said during PhD studies, students could put more eyesight and learn more things in the similar fields, not only just know the specific things in their own projects. This will help them to have integrated knowledges in the relative subjects with our projects. Moreover, besides scientific works,
sometimes PhD graduates also need to give public presentations inside or outside company, it is better that they have the competence of present work in a way understood by the people who are not experts in this field. Similarly, PhDs also need to work with people from different academic backgrounds, most of who are not PhDs, so they should learn how to communicate with them more effectively and accomplish the task together. One important aspect of working in company is to obey to the deadline, especially when they work in team.
Self-portrait of ability and job match
From these characters of jobs in academic and non-academic fields, I think of my abilities and what I am suitable for. I have studied in the program of molecular medicine for three years. And I have some transferable abilities. For example, when I do a project, I search for literatures to check the previous studies, critically think their results, plan and conduct experiments, and analyze data and write paper or give a presentation on conference. Each step is an important skill and these skills need to be combined together to complete the whole project. Furthermore, I also try to understand the mechanism of experiments, which is the thinking way of know-how. Therefore, in daily work, the competence has been built without realization.
In my spare time, I practice writing and public speeches. I think these are two transferable skills which show profound influence on other skills. For example, writing improves the critical thinking by reading and thinking articles in different views, and it is also an effective way for online communication and attract friends who have similar values with us. For public speaking, it can be useful for academic presentation as well as the introduction of a new product or conception to a group of people.
Therefore, with these abilities and my interests in communication with people, I prefer to design the career development in the non-academic field. It will be so nice if I could obtain a position in large pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer or Sanofi. For the positions in these companies, besides the transferable abilities for research, I also need the ability of leadership, excellent communication skills, and skills of making my competences obvious to employers, and the ability to build more networks. In addition, I need to improve French, which is mostly used language in Quebec.
For the abilities related to research, I develop them in daily life, such as competences of searching and selecting key information, designing and managing a project, analytical thinking. I will try to enhance them more during PhD studies. For the other competences such as leadership and network building, I need to find other ways to improve them.
Career design and development
From the career goal, I know I want to develop my career in the pharmaceutical companies, working in the field of biopharmaceuticals, which combines my education backgrounds of pharmaceutical sciences and molecular medicine. For education background, I will continue the studies in my program until graduation.
For other competences, I will develop them as follows.
Communication ability: When I saw the job advertisements, I found many positions have the requirements of good writing and oral communication abilities. From the experience, I also think writing and public speaking are two necessary abilities to create a personal brand. Writing is a communication method to make our thoughts read by many people from different places and at different time. Thus, I started a blog to write the business history stories. On one hand, it is a good way to push me read classic books and know the history of great companies. On the other hand, I can keep on improving my writing ability and try to influence more people who share the similar values with me. For public speeches, I have participated in Toastmaster International in Laval University, which provides me with opportunity to practice public speaking and leadership. In the club, I have tried public speeches for four times. Each time, I obtained very effective and useful feedbacks, which showed me the points I have done well and ones I need to improve. With these practices, I hope I can improve my communication ability in both writing and oral presentations.
Be analytical to the world and build networks: I am fully agreed with the opinion in the article “Graduate students should engage in alternative, non-academic career opportunities” (Rebecca Pero, 2016). Participation in non-academic opportunities could help us build the networks in a broader way, observing the true reality and improving judgment of the reality in the world. When we only work in lab, we will lose the judgment of the reality in the world because we will form in a stable way of thinking as a result of staying in the same network for a long time. However, if we can be involved in more non-academic opportunities, we will have more opportunities to see the real work in society, and meet different people to learn what they do and what they think. In this way, our judgments to the world will be more objective. Moreover, we can be related to the real work earlier and better prepare ourselves to adaptation of job hunting after graduation.
In addition, the non-academic opportunities could offer us more chances for serving for others, which gives us a sense of achievement and build our confidence. Most PhD students have different difficulties in their researches. Sometimes we really feel frustrated about ourselves when we cannot resolve the problems. At this moment, working in non-academic opportunities could help us contribute our values in another way. When we help other people, we will feel a sense of achievement and build our confidence. And this will be a positive feedback to our psychology and enhance our confidence to solve the difficulties in the academic work. Therefore, I try to apply for the volunteer positions from https://www.spla.ulaval.ca/monspla/recherche?type=benevolat and keep on obtaining more opportunities to corporations and networks.
Leadership: This is the ability I need to improve. Now I have been the treasurer in toastmaster club in Laval University. With the work together with other members, I have already help three new members to be members in the club and make clear financial forms for club. Taking the role of treasurer, I felt the responsibility for the club and build the trust among the officers. Moreover, in the following term, I will try to take some online courses on leadership and management.
Finally, with all the abilities, I will also need to make them obvious to employers. And this course builds my attention and methods to career development and the conception of making skills obvious to employers. Now, I still have a question that " I have searched for many jobs on linkedin. Many of them give the requirement that employer need bachelors with three to five years’ relative working experience. As a PhD, we have higher education level but we are lacked the working experiences in the relative field. In this circumstance, what can we do to deal with this problem? Is there any method to persuade the employers or compensate our drawbacks?" And for this question, I will ask help from SPLA in Laval University to promote my professional integration.
Overall, this course helps me know the labor market for PhD graduates, the characters of jobs in academic and non-academic fields, the competence portrait of myself, and what competences I need to improve to make my career design in reality. I will follow the instructions and practice what I have learnt in my life and be better prepared for meeting the challenges after graduation.
