To help graduate students contemplating their next career decision (and confronted with headlines in the scientific press about the overproduction of PhD and underemployment of researchers), the Office of Career Services and the Office of the Dean of Graduate Education will present a professional development event, "To Boldly Go: Practical Career Planning for Scientists and Engineers."
Speaking at the event will be Dr. Peter Fiske, a planetary physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, author of the American Geophysical Union's career guide for scientists and co-author of the biweekly column "Tooling Up" on the American Association for the Advancement of Science's NextWave career web site.
This two-hour workshop for graduate students and postdocs in all fields of science and engineering will be held on Friday, April 9 at 2pm in Rm 6-120. Space is limited and preregistation is required by Thursday, April 1.
The workshop will offer a thorough overview of the process of career planning and job hunting in the 1990s, from the perspective of a young scientist. Topics include transferable skills of young scientists that are highly sought by employers in and out of science; challenges and opportunities faced by those with an advanced degree in science; steps that young scientists can take to broaden their horizons, strengthen their skills and present their best face to potential employers; CVs; resumes and interviewing.
Dr. Fiske has organized and led panel discussions and workshops on alternative careers and career development for scientists at national and international meetings, at universities, and at national laboratories. In 1996 he was awarded a White House Fellowship and subsequently served as assistant to the Secretary of Defense for special projects. He has been featured on NPR's Talk of the Nation, Science Friday. Dr. Fiske holds the PhD in geological and environmental sciences (1994) from Stanford University.
A version of this article appeared in the March 17, 1999 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 43, Number 23).
