Trondheim meet-up - Navigating Academic Life - Event 1

An academic career allows focusing on new scientific challenges and questions, to dive deep into the undiscovered aspects of nature, all while being surrounded by an environment and people sharing a dedication for excellence. This is inspiring, but early career academics also have many more challenges than other career paths, many of which go beyond the research subject one was prepared for. For example, projects are mired with delays; misunderstandings and miscommunications with supervisors and colleagues; managing emotions after a never-ending series of failed experiments and uncomfortable confrontations with professors etc…  Academic life can also be intoxicating, keeping one so focused on their research field that it leaves them unaware and incapable to adapt when their career paths leads them outside of academia. All of this can be overwhelming, and many PhD and Postdoc finds themselves lost and uncomfortable, unaware of how to navigate the many.

Time and place: –, WorkWork, Munkegata 58 Trondheim

Registration is closed.

 

Navigating academic life will span over 4 events taking place on late Tuesday afternoons. The seminar  will run from 17:00 to 19:00 and we will offer drinks, refreshments, and pizza to enjoy during the seminar. At its conclusion we will move in the pub areas below where the speakers and attendees can socialize and keep discussing in a relax, open-ended format. 

 

  • 9th April - Academia oriented
    • Tips and tricks from experiences academics on how to succeed and establishing work-life balance. Exploring how to face academic life challenges and transform setbacks into valuable steps toward success.
  • 23rd April - Academia and industry oriented
    • Mastering the “Housekeeping Skills”. Bridging the communication gaps between individuals in different roles (e.g., PhD and supervisor/professor), and climbing the communication ladder, i.e., how to interact across hierarchies.
  • 7th May - Industry oriented
    • Experiences from ex-academics, and how they transitioned.
  • 21st May - Industry oriented
    • Inside the Employer's Mind. Sharing in career paths and experiences from ex-academics, what the industry looks for and how they met the requirements.

 

Course description

We are arranging this crash course to help early-career academics in dealing with problems and obstacles they will inevitably encounter during your PhD or Postdoc life, including failures, emotional stress, and setbacks. We will also provide an outline of the possible paths that awaits them after their academic life.

Academics that transition to industry often find themselves confused and later have regrets for things they had not thought or were not aware. Without planning head, but also knowing what to look for, one may end up accidentally closing important opportunities. We want to increase awareness and knowledge transfer for this often difficult transition.

Therefore, we have invited several ex-academics (who have obtained a PhD and often did a Postdoc too) and that have been working in industry for the past few years. They will come to share in their experiences, challenges, and the thoughts they had when venturing in industry, as well as what industry looks for and consider when hiring. The goal is to increase awareness and knowledge transfer for this important transition that is too often side-lined during academic life.

 

Learning outcomes

The course aims are the following:

  • Provide valuable guidance to the PhDs and Postdocs on navigating academic careers and effectively teach how to orient themselves during their academic life while prioritizing their different future objectives.
  • Enable the attendees to properly manage stress and keep a resilient mindset during research while balancing their private and professional development.
  • To develop effective communication skills across different personality types and hierarchies, in order to improve their work experience and efficiency.
  • Insights into laws, rules, and regulations in academia.
  • Tips from human resources on how to transition to industry and what to expect from the change.

 

Contact

Rosalie Zwiggelaar, rosalie.zwiggelaar@ntnu.no

Published Mar. 5, 2024 5:13 PM - Last modified Apr. 4, 2024 2:33 PM
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