Most PhD holders do not stay in academia, but transition to careers in a variety of other fields. Many young scientists struggle with finding out which career path they would like to pursue. They lack insight into potential career options and rarely take the time to reflect on what kind of work they actually enjoy, and what their values, interests and goals in life are.The following topics will be covered in the course:

• Discovering career and life goals: What kind of work would you like to do? What are your dreams and ideas for the future?
• Analyzing skills and competencies: What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing? Which “hidden” competencies are they maybe not aware of?
• Exploring career options: Where do people with a PhD work outside academia?

Let's make a make a plan! What are the next steps? After this course, participants

• Have a better understanding of their life and career goals
• Have analyzed their skills and competencies
• Are aware of career options outside science
• Have designed their individual career development plan

Methods:

Webinars: Short lectures, group work, discussions
Self-study: introspection / individual work with coaching exercises; access to worksheets, further information and videos; online-forum enables exchange among course participants and optional support by the lecturer in between webinars

This course includes 4 online-sessions (Mondays and Thursdays, 9 -11 a.m.):

Monday, 17 June 2024
Thursday, 20 June 2024

Monday, 24 June 2024
Thursday, 27 June 2024

An optional individual coaching can be arranged if desired.

Webinars take place in Zoom and last 120 minutes. Allow time for self-study in between webinars. Course content for the self-study part can be accessed via the online platform Elopage.

Maximum of 12 participants.

Individual follow-up coachings are possible (optional).

This event is organized as a transferable skills workshop by the PIER Education Platform (PEP) and open to all PhD students in the PIER research fields at DESY and Universität Hamburg.

About the Trainer:
Dr. Iris Koehler has several years of postdoctoral experience as a researcher in environmental science. Since several years she coaches and trains PhD students and postdocs in career planning (more information here).