BGS Career Development

Making It Count!

Resources

Websites for Career Exploration

  • NIH Office of Intramural Training and Education
    This is a fantastic site that provides videos of its (many) career-, skills-, and survival-related workshops and provides as well carefully selected links to other related resources. OITE offers an annual NIH Career Symposium every spring that’s attended by hundreds of students and postdocs.
  • Science Careers
    AAAS, through its Science Careers webpage  – and especially the section ‘Career Articles’ – has provided for many years overviews of various types of careers that scientists pursue, and interviews with those who have chosen those careers.
  • Society for Neuroscience Career Tools and Resources
    The Society for Neuroscience has taken the lead among scientific societies in providing information and advice on career paths and professional development in general. Resources include many detailed webinars.
  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook
  • The New York Academy of Sciences 
    To support individuals’ professional and career development, the Perelman School of Medicine will sponsor interested students, postdocs, faculty and staff for complimentary 1-year Membership to one of the oldest and most prestigious scientific organizations in the United States – the New York Academy of Sciences. Academy members will benefit from free/discounted access to cutting edge content, career readiness training, and networking/resume building opportunities.
  • BGS Career Development: Careers
    This site provides a list of approximately two dozen careers that BGS graduates pursue and, for each career, an overview, a discussion of advantages provided by an advanced degree, a summary of key competencies and first steps, and listings of relevant on-campus student organizations, alumni, and additional resources.

BGS Graduate Group or Training-Specific Career Exploration Venues

  • GLIA (Graduate-Led Initiatives and Activities; Neuroscience)
  • IgA (Graduate-Led Initiatives and Activities; Immunology)
  • All graduate groups actively recruit alumni pursuing diverse kinds of careers to provide talks year-round to their students.

Resources Provided by Penn’s Career Services

Career Services has a well-organized set of career-related information for those in predoctoral training and provides, through this and especially one-on-one advising, a thorough, well-grounded approach to career exploration. The Versatile PhD provides archived career panel discussions and career narratives of PhDs exploring commonly travelled non-faculty paths. Carpe Careers provides career advice via posts from PhD student/postdoc career advisors. Handshake is a student/employer engagement platform.

Certificate Program Options Organized for BGS Students

Listed above are the certificate programs formally endorsed by BGS. Other certificate programs exist within the Perelman School of Medicine and elsewhere within the University.

Also of note are the Center for Teaching and Learning’s Certificate Program in Teaching and Wharton School’s Certificate Program in Business Foundations.

Students interested in a certificate program should review Policies Governing Participation of BGS Students in Certificate Programs. Authorization is required through the form Authorization to Participate in a Certificate Program. Both documents are available here: https://www.med.upenn.edu/bgs/cert-progs.html

Penn Center for Innovation Fellowships

  • Closely aligned with the concept of certificate programs is PCI’s Fellows program, which introduces students to emerging technologies and commercialization opportunities in science.

Teaching Skills

Almost all of the above-listed programs or opportunities are linked to substantive teaching activities. TAs are recruited for BGS’s BIOM courses, for example BIOM 600 (Cell Biology and Biochemistry). BGS students also avail themselves of opportunities within the School of Arts and Sciences.

Courses for Additional Skills

  • Penn Courses: Individual courses throughout the University with permission

BGS students are permitted to take courses virtually anywhere within the University with permission from graduate group chairs and the BGS Director.

Extramural Activities Relevant to Career Exploration: Meetings, Externships, and Internships

Student-Organized Groups with Career-Development Activities

All of the above-listed groups have strong affiliations with BGS. There exist many other student groups at Penn that have career development activities (see http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/osa/clubs.html).

Individual Development Plans

These represent two different approaches to training and development through the medium of self-reflection and input. The BGS IDPs emphasize the link between training and professional development, and how the consideration of a career is an evolving process. MyIDP provides an algorithm to career decisions based on skills, interests, and values.

Career Development Calendar and Blog

This site has a calendaring function that pulls into a central location scheduling information for all on-campus activities relevant to skills development and career exploration for BGS students. It provides as well a blog for announcements of activities elsewhere and other forms of relevant and otherwise timely information. This site is actively curated.