New PIVOT Webinars Highlight Nonacademic Career Options
Although many undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers go on to pursue teaching positions and professorships at universities, many have career interests outside of academia. With the onset of the pandemic in 2020, many academic institutions went into hiring freezes, increasing the number of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers looking for nonacademic positions. But for many job seekers, it can be hard to know what options are available to them.
As the need for information about alternative careers became increasingly apparent, the college’s Office for Innovation, with assistance from Associate Dean for Graduate Education Aleksandra Slavkovic, quickly launched a webinar series called PIVOT to highlight examples of careers in industry, government, nonprofits, and other areas outside of academia. The office hosted seven webinars between July 2020 and July 2021 and has several more in the works. Webinars to date have featured alumni and friends of the college in careers such as agriculture, health care, intellectual property, government research, and communications.
“The webinars we have hosted so far have had high attendance rates and phenomenal responses from students and companies alike,” said Ashley Chan, industry liaison for the college, who helped launch the series. “We'd never have learned that it was such a huge need had the pandemic not occurred. With such success, we envision the webinars continuing long after we're back to normal.”
To find out about upcoming PIVOT webinars, other events, and additional resources available from the Office for Innovation, visit https://bit.ly/EberlyO4I-Resources.