Help Beyond Academia provide career resources to PhDs!

Are you a PhD working outside academia? Or are you someone who hires PhDs? Read on -- we need your help!

The Issue:

Today, more careers require individuals with the innovative and research-based skill sets gained during the course of a PhD. Though job placements in academia are becoming more limited, plenty of career options exist beyond the ivory tower. Unfortunately, the career-related support we receive in graduate school has not fully adjusted to this new reality. Many institutions still continue to focus on training individuals for tenure-track professorships, a career path which only 10% of students will achieve, rather than serving the 90% of students who pursue careers beyond a tenure-track position.

Our Solution:

Beyond Academia is a grassroots student organization that helps PhD students and postdocs find careers outside of the traditional tenure-track, founded by UC Berkeley students. We offer free seminars and heavily subsidized conferences to help our fellow graduate students learn about rewarding careers where their skills are needed and appreciated. We help to bridge the gap between the between graduate students and postdocs and the career opportunities that exist for them in various fields.

We host an annual Beyond Academia conference to facilitate career exploration and education by highlighting the various career trajectories that are possible, and helping attendees prepare for those jobs. We also offer targeted seminars and workshops to address the need of professional development and offer tools to help attendees identify and apply their transferable skills for a broad range of positions that align with their passions. In all of our events, we also emphasize the networking aspect in order for attendees to maximize the resources and make connections for future opportunities. 

How You Can Help:

We need your help to increase the representation of diverse career paths at our annual conference. Our speakers and panelists who generously donate their time to speak to the Berkeley community are mostly based in the Bay Area. In the future, we hope to be able to invite more speakers who can address opportunities for PhDs beyond the Bay Area, such as careers in policy, government and international organizations that are predominantly based out of the East Coast. However, our funds are limited, with average travel costs for out-of-town panelists costing around $650/person. $5000 would cover full reimbursement for 7 panelists or partial reimbursement for 10 panelists, which would allow Beyond Academia to showcase the full spectrum of their future career options.

Please chip in any dollar amount to provide a high quality and extremely useful conference for PhDs exploring their non-academic career options.

If you were one of us, or want to hire us, please consider making a donation and sharing our page! If you’re a company who’d like to partner with us, or sponsor events in a bigger way, please send a note to info@beyondacademia.org.

Thank you, from the 2017 Beyond Academia Team