Career Planning Workshop for Postdocs & GSRAs
To see upcoming course date(s) and to register, go to Employee Self-Service, click on Training Enrollment, then check Employee Skills Development.
Objectives
Gain the tools and discover the resources to:
- Understand different ways to think about career development depending on your needs and interests
- Set short and long-term career goals
- Develop a career plan
- Explore scientific careers
- Initiate conversations with your supervisor about your career development
Participants: This course is designed for postdocs and graduate student research assistants (GSRAs).
Course summary
This one-hour course will introduce you to a basic model for career planning, which includes the six elements shown below. During this session, you will explore a framework for considering your career options and specific actions you need to take to get there -- and learn about available resources to support your efforts. You will then have the opportunity to sign up for a one-half hour individual counseling session with the instructor.
- C - Clarifying values. Do you want to pursue a career in academia, a national laboratory, industry, science writing, etc.? What other potential career paths are open to you? What are your strengths, and to what type of career path are they most suited? What are the gaps between your favored path and your current strengths?
- A - Action Goals. Transforming clarification information into concrete steps forward.
- R - Relationship Building for networking and mentoring connections. Cultivating a network that will help you make inroads into the science career path of your choice, support you in overcoming challenges and other barriers, champion your interests, etc.
- E - Experience to help you achieve your best at Berkeley Lab. Continuously seeking developmental experiences to make the most of your talent and demonstrate and/or develop your skills.
- E – Education & Training to attain the knowledge and qualifications necessary to be successful in current and future roles. Closing the gap between role requirements and your talent/potential.
- R – Roadmap to help you reach your career goals. Continually reexamining your progress, goals, and the ongoing fit between your plans and current life situation.
More details
The course is taught by Elayne Chou, Ph.D., a Counseling Psychologist specializing in career counseling, coaching, and consulting with culturally diverse individuals and organizations. She provides career counseling and career development workshops for UC Berkeley’s staff and has taught as an adjunct professor at San Francisco State University and Diablo Valley College and as a visiting scholar at Renmin University in Beijing, China. She has worked in counseling centers at UC Irvine and Ohio State University.
Comments from past participants
“Dr. Chou listened to what I had to say and used her experience and skills to comprehensively address my questions and issues. Her advice and recommendations were clear and easily understood. Overall a very productive session.” Postdoc
“A very good course. Between the workshop content and the resources in the workbook, it really addressed all topics I hoped it would.” Guest Postdoc
“The speaker is good. All the sources of information were comprehensive. I have been talking the course up positively.” Biologist Postdoc
“It was very good and very informative. I got a lot out of creating a daily/weekly accomplishments list. I’ve been doing it since the workshop. I also liked the discussion on work-life balance.” Computer Systems Engineer
