Create Valuable Scientific Volunteer Opportunities
In Your Volunteering during training.
In your club volunteer opportunities there is a very transferrable and relatable existence for graduate students and postdocs. When you are an officer for your committee or club during your training, take it as an opportunity to gain skills in future roles as a scientific professional. Below are some althernative academic categories PhDs are transiting to and potential names of officers in a club during graduate or postdoctoral training. We noticed the names of officers and see a direct link between officer names and current categories of alternative careers to traditional academic research.
Alternative Career Categories Club Officer Names/Roles
Administration/project manager VP and Operations Officer
Nonprofits/Business Analytics Assistant VP of Finance and Operations
Science Writing Officer of Communication and Marketing
Science Outreach VP External Relations
Science Teaching and education VP Education and events
Titles Mirror Positions in Companies, Societies, and Academic medical institutions held by PhDs. As you grow in your scientific career different skills will be used for different positions start developing the skills now and grow them so if you need to apply to a position outside of academia you have the experiences to describe skills used.
For example as VP Education and Events, for a genetics club you are part of, you may design a short genetics course to educate first year graduate students on basic principles from the genetics course people typically have trouble with. Or if you are a postdoc in a genetics society and you find trainees or faculty come to you then design a short class online for that technique and make it accessible. Then track how many people use it, and what they thought. Take our teaching course to find how you can create a free course online for the public.
