Graduate Students – Penn & Beyond

Parenting While at Penn and Graduate Student Life

By Esther H. Ra, Ed.D.

Last semester, a graduate student who I had advised asked as she was leaving, if I knew any information about parenting resources for graduate students on Penn campus. As I spoke to the student, it occurred to me that in order for the student to progress in their career search or development, they had a great need for other important resources to help them along in their journey to function as a successful student at Penn. As a former Penn graduate student, who also had a family by the time I defended my dissertation, I empathized greatly with this student. I knew very well the struggle of balancing parenthood and graduate student life, particularly on Penn campus, and remembered the feeling of wanting to be connected to a network of Penn parents. For graduate students who may also be juggling parenthood, this post is dedicated to you! Since I was a graduate student, many new resources have come to existence and there are excellent opportunities and communities you can become a part of so that you don’t feel that you’re journeying alone. Not only did you embark on learning and “mastering” subject matters, but you have the privilege and adventure of parenting another life. It IS possible to do both with some help. I commend you for seeking resources that can improve your graduate student life as a parent. Here are some resources that may be of help:

The Family Resource Center at Penn: https://familycenter.upenn.edu/about-us

Join their email list learn about resources that Penn has to offer. The site can connect you to Penn parent networks, neighborhood networks, as well as national sites that can direct you to parenting resources. It’s also a hub for knowing what benefits you have as a parent while studying at Penn. There are also amenities such as a lactation room, a family lounge, a reading room, as well as nap space for kids, and books and toys. It is a wealth of information and resources and this should be your first stop at Penn for parenting resources!

Emergency Backup Childcare: https://familycenter.upenn.edu/resources-support/child-care

Every parent wants to know what childcare help they can get when an emergency occurs. Who can take care of your children should they have a snow day and you have an important meeting to attend? Penn has a resource that can cover you for backup care should you need it.

Care.com Free Resource through Penn https://pennfamilycenter.care.com/

Penn also has a wonderful Care.com resource where families can sign up to find childcare for their home. This resource can be customized for local care and Penn helps with a free membership to Care.com while you are a student.

Lactation and Baby Changing Stations

https://familycenter.upenn.edu/resources-support/lactation-resources

Are you always searching for a place to nurse or feed your baby? What about a place to change their diaper? It’s always a struggle for parents of babies and toddlers to find a safe, clean place to do what is already a tough job: nursing and changing a wiggling baby. Not only does the Family Resource Center at Penn have a lactation room, but Penn is a very lactation friendly campus with rooms located all around campus. Many of bathrooms in several of the buildings on campus also have baby friendly changing spaces.

Grants for Ph.D. Students with Dependents: https://familycenter.upenn.edu/grants

Penn also has a couple l funded family grants, specifically for PhD students. One is a Family Grant and the other Is a Dependent Health Insurance Grant. Read about the guidelines and see if you might be able to qualify. The grant cycle opens on August 27^th to submit applications. If you think that these might be of interest, you will need to get in gear with all submission materials ready very soon!

PennCard & Campus Services:

https://familycenter.upenn.edu/resources-support/penncard-and-campus-services

Did you know the PennCard enables your spouse and children to access several amenities on campus? However, they each need to obtain their OWN Penn Card, which can easily be done through the PennCard Center: http://cms.business-services.upenn.edu/penncard/. The PennCard will give your spouse and children access to museums, Penn transit services, and recreational facilities.

I hope that helps with navigating family life as a graduate student! It’s not an easy road, but it’s a fun one when you have the right resources at your fingertips. Happy parenting!

A New and Improved PhD and Postdoc Careers Webpage!

One of the exciting projects that I was working on this past summer and early fall was revamping our webpage for PhDs and postdocs in collaboration with my colleagues. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out our new Ph.D./Postdoc Careers page! This new webpage centralizes all job and career-related resources for Penn doctoral students and postdocs. It’s structured into three main sections to help you easily find the information you’re looking for.

Here’s a quick run-down of how you can use the webpage:

If you’re currently in a PhD program or postdoc and have questions about which career paths would interest you or how you should prepare for your career, check out the Making the Most of Your Ph.D./Postdoc page. It features a four-step career exploration process to guide you in identifying and preparing for careers that would be a strong fit for your interests.

Are you actively applying for academic jobs and/or jobs beyond academia? The Searching, Applying, Interviewing & Negotiating for Jobs page contains information on the entire job search process for postdoc/faculty careers as well as careers beyond academia. You can find resources on preparing your job application materials as well as preparing for job interviews and negotiations.

If you are looking to find out what Career Services can offer you, take a look at the Taking Advantage of Career Services page, which lists all of our services for doctoral students and postdocs—from one-on-one advising to workshops to digital career resources.

We hope you’ll check out our new webpage—you’ll see below some testimonials from your fellow peers on their experiences using the webpage in our focus group.

The Graduate Student and Postdoc Team at Career Services is eager to help you in all aspects of your career exploration and planning process, for jobs in academia and beyond, so make an appointment to see us!

“The breakdown of the four-step Career Exploration Process on the Making the Most of Your Ph.D./Postdoc page was helpful in clarifying what had initially seemed nebulous to me, and it allowed me to move through the steps systematically without feeling overwhelmed.” –Ph.D. Candidate, Department of English

“I found the Professionalize and Gain Experience page extremely useful because it lists several concrete ways in which one can gain work experience at Penn that extends beyond academia.” –Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Linguistics

“I gravitated towards the Making the Most of Your PhD page. I didn’t realize there were job simulations until now, and I am definitely going to play around with that resource!” –Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Genomics and Computational Biology

“I was really impressed with the Career Exploration Process information. That is a really concise, concrete and useful resource.” –Ph.D. Candidate, School of Engineering & Applied Science

“The webpage’s new step by step overview of how best to use your time in grad school is an invaluable resource!” –Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations

Preparing for a professional conference, post-PhD style

Helen Pho, Associate Director

Next week, I’m heading to Madison, WI for the national conference of the Graduate Career Consortium (GCC), and I’m really looking forward to it. The GCC is a national organization for professionals who serve as graduate career advisers, basically people like me. When I was a doctoral student, I attended and presented at academic conferences where junior and senior scholars would often read academic papers out loud during panel sessions. These conferences can be stressful for graduate students because many were also interviewing for jobs at the same site.

When I became a graduate and postdoc career adviser, I was intrigued yet a little nervous about what a conference for graduate career advisers would look like. Would it be people reading papers again? Would there be a sense of anxiety among conference attendees? Happily, my first professional conference was nothing like the academic conferences I was used to attending. At my first GCC conference last summer, I had a blast meeting other graduate career advisers working all over the United States and Canada, and it quickly became my favorite conference that I’ve ever attended. I learned a lot about best practices for graduate career advising from attending different workshop presentations and chatting with colleagues at the poster session. (If you’re in the humanities and have never seen a poster session, it’s when a large group of presenters would stand next to their giant posters and talk about their research or ideas to attendees wandering around the session.) Most of all, the GCC is a very friendly and collegial group of professionals; everyone is eager to share best practices and ideas, and people love to talk to each other, which is not surprising considering the work we do!

As I prepare for my conference, I wanted to share three things I’m doing to be conference ready next week:

Review the conference schedule. Conference schedules are often released before the event takes place, so take some time to go over what the days will entail. Like many conferences, there are often concurrent sessions and events, meaning you have to pick and choose which sessions you want to attend. If you spend some time ahead of the conference to make those decisions, that means you’ll have more time at the conference to network and chat with people.
Set goals for the conference. Related to the first point, I like to think about what I want to get out of the conference before I arrive, when it’s often a bit hectic and slightly overwhelming with hundreds of people in attendance. For my goals this year, I’d love to chat with colleagues at other institutions to learn what they’re doing to help PhDs explore expanded careers in fun and interactive ways, and to hear how other institutions are supporting their first-gen grad students, since these are priorities in our work here. Spending just a small amount of time to identify goals for the conference beforehand will allow me to focus on attending relevant panels and talking to colleagues who are doing exciting work in this area before the conference flies by!
Identify people with whom you’d like to connect or reconnect. The GCC conference has over 200 attendees, and although I would love to talk with everyone, it’s simply impossible to do so in a span of three days! There are many people whom I met last summer that I’d love to reconnect with as well as people that I’ve never met before that I’d love to meet in person. For example, I’ve been working on a subcommittee to help market ImaginePhD, a career exploration and planning tool designed for PhDs in the humanities and social sciences. (If you don’t know what it is, visit imaginephd.com!) We’ve had virtual meetings via video over the last year, so I’m excited to finally meet my fellow subcommittee members in person at the conference! Thinking ahead of people you’d like to meet will allow you to not only have a productive conference but an enjoyable one as well!

If you’re a graduate student planning to attend a professional conference anytime in the future, come meet with a career adviser. We’re happy to help you prepare for networking both within and beyond academia!

Calling All Humanities and Social Science PhDs!

Helen Pho, Associate Director

Looking back at my time in a doctoral program in History at the University of Texas, I recall having conversations with my peers about what you could do with a PhD in History if you didn’t become a professor. It’s like the question I pondered when I was in college about what I could do with a history major, but instead of writing a 50-page senior essay, I’m now writing a multi-year dissertation that seemed to have no end in sight!

Although many of us were working toward the goal of achieving a tenure-track job, there were also some of us who wondered: What else can you do with a PhD in the humanities? How can you translate the skills of researching and writing a dissertation into a rewarding and meaningful job? How do you find jobs that would value a PhD in the humanities? How do you even begin to think about your priorities when it comes to world of work outside of academia?

Beginning this week, ImaginePhD–a new, intuitive, and beautifully-designed career exploration and planning tool created specifically for PhDs in the humanities and social sciences–is available and free to all users to help grad students, postdocs, and PhD alums get at those questions. Created by the Graduate Career Consortium, ImaginePhD offers students the opportunity to reflect and understand their own skills, values, and interests, explore 15 different “job families” (such as advocacy, consulting, and entrepreneurship) through stories and articles, and create a concrete plan to outline specific goals for completing your doctoral program and pursuing your career goals. To learn more about how you can take advantage of ImaginePhD whether you’ve completed your PhD or you’re at the beginning, middle, or near the end of your PhD program, check out this blog post from Carpe Careers.

While ImaginePhD was not around for me to use as a graduate student (I did manage to find my way out of my dissertation and into interesting, challenging, and fulfilling roles after I defended through networking and learning about careers widely), as a graduate and postdoc career adviser, I’m looking forward to chatting about what ImaginePhD can do for you as your explore and pursue your future careers! Visit imaginephd.com to create an account and get started today!

CS Radio: “Episode 32 – Winter Break as Grad Student”

It’s our fall finale! It’s the last day of classes at Penn and we’re here with one last episode for 2016. Mylène and Michael are joined by Dr. Joseph Barber, Associate Director on the graduate students team. Joseph talks about the ways that grad students can use their break not only to step away from their work, but prep for the spring semester and their job search. We hope everyone has a safe and relaxing holiday season. We’ll back for the second half of our second season in late January. See you in 2017! Enjoy!