Your Career - Objectives, Actions, Obstacles

This one-day workshop gets PhD students to think openly, imaginatively and rigorously about their working futures

This day-long training session gets PhD students to think openly, imaginatively and rigorously about their working futures. It culminates in all participants identifying a set of short and long-term objectives, the actions they will take to achieve those objectives, and the obstacles that stand in their way.

The session is framed around these questions:

· What transferable skills have you built up while doing a PhD?

· What is your skills base, for any career?

· Who ARE you and who MIGHT you be?

We conduct the session through a combination of writing, presenting and participatory exercises. We create a supportive environment in which each individual can imagine and map out paths to a future career.

By the end of the session, students will:

· have reflected on and discussed prior important life/work decisions and how they made them.

· have mapped out two different career paths, with input and responses from other participants

identified specific and tangible actions to pursue their path, along with the obstacles that they might experience along the way.

As preparation, please spend 30-45 minutes noting down different career aims and bring these along with you to the session. They can be as specific, idealistic, diverse and/or pragmatic as you wish. You will not be asked to share these, they will be for your reference only.