Prior work experience and career aspirations
Regardless of their reasons for pursuing advanced studies, students enter graduate school today with more experience and more diverse career aspirations than ever before. For many, it is common to have had one or more career-track jobs before beginning advanced study.
Often such prior work experience sparks a person's decision to pursue a graduate degree, whether it is for love of the discipline, advancement in a current profession, entrance into a new profession, or a combination of these reasons. Thus, if real world perspectives or examples are not valued in the graduate experience, students with prior work experience can feel especially disappointed. Many graduate students want to feel valued for their prior work accomplishments, especially if those experiences were as teachers or practitioners in a field that they are now researching.
Resources
The Preparing Future Faculty Program, offered through the Office of Graduate Studies, helps graduate students prepare for academic careers by offering structured opportunities to observe and experience a full range of faculty roles and responsibilities. See http:// www.unl.edu/gradstudies/current/dev/pff or call 402-472-9764 for more information.Career Services supports students in exploring a variety of career options and employment services. See http://www.unl.edu/careers or call 402-472-3145.
Suggestions
- Discuss with your mentors and peers how your prior work experience influenced your decision to pursue graduate study or relates to your research and teaching. Understand that your career aspirations might not reflect the same interests that motivated your professors. Explain to them how the concepts, theories, and tools you are learning support your own career aspirations.
- Ask your mentor to help you explore a wide range of professional development opportunities, such as serving on graduate student or department/university committees, and doing service, teaching, or research internships on or off campus.
- Be aware of new opportunities for knowledge workers and periodically check on the condition of the academic and non-academic labor market in your discipline.
- Consult your disciplinary association, or the Occupational Outlook Handbook of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for current data and trends.
- Offer your mentors periodic updates about how your professional goals are developing, changing, and being enriched by graduate study.
