Campus opens career center for graduate students, post-docs

UC Berkeley graduate students and postdocs now have a place to go for help exploring how their studies can prepare them for career paths, both within and beyond academia.

Doctoral student Erica Lee, Provost Claude Steele, Graduate Dean Fiona Doyle, doctoral student Aaron Smyth, Assistant Dean for Professional Development Linda von Hoene and Graduate Writing Center Director Sabrina Soracco at the ribbon cutting for the new GPS Center. (UC Berkeley photo)

The new Graduate Professional Services Center, in 309 Sproul Hall, offers a space for collaboration among campus initiatives to develop skills, competencies and approaches that will help advanced-degree holders succeed in whatever careers they choose.

A Graduate Division survey of Ph.D. alumni over 40 years showed that many students, particularly those in sciences and engineering, have for many years chosen careers outside of academia.

Erica Lee, a Ph.D. candidate in history and an organizer of the annual Beyond Academia career exploration conference, spoke at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the center this week, and highlighted a theme of the occasion: “Berkeley Ph.D.s are invariably bright, dedicated individuals who do a lot of heavy lifting of research and teaching. It’s in the interest of society to have knowledgeable, thoughtful workers out in the world to question assumptions and develop new ideas — exactly what Ph.D.s are trained to do. Ph.D.s can bridge knowledge gaps among industries and institutions, applying their know-how to the world beyond the university.”

More information about the Graduate Professional Services Center and the ribbon-cutting is available on the Graduate Division website: “New Center for Graduate Professional Services (GPS) Opens Doors to Help Graduate Students Navigate Career Paths”