Week 4: Career Preparation

This quarter the GTC’s aim is to make teaching “work.” While preparing for a career within education, it is important that one obtains experience in teaching. As more and more PhDs are earned each year, the competition for faculty positions increase,  as depicted in the graph below (1). Therefore, the need for applicable experience in research and teaching is heightened.

At the University of California, Davis and associated organizations, there are many opportunities to obtain teaching, outreach, and career preparation experiences. These include, with hyperlinks to additional information;

Teaching

1.      Professors For The Future: “Professors for the Future (PFTF) is a year-long competitive fellowship program designed to recognize and develop the leadership skills of outstanding graduate students and postdoctoral scholars who have demonstrated their commitment to professionalism, integrity, and academic service. This unique program, sponsored by Graduate Studies, focuses on the future challenges of graduate education, postdoctoral training, and the academy. Professors for the Future is designed to prepare UC Davis doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars for an increasingly competitive marketplace and a rapidly changing university environment.”

a.       $3000 stipend

b.      Applications due in late February

2.      Los Rios Community College District Faculty Diversity Internship Program: (bottom right under other resources) Since its foundation in 1989, the Faculty Diversity Internship Program (FDIP)—an unpaid internship program— has proven to be an effective means of providing high quality learning opportunities for faculty interns and enhancing the educational needs of our multi cultural students. The Faculty Diversity Internship Program has two components:  (1)  34  hours  of  community  college  faculty training in the fall and (2) hands-on experience in an educational setting with a faculty mentor  in the spring. The  fall  training  content  will  include:  Curriculum;  Instruction  and  Assessment;  Theory  and  Practice; Effective Teaching and Classroom Communication Strategies; and Diverse Learning Styles.  

a.       Previous participants experiences

b.      Applications due in early August

3.      Become a Teaching Assistant Consultant: Develop your teaching skills while working to improve undergraduate education at UC, Davis. The TAC program is a professional development fellowship to prepare graduate students for careers in college teaching and help foster effective, inclusive teaching practices across campus.

a.       $1500 quarterly fellowship

b.      Applications due mid January

4.      Being an associate instructor or TA. Contact your home department for more information.

Outreach

1.      Powerhouse Science Center Science Communication Fellowship: The Discovery Museum Science & Space Center trains scientists to become science ambassadors—and excellent communicators—who can explain their scientific work to general audiences. Generate a hands on 3D demo of your graduate school research.

a.       Previous participants video demo

b.      Applications due late January

2.      Apply to Co-facilitate the UC, Davis Graduate Teaching Community

a.       $250 quarterly fellowship

b.      Applications due as current facilitators retire (next opening in Fall 2016).

3.      Mentor an undergraduate researcher

4.      The UC Davis Designated Emphasis in Biotechnology has multiple opportunities for outreach

5.      Additional Opportunities

a.       Kids Into Discovering Science

b.      Davis Science Collective

c.       SEEDS

d.      Aggie Mentor

e.       GAAAP: Student Success Center

Career Preparation
1.      FUTURE: A new professional development training program at UC Davis. The Frontiers of University Training to Unlock the Research Enterprise (FUTURE) is a program at UC Davis that will build on the university’s experience and successes in career development training to expand professional growth opportunities for biomedical science graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

a.       Writer’s most beneficial experience as a graduate student

b.      Open to walk on basis or

c.       Certificate Track applications due late November

2.      UC Davis Center for Educational Effectiveness Workshops: CEE offers workshops that cover topics such as active learning, teaching large lectures, integrating technology, and evaluating student learning.

a.       Occur every quarter, including the summer

Although none of these experiences will grantee that you will obtain your dream job, they may help you discover what your dream job is and assist you in preparing for it.

1.      The missing piece to changing the university culture. Maximiliaan Schillebeeckx, Brett Marcique & Cory Lewis, Nature Biotechnology 31: 928, October 2013 http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v31/n10/full/nbt.2706.html