Tag Archives: alternative careers

Careers in Science-Related Policy, Part 1: Balancing Research with Policy Interests in Graduate School

Mary Fernandes, Melanie Arenson, Elyse Mowle

The number of PhD graduates that pursue traditional tenure-track faculty career paths is declining yearly (Horn, 1999). Many graduate students choose to pursue “alternative” careers in business, industry, policy, education, practice, and more. Unfortunately, while most PhD training programs adequately train students for research-based careers, few are able to support the needs of students with alternative goals. As a result, graduate students are left to supplement their training with experiences aligned with their career goals. But how? Well, if you’re interested in pursuing a career that integrates science and policy, you’re in luck! Below, we have listed some helpful educational and training resources to help you build your policy-related skill-set, as well as some tips to help you balance your research responsibilities with such opportunities. 

Resources/tips for students interested in policy 

  1. Look for policy trainings locally and/or at the conferences that you attend (e.g., SPSSI’s 2019 Policy Workshop). 
  2. Get involved in policy-making or policy-influencing bodies at your university (e.g., Graduate Association of Student Psychologists, University Executive Committees, etc.). 
  3. Get involved in your local Psychological Association and/or other mental health organizations that include a strong advocacy or policy component. Ask to get involved in these roles. 
  4. Seek advice from psychologists in your area of study who currently hold policy positions of interest to you. Ask them what their path to their position was and try to emulate it. 
  5. Align your research and practice work with your career goals as much as possible. In your research, think about the policy implications of your work (see this blog post for more information). Stay updated on policies relevant to your clients. 
  6. Apply for training grants that might allow you to pursue a more full-time educational experience while in graduate school (e.g., the Predoctoral Fellowship in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services). 

Tips for balancing policy interests with research and clinical work

  1. For most students, the ability to pursue opportunities outside of graduate school will likely require the approval of a mentor or department head. Be prepared to justify the experiences that you wish to pursue and how they align with your career goals. Consider ways to gain buy-in from your mentor. 
  2. Prioritize your interests. If you have a clear picture of your ideal career endpoint, that might help you prioritize. If you do not have a clear endpoint, do not panic! Consider prioritizing experiences that might help you explore potential careers of interest. 
  3. Practice saying no in an assertive and kind manner. In order to make room for the experiences that you wish to gain, you will need to say no to ones that are less aligned with your goals.
  4. Budget your time. As a graduate student, you’re probably already well-versed in this skill. However, adding additional responsibilities might require more skills. Consider blocking out chunks of time or days for different responsibilities (i.e. research: Friday-Monday, practicum: Tuesday, clinical work: Wednesday, policy work: Friday). Make a plan, and stick to it. Try to arrange your policy-related educational experiences around times when you can truly gain the most out of them. This might be during the summer, during a semester when your course load is lower, or during a “gap” year. 
  5. Consider ways in which your policy interests can be integrated with your research interests. This might serve the dual role of 1) having your research inform your policy, and vice versa, and 2) gaining buy-in from your advisor in the form of publications, conference presentations, etc.
  6. Self-care! Adding more to your plate means expanding your mental, physical, and emotional resources. Family time, sufficient sleep, healthy eating, and exercise are important. The more you stretch your limits, the more important these will become. 

Benefits of pursuing policy-related experiences in graduate school

  1. Skills you learn (writing and presenting information for a variety of audiences, speaking to stakeholders and policymakers) are applicable across many fields, whether you go into research, a clinical career, industry, or policy full time.
  2. Sharing your passion about a particular area of interest (eg. specific population, pathology, social-justice issue, etc.) could help you stand out during internship and postdoc interviews.
  3. Networking! Getting involved at the university, local, state, and national levels means meeting and developing professional relationships with more psychologists in your field and area of interest.
  4. Exploring and narrowing down career interests. You might find novel ways to use your skills and pursue an interest that you hadn’t thought about before delving into a policy opportunity. 
  5. Gain a different perspective. Engaging in policy work might allow you to form a more macro-level perspective than is typically afforded when primarily working with individuals in clinical or research settings. A more systems-based perspective, might, in turn, inform your research and clinical practice. 

My Path to a Career in UX Research

By Christine Berry, M.A.2

When I began grad school in 2008 to pursue a degree in Counseling Psychology, I planned to become a practitioner, possibly a professor and academic researcher. To be honest, that’s all I knew about psychology – I didn’t realize there were so many more career options. But as I finished my M.A. in Counseling Psych at Loyola University Chicago, I knew that therapy wasn’t for me. I decided to pursue an additional research-focused degree and enrolled in another M.A. program, this time in Human Sexuality at San Francisco State University. If you’re going to learn about research it might as well be on a fun topic.

indifferentAs my second degree came to a close, I was tired of being a broke student. I loved doing research, but the thought of another 4-6 years in grad school pursuing a Ph.D. was too much. Living in the most expensive city in the country was taking its toll, and my student loans were already sky-high. I needed a job – preferably one that pays well.

thinking-faceI was also disenchanted with academic research. I disliked that it took years to finish a study and it seemed the results, while meaningful long-term, weren’t immediately making an impact. But what I really hated were lit reviews – designing studies and analyzing data were much more fun. I dreamed of a job where research moved fast, results were immediately clear and actionable, and lit reviews were a thing of the past. I didn’t think such a role existed, but I was about to stumble upon it.

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The Academic Hunger Games: Are the Odds in Your Favor?

One of my favorite movies of 2013 was Mockingjay 1Catching Fire, the film adaptation of the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy. Reflecting on this movie, I started to think about how graduate school could be seen as an academic version of the Hunger Games. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie or read the book, here’s a quick summary (please note there are spoilers throughout the column):

  • The Hunger Games are set in a dystopian future of the US (named Panem), where a central Capitol District has maintained power over 12 districts (e.g. states) that rebelled against the Capitol 75 years ago.
  • Districts have limited resources and people are kept starving and poor.
  • As a punishment to the districts for rebelling against the Capitol, each year the districts must provide one male and female teenager, known as tributes, to compete in the “Hunger Games”, which is a televised battle in which they fight to the death.
  • The last surviving tribute is the victor, who earns riches, a luxurious new home in their district, and becomes a mentor to future tributes from his/her district.
  • The books are told from the perspective of Katniss Everdeen, a teenage tribute and eventual co-victor (along with Peeta Mellark) from District 12, the poorest district of Panem. Her key to success was her excellence in archery, a skill she developed so she could hunt to feed her family.

At first glance, this sounds very different from graduate school. However, there may be more than meets the eye. There is growing evidence that there are not enough tenure track positions for all the doctorates being produced.  Among all fields of study (including psychology), fewer graduates are landing tenure track positions. Universities are replacing more tenure track positions with adjunct instructors.

While harsh, the academic universe is not quite as bad as the world in the Hunger Games. The prize many victorious doctoral students want for surviving the rigors of graduate school is a tenure track position. While there are not enough faculty positions for every graduate, the ratio is probably better than 1 in 24, the odds in the Hunger Games.

So what can you do to improve your odds in the academic Hunger Games? Here are my thoughts:

  • Ally with your colleagues. Katniss survived Peeta 1both Hunger Games by building alliances with fellow tributes. How can you build alliances in graduate school? One way might be to develop collaborative projects with fellow students. Funding agencies are putting more preference to collaborative, large scale projects, and developing those relationships early in training can help you. In addition, you might be able to generate more publications by collaborating with colleagues.
  • Learn helpful skills. By being a great archer, Katniss was able to fend for herself in the Hunger Games and ultimately win. How can this apply to graduate study? Think about what skills could help you land your dream academic job. Departments are always looking for someone to teach statistics and research methods; getting experience in this while in graduate school could put the odds in your favor of landing a tenure track position. Other skills might include interdisciplinary knowledge or cutting edge research techniques (such as fMRI). Think about what skills you want to learn that could set yourself apart in a job application, and make a plan to learn those skills!
  • Advocate for more resources. One difference from the Hunger Games is that in the academic games we have the capacity to advocate for change. Increased funding for science research at the federal level and increased funding for public universities at the state level could change the playing field for doctoral education. You can make a change by responding to action alerts from APA and other psychology organizations.
  • Create an alternative path to victory. Finally, you don’t have to play the game the way we are expected to. In the first book, Katniss and Peeta refused to play the game as told, and were able to survive after threatening to kill themselves (which would deprive the games of a victor). Professors train us to become future faculty and some put down alternative career paths. However, if you don’t want to play the academic Hunger Games, your doctoral training gives you options that can take you out of the arena. For some, that is going into health service psychology (getting licensed and practicing). For others, it could mean nontraditional careers. The Odd Jobs column in gradPSYCH features psychologists in unique job settings, such as Cirque du Soleil, the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, or Wikimedia Foundation. With a doctorate in psychology, you have a skill set that can take you out of the arena and onto a different path. You don’t have to play the game that is presented in front of you!

Katniss 1Although graduate school may be tough and grueling, your future doesn’t have to be as hopeless as those in the Hunger Games. So build your skill set, cultivate alliances, and as they say in the Hunger Games, “May the odds be ever in your favor!”