Hosted by CFAR Consulting and Coaching
In the second year of my PhD program, I had well established patterns of behavior. I attended talks from a few departments, spoke with the same group of friends, and had a vague understanding that I would grind through the academic job market after graduating. These patterns weren’t bad by any means. In fact, I kind of thought I had semi-optimized my experience at Penn. Still, something in me knew that there were other opportunities out there. That’s how I stumbled into the CEF program. Since participating in this fellowship, I’ve been exposed to wonderful experiences that allow me to think differently about each pattern of behavior.
For my fellowship, I was paired with Dr. Barry Dornfeld, a principal member of CFAR Consulting and Coaching. This proved to be an excellent pairing. Dr. Dornfeld had actually graduated from my same doctoral program, so his path gave me a perspective about what my future could look like. I realized that there are many ways that the skills I’m developing while studying for a PhD may be applied in industry. I also got to connect with Dr. Dornfeld personally and am so appreciative for his candor.
Through our conversations, Dr. Dornfeld presented parts of the university that I hadn’t considered. For example, he told me about groups in the medical school that I could potentially contribute to, and we even attended a talk by Dr. Zeke Emanuel. These opportunities may shape the research that I conduct throughout the remainder of my PhD, and I now know another place to look for informative and interesting talks.
Outside of my connections with Dr. Dornfeld, the CEF program also helped me get connected with likeminded scholars still in the process of obtaining their PhD. It was great to meet folks from diverse departments—conversations can be quite wide-ranging when materials physicists, neuroscientists, archaeologists, chemists, and communication scholars are all around one table! I’ve since connected with some of these individuals outside of the program and am confident that these connections will continue to be impactful over the next few years.
By connecting me with a professional who graduated from my program, exposing me to parts of the university that I hadn’t seen before, and offering friendship with likeminded scholars, the CEF program offered me a ton of experiences and ideas to consider. I’m excited to see how the rest of the PhD progresses, now that I know about these different directions.
This summer, we are featuring blog posts written by PhD students who participated in Career Services’ Career Exploration Fellowship (CEF), a program that helps doctoral candidates explore their career interests through networking opportunities with advanced degree professionals. Click here to learn more about CEF.
