Career Day
Second Career Day of the Manchot Graduate School
On November, 29th 2019 the second career day of the Molecules of Infection (MOI) graduate school was hosted at the Haus der Universität Düsseldorf.
Against common perception not every graduated student of the life sciences ends up working in research at academic institutions. Special focus of this career day was therefore on areas of work additional to the classic career path.
Organized by the students themselves, the program of the career day was divided into four sessions. These covered professions more or less closely related to research such as scientific project coordination as well as project management in a big pharmaceutical company, foundation of a startup trying to invent and implement diagnostic tools and treatment for hard-to-treat types of cancer, product specialist for laboratory automation and working as a group leader in forensic DNA analysis at the State Office of Criminal Investigation.
On the other hand, a whole variety of jobs apart from obvious first choices for graduated biologists was presented. These included medical writer, patent attorney, teacher and senior consultant. In total 11 speakers presented 10 different exciting work places.
After the welcome address from MOI speaker Prof. Dr. Johannes Hegemann, Interdisciplinary Graduate and Research Academy (iGRAD) coordinator Dr. Debbie Radtke gave an overview of the relationship between employer and employee when looking for a new job. Afterwards, the invited speakers shared their personal experience of their very own career paths in short presentations. Frank and open discussions followed afterwards when round-table sessions were opened. During these, every student had the possibility to get further insight into the presented jobs in direct conversation with each speaker.
After an enjoyable day of good and stimulating conversations the party was moved to the Heimwerk where the discussion continued over a glass of “Alt Beer”.
In summary, the career day gave an excellent overview of the multitude of possibilities open to graduated biology students and opened up a variety of possible career paths for the students.
(Text: Jochen Dobner, MOI III schoolarship holder)