26. Juni 2018 Network Meeting in via:mento_ocean: Career outside of academia

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Although most of the mentees taking part in the via:mento_ocean-programme aim for a professorship or a permanent senior research scientist position, it´s useful to have a so called "plan b" and to be informed about other possible career chances. This is the reason why the network meeting on June 27, 2018 was dedicated to career options outside of academia.

 

Three successful women has been invited to discuss different career experiences: Kirstin Wegner, working for the Ministry of Energy, Agriculture, Environment, Nature and Digitalization in Schleswig-Holstein, Maike Kramer, working at BioConsult Schuchardt & Scholle GbR and Nicole Schmidt, Head of Office of the Cluster of Excellence "The Future Ocean". Through their biographies, we had examples of career path both in the public and private sector. It was great how Kirstin Wegner, Maike Kramer and Nicole Schmidt openly shared their career experiences with us and answered the many questions of the mentees. As always during these kind of meetings, there was a trustful and open atmosphere. Thematic network meetings are one of the core elements of the mentoring program via:mento_ocean and are very well evaluated from the participants.
Our guests had some useful tips for those who want to orientate themselves outside of academia: to network, to attend further trainings, to take the chance to make an internship in jobs they are interested in, in order to get a better and realistic idea of the job. Another tip was to attend career coaching (also besides the mentoring relationship).
During the discussion, they pointed out some positive as well as negative aspects of their jobs: on the one hand, the possibility to shape things and to make the difference doing something useful, on the other hand work processes can be sometimes very slow.
Further the discussion addressed important skills that are useful to have in their jobs: besides organisational skills or the ability to think strategic, it is the capacity to have an understanding for the roles of different actors, to be tolerant and act diplomatically and to cope professionally with frustration and stress.

Kontakt:

Marta Chiarinotti
Tel.: +49 431 880-1018
mchiarinotti@gb.uni-kiel.de