Göttinger Graduiertenschule Gesellschaftswissenschaften

It does not have to be Science – Professional Perspectives after your PhD in Social Sciences

Highlights of the round table with alumni of the GGG faculties

On May 30, four alumni of GGG faculties gave an account of their own experience with doctorate and early career. All four of them are now employed outside academia and emphasized the importance of good networks and the ability to solve problems, which they acquired especially during their doctoral studies.

 

IMG 0698 Folie1en IMG 0696 Folie3en IMG 0717 Folie5en IMG 0737 Folie4en IMG 0749 Folie2en IMG 0708 beschnitten

 

Former doctoral students of GGG and its member faculties often are still emotionally involved with Göttingen University even after having graduated. After all, they spent many years with intense work, lasting encounters and friendships and (hopefully) lots of joy in the lovely city of Göttingen. Hoping that these alumni would willingly return to their former home for some days, GGG started to invite former doctoral students to share their experience with today’s doctoral students. At the same time, the current doctoral students would gain private, personal insights into what actually helped the alumni during their own doctorate, what was especially important in hindsight, and what kind of career paths can lead to the various profession fields.

On May 30, GGG invited four alumni of different faculties to a round table on career prospects after a doctorate in social sciences. Today, they all work in different areas outside the university and thus could give some insight into the range of career opportunities for doctoral students of social sciences:

  • Lasse Becker conducted his doctoral studies in Economics and now works in the project management of the company Osborn International GmbH. In this position, he is at the same time authorized company officer („Prokurist“) of Dronco GmbH.
  • Anja Eikermann earned her doctoral degree at the Faculty of Law and is now employed at the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany. She is very excited about the multifaceted fields of activities in public service.
  • Ezequiel Fernandez Castelao conducted his doctoral studies in Psychology and now, as Academy Trainer in Human Resources Development at the health insurance company AOK, enjoys the freedom to give new things a try.
  • Manuela Kaiser-Belz holds a doctoral degree in Social Sciences and made use of her focus on educational sciences when implementing mentoring programs at Göttingen University. Now she works as consultant in strategic human resources development at Kassel University.

While the four speakers had quite different strategic approaches to the completion of their doctoral studies and early career, they also share some similar experience: they built up well-working networks (on the job, in honorary positions or with professional groups), they gained wide-ranged experience besides their doctoral studies (in honorary positions, with (part-time) jobs and in courses) and they all chose an area of employment that was actually interesting to them and offered options for further development. None of these four alumni now works in exactly the same area which they wrote their dissertation in. Actually, the specific dissertation topic was not too important for their career paths outside academia. Rather, today they profit from the fact that they got to know themselves through the ups and downs of doctoral studies. During their doctorate, they further developed their own personality and learned to pursue an objective over a longer period of time and solve problems on their own.

The doctoral students who attended this round table obtained manifold impressions of professional practice and took the opportunity to talk with the alumni and consultants of Career Service, Mentoring and GGG. It was a successful and inspiring evening for everyone!

„Thank you for this great round table event! I learned a lot and I think that your choice and presentation of the round table as well as moderation, organization and atmosphere of the whole event were very agreeable and fertile.“ (participant of the round table at GGG on May 30, 2017)

This event was the start of GGG’s alumni-series, which will further continue to pass the valuable experience of GGG alumni on to current doctoral students with the next event in the run-up to Praxisbörse 2018.

In the Alumni-Portal you can find a detailed account of the round rable and furthermore, – as examples for changing into careers outside academia after earning a doctorate –  interviews with the four speakers. If you are registered as alumni of GGG or one of the GGG faculties, you are invited to contact the speakers in case you have any questions. In the medium term we will establish the group “Science and Practice“ in the Alumni-Portal in order to enable networking between doctoral students and alumni who already started their career outside academia.