and Life! - ACS Publications - American Chemical Society

Chapter 4

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So You’ve Got Your Ph.D.....Now What? A Primer in Career (and Life!) Planning Heinz Plaumann* Technical Manager, Performance Materials BASF Corporation, 1609 Biddle Ave., Wyandotte, Michigan 48192, United States *E-mail: [email protected]

Completing an advanced degree is always a laudable achievement – Congratulations! Even more so, a Ph.D. in chemistry has required considerable commitment, lab or library sweat, along with courses, teaching assinments…and sacrifice of your personal life! A life and career phase only for the brave at heart. Career planning is an activity in which, neither enough fresh Ph.D. graduates nor more seasoned colleagues engage. This summary of a conference presentation offers the reader the opportunity for sufficient self-analysis and reflection to learn whether they are in the “right place”, considering their passion, interests, skills, and general life situation. Several tools such as mind-mapping and creation of a Career Roadmap enable the reader to assess where they are and to formulate a strategy for moving to the next step.

Let’s Start Here… Slowly and cautiously, I climb the stairs to the stage, step up to the podium, and greet the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have 10 seconds to capture your interest for the remainder of my presentation… and the rest of the time to lose it. However, we have two secret weapons working in our favor to make this an interesting, fun-filled learning experience. First, I am speaking with a very intelligent, curious and eager audience – That’s you! We will share the second secret weapon at the end of the presentation…”

© 2014 American Chemical Society In What You Need for the First Job, Besides the Ph.D. in Chemistry; Benvenuto, M.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.


This is how we would begin our journey together, lasting about 10 to 15 minutes in a conference or seminar presentation. Versions of this presentation have had many titles: “What Then? What Now? What Next?”, “A Tale of Two Stories”, “So You Really Want to be a Chemist?”, and others. Only a handful of slides suffice and we would focus on “connecting in friendly conversation”. (See Duarte (1), Simmons (2) and LeFever (3)). I hope this written version titled “So you’ve got your Ph.D…Now, What? A Primer for Career (and Life) Planning” captures and holds your interest… and gives you some tools for planning. My esteemed, competent and eloquent colleagues will be writing additional chapters for this monograph about such very necessary topics as Resume Writing, Cover Letters, Interview Preparation and Questions. Additionally, key skills needed to establish oneself in the first and latter positions include effective Planning and Organization skills (18), clear, concise and effective communication, and presentation competencies along with their technical expertise! I will not presume upon their expert writing and will look only at the development of future career plans and options.

In the Beginning…My Story To set the stage for our conversation, you should know something about me. Bill Cosby on some early vinyl stated the obvious: “I started out as a child…”. Born in a small, sleepy railroad town in southern Ontario, Canada of immigrant parents from Europe, my siblings and I learned early that hard work and education were prized values. Even so, the first day of school was very traumatic, lots of crying, hanging onto the schoolyard fence. My older, wiser (and physically domineering!) brother said “Look fathead, get in school! You are embarrassing me!” This same sibling later sparked in me a curiosity to read, to learn, try new things, to take (measured!) risks… all leading to learn that most of questions could be answered through a developing insatiable interest in science. Once I got the hang of school, I could not stop. After about 20 years, I completed a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Waterloo in Canada. This graduate education provided, of course, the necessary technical skills to call myself an organic chemist. In the process of conducting the research (labwork, literature research, etc.) the additional skills of problem analysis and solving, planning, organizing, communication, and effective presentation to both technically expert and uninformed audiences. Along the way, few interesting tidbits – A Macho Moment playing varsity football in University (see Figure 1. photos!) and helping fund my graduate education by playing pedal steel guitar professionally. Music has stayed with me, still playing jazz guitar and bass!

30 In What You Need for the First Job, Besides the Ph.D. in Chemistry; Benvenuto, M.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.


Figure 1. Started out as a child: First grade, University Football, graduating (almost out of school!) and helping pay for grad school by playing pedal steel guitar. After my first few years in industry, I returned to school and completed a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering, also at Waterloo… and this cross-disciplinary duality has served me well. After about a decade with a leading Canadian chemical company, I moved to a larger, more global firm and this afforded my family and me the opportunities to live in Germany twice, as well as in several parts of the United States. During most of my career, I have been engaged in technical leadership roles, ensuring that R&D projects were focused, leading to commercially successful products. However, my passion in supporting others, helping them create their own career plans, has grown increasingly and become very rewarding for me, mentoring others to success. Among other “hobbies”, I teach part-time at a few universities, stay as fit as I can, occasionally running some 5-10k races with family members…A life fully lived! But that’s more than enough about me! Let’s talk about…

Your Story: Where Am I? Futurist Daniel Burrus presents an interesting mental image of a windshield: You need to know where you are coming from (rearview mirror) and use that to determine where you are going (windshield) (4). But the windshield is much bigger than the mirror: Your future is much bigger than your past! In a workshop setting, participants put pencil to paper and describe several things that brought them to their current state in life (See Figure 2). Most would agree: Life is not linear but more like a Random Walk (although we can still plan!) (See Savage (5), Fung (6) and Gottman et al. (7).)



Figure 2. The Non-Linear Life Plan…ain’t it the truth!

Guiding questions may be: • • • •

Where am I today? My current situation? (Grad student, assistant professor, R&D chemist, bank teller, stay-at-home dad) What skills have I acquired in completing my Ph.D.? Working hard, planning, organizing, problem solving, team cooperation? What are the things I like about it? (Learning new things, hopes of employment, rewarding hobbies or social activities) What are things I would change? (Geography, financial state)

Now What? Once you have established and clarified your thinking about you current state, we are compelled to think about our longer term state: •

•

•

Do you have a Life Vision or Mission Statement? Covey (8) and Smye (9) provide for thought-provoking ideas. The Life Mission Statement can serve as a “true North”, a check-point to confirm we are headed in the correct direction career- and life-wise.(See also Rath (16). What ever happened to childhood dreams? Give up on them? Not realistic enough? These may play roles in understanding our adult interests and passions. What will your legacy be? How will others remember you? 32 In What You Need for the First Job, Besides the Ph.D. in Chemistry; Benvenuto, M.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.

Plan It! Do It!


Now is the time to start connecting “Where You Came From” with “Where You are Going” and how you will get there! (Recall: Your Future is bigger than Your Past!) I can almost hear the reader exclaim “Yeah but, you don’t understand!”, to which I would reply “By the way, the Yeah-But bird is extinct” and “of course I don’t understand: So explain it to me!” A way to start creating and sorting through options is to create a MindMap. (See example for My Story in Figure 3). An excellent tool created by Buzan (10). It is not the only tool but can be of great use for many things – brainstorming, idea gathering, project planning, etc.

Figure 3. Mindmap summarizing “My Story”.

Dr. Seuss may have described it like this: You can do it by yourself, You can do it in a crowd You can do it in your head, You can do it way out loud You can do it for your work, You can do it just for fun You can do it for your projects until the project’s done! 33 In What You Need for the First Job, Besides the Ph.D. in Chemistry; Benvenuto, M.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.


Take the time to create a MindMap for such branches as your Background, Interests, Childhood Dreams, Hobbies, What is Fun, Never-Do’s, anything else you can write or draw. Once you have a page full, talk to a confidante to check….Am I on track here… or way off base? The more input you get the more realistic it can be. And remember: It’s just a piece of paper – IT’S NOT YOUR LIFE! From this, you can now start creating a Career Roadmap, a fancy word for a flow diagram summarizing your possible next steps. (Sandberg says in her book “Lean In” that our careers are more like jungle gyms than ladders! (11)) An example is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Career Roadmap: What’s my next step? It makes sense to include your present state, a few possible next steps (only your favorites to which you can actually commit pursuing), maybe include a Never-Do or Not Now. I suggest that people only go a few steps into their Burrus Windshield (= future). We learn something every day – we should be smarter tomorrow than we are today! As we learn more and the world around me changes, it makes little sense to go too far down the planning road… Now the Key: Is there enough information to take start moving on your Roadmap? Do you need to network more? Read more? Make a decision… and get started NOW! 34 In What You Need for the First Job, Besides the Ph.D. in Chemistry; Benvenuto, M.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.

A Few Key Learnings… Here are a few Never Forgets: • • •


•

• • • • • • •

Failure is a beginning, not an end. Never outgrow your childish curiosity (Stay in touch with your Crayons (Pausch (12)). Time is all you have… and as you grow older you will realize less and less of it (Pausch (12)). We only live about 4000 weekends… Never stop learning, never stop thinking, never stop asking tough questions! You can’t learn less – only more. And many folks know more than you! Practice humility. (Not everyone had the chance to earn a Ph.D.!). Be thankful. Share the credit generously… and always be honest, polite and respectful! What you know gets you started… and as a Ph.D. you should know it well. Who knows you is more important than who you know! Talk with lots of people…listen to more. (Networking: see for example Bowman (13), Welch (14), Seidman (15), Ferrazzi (17)). Everybody’s different – get used to it… and everybody has a fun-story to listen to! The Questions of the Day: Will you make this the best day ever? Tigger or Eeyore? Giving your all… or holding back?

Finally… For many years, I used this as my final slide in presentations: • • • •

Get Input Decide and… Do! Only what you do counts!

(By the way, the second secret weapon I mentioned in the beginning: You have me as a passionate, engaging and motivating speaker!) ‘Nuff said!

References 1.

2. 3.

Duarte, N. Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2010. See also her TED Talk on this subject. Simmons, A. The Story Factor: Secrets of Influence from the Art of Storytelling; Basic Books: New York, 2006. LeFever, L. Art of Explanation: Making Your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier To Understand; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2013. 35 In What You Need for the First Job, Besides the Ph.D. in Chemistry; Benvenuto, M.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.

4. 5. 6.

7.


8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

Burrus, D. Technotrends: How to Use Technology to Go Beyond Your Competition; Harper Collins Publications, Inc.: New York, 1993. Savage, S. The Flaw of Averages: Why We Underestimate Risk in the Face of Uncertainty; John Wiley and Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2009. Fung, K. Numbers Rule Your World: The Hidden Influence of Probabilities and Statistics on Everything You Do; McGraw Hill Professional: New York, 2010. Gottman, J.; et al. The Mathematics of Marriage; MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 2002. Covey, S. R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; Simon & Shuster, Inc.: New York, 1989. Smye, M. Is It Too Late To Run Away and Join the Circus? Finding the Life You Really Want; Hungry Minds, Inc.: New York, 2002. Buzan, T. Use Your Head: How To Unleash the Power of Your Mind; EMind Design Publishing: Charleston, SC, 1974. Also, many very instructional demonstrations by Buzan on YouTube. Sandberg, S. Lean in: Women, Work, and the Will To Lead; Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 2013 Pausch, R. The Last Lecture; Hyperion Books: New York, 2008. Bowman, J. Don’t Take the Last Donut; Career Press, Inc.: Franklin Lakes, NJ, 2009. Welch, S. 10-10-10; Simon & Shuster, Inc.: New York, 2009. Seidman, D. How; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2007. Rath, T. Strength Finder; Gallup Press: New York, 2007. Ferrazzi, K. Never Eat Lunch Alone; Random House, Inc.: New York, 2005. Allen, D. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity; Penguin: New York, 2001.


and Life! - ACS Publications - American Chemical Society

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