388: Exploring STEM PhD Careers Through a GSF Externship with Reem Salem

388: Exploring STEM PhD Careers Through a GSF Externship with Reem Salem

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Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: [00:00:00] Your PhD may have prepared you for far more career options than you have been encouraged to explore. For many STEM PhD students, career planning continues to feel overwhelming, especially when graduate training centers academia and access to mentorship, professional networks, and career guidance remains far too unequal.

Today, I'm speaking with Reem Salem to talk about the topic of career development for STEM PhD students. Reem is a fourth-year PhD candidate at the University of Chicago, studying molecular engineering and working on developing a novel method for biological sample mapping in 3D without imaging. I wish I could say I knew what that referred to, but please, please reach out to her to learn more about her work.

Reem was also an extern with Grad School Femtoring, where she focused on developing research translation [00:01:00] skills and worked on a career development brief and a grant-writing toolkit, which is now made freely available to the GSF community. So please check the link in the show notes so that you can learn more about how to access these free resources.

In today's conversation, Reem shares what her research revealed about the career development needs of STEM PhDs, and it was really interesting to see what came up based on demographic differences. She also revealed how to recognize and communicate your transferable skills, and she shared practical ways to begin exploring careers that align with your strengths and values.

Here is my conversation with Reem Salem.

Welcome to the award-winning Grad School Femtoring [00:02:00] Podcast, the place where first generation BIPOC students and professionals can listen in on inclusive grad school stories and gain practical tools for sustainable success. This is Doctora Yvette Martinez-Vu, a certified coach, consultant, author, and speaker.

I will be serving as your femtor, providing you with insider knowledge to help you thrive in grad school and beyond.

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. We're jumping straight into the questions. My first question for you, Reem, is if you could briefly describe a little bit more about yourself, about your doctoral research, and what interested you about this externship?

Reem Salem: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm working on developing a novel imaging technology [00:03:00] that uses DNA instead of light to visualize biological specimens . And we're really interested in learning how the way a tissue is organized or how it looks can have an impact in certain disease. And I applied for this externship because I wanted the opportunity to work on translational research as a form of science communication. I'm really interested in science communication, and I think it's one of the pillars of STEM degrees in general, is that you're able to communicate difficult or complicated topics to different audience. Because I like to think of academia as this giant echo chamber where it's just a bunch of experts who are talking to each other, and no one outside of that room has any idea what's going on. I think that contributes to some of the lack of trust in science that we're seeing right [00:04:00] now. So think science communication is a great way to regain that public trust in science. So that's why I'm interested in it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I like what you said about regaining trust in science. think it's much needed. And interestingly enough, just to provide a little bit more context for the listeners, found out about this externship program opportunity where if you have an organization or a company, you can put in an ad so that you can get an extern to support you in any area of your work, but especially finding ways to align it with the work that they do.

And most people that listen to my podcast probably know or get a sense that I don't have a STEM background. That is not my area of expertise. But I thought, "Oh, it would be really interesting if I could work with a STEM student to help provide that lens and how it applies to my work." [00:05:00] And so when I proposed the externship opportunity, I kept it relatively open-ended, and then you and I decided what you would work on, and one of those pieces was the career development piece, which stood out to me.

I found that to be really interesting, and it makes sense that you're able to work on those goals of translational research, science communication, and really resisting or pushing back against this idea of academia as an echo chamber and making that knowledge that you are gaining in grad school much more accessible to others.

So I appreciate you for that, and I appreciate that you were willing to take this on, 'cause, because not everybody would be interested in this type of externship. So let's talk a little bit more about the skills that you either developed or strengthened during our time together. What are some of those skills?

And feel free to [00:06:00] share a little bit more about the projects that you worked on as well.

Reem: Yeah. So as you said, the work for this externship was focused on career development for STEM PhDs. I started off with a needs assessment and digging through the literature a little bit. So a skill that I wanna say that I developed a little bit more is literature search. And then based on this needs assessment we developed the career development brief.

And additionally, there is the grant writing toolkit, which is a guide to STEM PhDs in how to find grants, how to apply to grants, what these grants look like to help them get funding, and as well as careers in scientific writing and how to make that transition to one of these careers. So the skills were like I said, literature search, and again, I wanna emphasize the part about [00:07:00] translating the research or translational research, where I'm figuring out how to put these findings for a specific audience, in this case that's the STEM PhDs, and just developing that skill

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah, that was great. I remember when you were first working on that needs assessment, a lot of interesting findings came out about like who actually ends up in academia, who pursues a career outside of academia. There were different racial breakdowns, gender breakdowns, and so forth. And so I'm curious, based on some of the research that you did, what did it reveal about the career development needs of STEM PhD students in particular?

Reem: So my main resource for that was the Survey of Earned Doctorates, which is a massive survey of PhDs and their fields and what they end up doing after they graduate. And what I noticed that over the past decade, there was this shift from career paths being almost an even [00:08:00] split between academic careers and careers outside of academia,

which we refer to in the brief as applied careers to decenter this idea that academia is a standard and anything else has to be non-academic. So now it reveals that the majority of students actually end up in one of these applied careers. And another thing that was surprising was that there was a difference in these career pathways based on ethnicities. So Hispanic or Asian STEM PhDs were more likely to end up in an industry career compared to African American Indian, or white STEM PhDs. So this solidifies the idea that we need to have better career development for people that actually meets their career needs and allows them to explore all of their options instead [00:09:00] of centering academia or the alternative, which is usually just summed up as industry R&D. But there is so much more than that as we've put together in the career development brief. The last thing that was really surprising to me was that 20% of women who work in these applied careers have a role outside of STEM entirely, which means that they had to find their own way and learn how to tailor their skills or develop new skills that allows them to do this new role. But I also would like to argue that perhaps if they had adequate career development that let them explore other options within STEM these applied careers, that maybe they wouldn't have made that transition. because this transition outside of STEM it further marginalizes historically underrepresented groups and [00:10:00] hurts the diversity that we want to have within STEM fields. if there was a possibility for people to be retained within STEM, then yeah, we'd like to help see that happen

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It's interesting because we don't know, right? There's a lot of assumptions we can make based on the data that you pulled around who stays and who doesn't, first off, in academia, and then within academia, who stays in STEM-related jobs and who doesn't. And you're right. A lot of these numbers would look differently if there was more career development.

I know there's a lot of us that don't choose to specialize in one area only to completely change careers afterward. And I'm really glad that you named that the majority of PhDs in STEM fields are getting careers that are more applied and that exist outside of academia. And I'm glad that you also named the importance of [00:11:00] de-centering academia because so many PhD programs, even beyond STEM, focus on preparing you for the professoriate.

Everything is academia centered, so you either get an academic job or you get a non-ac job or an alt-ac job. And I'm guilty of doing this, of using that language, but I do think it's important to remember, wait, the norm is actually getting a job outside of academia, and there's so much more, like you said, beyond industry and R&D roles.

And you named some of them in both of the different resources that you created that we will provide access to everyone who listens to the episode, both the Career Development Brief and the Grant Writing Toolkit. I'm curious are there specific transferable skills that you want to name so that our listeners who are STEM students right now [00:12:00] can start to think about that, about, wait I already may have these skills, or I might be developing these skills in my program?

And if so, what are the skills, and how do you communicate them? How do you translate them? How do you articulate these skills beyond academia? If you can say a little bit more about what came up as you were doing your search and working on these resources.

Reem: Yeah. I'm glad you asked that because I think it's very important that we try to figure out, to isolate the skills from our very niche project. Because I think as STEM PhDs, we get really entrenched into, oh, these are the specific details of my project, and this is all I know, this very niche part of this particular science. But it's so much more than that. For example, all STEM PhDs have done some form of presenting their data or writing papers or maybe presenting a poster at a conference, and that transferable [00:13:00] skill is that you have technical communication skills. You're able to communicate your findings in a way that people will understand. The fact that you just design your own experiments in general and you execute those, you troubleshoot them, that means you have analytical problem-solving skills. You can troubleshoot. You can work your way around different problems that you might encounter in a workplace. And I also wanna mention independence and resilience because doing a PhD in STEM means that you might be going through periods of very little direct guidance. So you have to figure out how to be independent and how to be resilient when your experiments might not be working exactly the way you want them. So I think it's good to have that framework of isolating or separating the skill from project

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And of course, like we cannot name every [00:14:00] single skill. Every STEM discipline is different, and there's a lot of skills that we didn't get to name. But I'm glad that you're giving folks an example of what this looks like, of thinking, "Wait, hold on. You have presented before. You've attended conferences before.

You've communicated your work to an audience. You have that technical communication skill," and that's one example. Or, "Wait, hold on. You've designed your own projects from scratch, and you've also been doing this work for an extended period of time with little to no guidance." Hopefully some guidance, but there's a great deal of independence that you need to have as a graduate student, not just in STEM, but like just in general, a lot of grad students have to be very independent, and that's something that shows not just independence, but it shows leadership skills as well.

It shows that you're able to come up with things [00:15:00] from scratch. You're able to pivot. You're able to keep going even as challenges come up. If an experiment fails, you gotta keep going. So I appreciate that, and I think that the other thing that I wanna remind the listeners that you are already doing is that you are a lot more than your subject area expertise.

Your skill set goes beyond that and is applicable across so many different areas, fields, industries, careers, and even the skills that maybe you've acquired in life can be valuable. So don't discount your strengths, don't discount your skills, even if they have nothing to do with the subject that you've been spending so many years learning more about.

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Coaching includes live sessions, voice memo, and email support between sessions, and access to a resource library filled with dozens of tools for academic and professional success. If you'd like to explore working together, visit gradschoolfemtoring.com/coaching to learn more and schedule a free consultation today

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I wanna talk about barriers next, [00:17:00] because you did mention how there's a lot of underrepresented or historically excluded students who may face additional barriers, and that also is likely impacting their career decisions. So what have you noticed, just based on the research and the work that you've done, about barriers that STEM PhD students are experiencing, especially historically excluded STEM PhD grad students?

And how are these barriers impacting their career exploration or making that part of the process harder?

Reem: So I think a lot of these barriers boil down to a lack of mentorship or a lack of opportunities for networking with employers within the field. Because if we focus on maybe first-gen grad students, might not have someone in their community who is in that field who would be [00:18:00] able to help them either find connections in that field or even figure out the, like you talked about before in one of your episodes, like the hidden curriculum of grad school. So that's a resource that's missing from historically underrepresented students. And that's why it's important to also find adequate mentorship in grad school. And I think a lot of people that their PI or their academic advisor is their sole mentor, and that's how it should be. But I think it's so important to find mentorship outside of that, not because your PI is inadequate in some way, absolutely not, but I think it will help a lot to get different perspectives or have different forms of mentorship, maybe from a more advanced graduate student maybe someone also from this historically underrepresented group, and you can [00:19:00] find this sense of camaraderie, And as well as other people in your field to help you

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And just as a quick follow-up to this one, have you experienced any of these barriers around either lack of mentorship or inadequate mentorship or just not having individuals within your community who are in your field

Reem: Yeah I do identify with that. I'm also a first-gen grad student. I don't have anyone in my family who's done a PhD before. I'm also an international student, so I don't have any connections in this country that would help me figure out what comes after a PhD or how to even navigate my time during the PhD. So I think it's good to find societies in your campus that can help with that and connect [00:20:00] with advanced students.

I found these to be helpful

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I know I did put you on the spot a little bit there. This wasn't in any of the questions that I sent you in advance. I'm not trying to have you overshare, but I am glad that you mentioned that you too are first-gen, and that you are also an international student, and this is not an episode about that.

Although I know that as a first-gen student, there's so many barriers that come up, and as an international student, there's a lot of barriers that come up, too, because I don't have that experience, but I've interviewed people who were international students who've talked about it on the podcast, and I've worked with international students as well, so I have so much respect and admiration for international students for all that you have to do to simply be in your program and finish your program. I wanted to say that, and I also wanted to name that even if you have the best advisor in the world, there's no such thing as a perfect advisor.

There's no one person that can provide all of the guidance, and it's as if you read my mind [00:21:00] because I literally just a few days ago recorded an episode on seven grad school myths that hold students back, and one of them was that one, thinking that your advisor needs to be, like, the sole or main mentor that provides all the things for you, when really you need an entire community, multiple mentors, multiple support systems to survive and make it through.

So thank you for sharing. All right, let's talk about actual tips and steps that our listeners can apply. So based on what you learned, what can our STEM PhD listeners right now do to explore career options? And let's assume that they are still in their programs. I hear this all the time from my own clients where whether you're a first year, third year, or in your last year, they're thinking, "Wait, is it too soon or is it too late to think about what comes next?

At what [00:22:00] point do I think about it? What can I do? Should I wait until my last year? Should I wait until I graduate? Should I wait until I not get an academic job to consider something else?" I'm not telling you to answer those questions, but any simple steps or any suggestions of things that you notice that can help them to consider a career path outside of academia?

What comes to mind?

Reem: I love this question. So I think one of the most straightforward things people can do is to talk to the career advisor in their school. Career advisors usually have so many resources, and they have this extensive alumni network that they have contacts to who work. So whatever career you're interested in, they probably know someone who's already done that before from your program, which makes it very relevant and they can put you in touch with this [00:23:00] person easily. Which leads into my second point about scheduling informal chats with people who are doing job that you're interested in. Whether that comes from your career advisor, that might be a little bit of an easier intro, but you can also just cold call people on LinkedIn that you're interested in because you're not really asking them for a huge favor.

People usually like to talk about what they do. I think it would be flattering for them if you send a connection request with a little note of being like, "I'm interested in this. I'm wondering if you can... to schedule a call with me to just talk about your day-to-day." I think a lot of people would respond to that. So that could help you figure out what that job that you're interested in actually entails day-to-day, and it can help you find opportunities or connections in that company. [00:24:00] maybe you can ask them if they have any internships that are coming up, and internships are one of the best ways to network and to get your foot in the door with different employers.

A lot of STEM PhDs try to get internships in the summer. If you'd like to work at that place after your internship, I'd recommend not doing that internship until maybe your fourth year so you're closer to graduation, so it can be an easier transition into that job. Yeah, but I think these three things are very useful and actionable steps finding the right career.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah, these are great suggestions. Talking to a career advisor or a career coach or someone who works in career services. At some universities, career services is tailored more for undergrads, but don't be [00:25:00] discouraged if you're a grad student. They will still talk to you. For the most part I can't imagine that they wouldn't.

And also, scheduling informational interviews are huge. I say this all the time to my clients who are pivoting and who are transitioning into new industries. It's one thing to imagine another job and another career. It's another thing to talk to someone who is doing that thing, and who can actually give you advice, who can give you a referral, who can point you to the next person to talk to, and all of this over time adds up to help you to prepare to make that change.

And then internships. I wanna add to what you mentioned about internships to say if you have a hard time finding an internship as a graduate student, I know this is not ideal, but you could always see if you could volunteer. So if you can volunteer, even if it's just two hours of your time a week, something that's doable [00:26:00] with your schedule.

Not because I encourage unpaid work, but more because I want you to have some experience, some contact. You'll get compensated through that reference that you have from that person that you're volunteering with, and through the skills that you learn, maybe a project that you completed or something that you can add to a portfolio.

That can also make a difference in helping you to, again, make that change and consider careers outside of academia. There will be more suggestions in the resources that Reem has worked on for this externship, so please download them. They will be listed in the show notes. All right, let's bring this back to you.

Let's put you on the spot one more time, Reem. I hope you don't mind. So I wanna hear about how this externship has shaped the way that you think about your own career options after grad school. What have you learned, [00:27:00] or has this changed your perspective at all?

Reem: Yeah, so for me personally, I think this helped me have a more of a systematic approach to career exploration. I think it helped me figure out that there are so many options out there, and that I can actually tailor my career search to fit my own strength and values instead of trying to fit myself into a career search just to find a job. I found it really helpful to, especially to think about strength and values 'cause I think especially the value portion is sometimes missing from what we think about in a career. But having a career that aligns with your values can be very fulfilling because you spend a significant portion of your life doing your job.

So it would be very fulfilling if, [00:28:00] actually aligns with your values in a way that feels good to you. And I feel like I also have more confidence in the skills that I'm developing right now, because I understand how these can be transferable to other careers, and I feel more confident with actually saying that.

Yes, I do have problem-solving troubleshooting skills, project management skills, technical communication, and all of that

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Definitely. And I like that you referred to it as a systematic approach, because a lot of times the first thing that comes to mind when you think about doing something new, especially considering a career change, that feels like a big, lofty thing to do, and it's always like feelings, the feelings that come up first.

It's like, "Oh, that's overwhelming. Oh, that's scary. Oh, am I good enough?" And those feelings then turn into thoughts. "I don't think I can do it," or, "I've never seen [00:29:00] someone else do it," or, "I'm not cut out for it," which can impact your behavior and your outcomes. But if you focus on the system and the process, and you're like, "Okay, I don't know the outcome, but I can reach out to someone at the career services office," or, "I don't know the outcome, but I can apply for this one externship or internship opportunity.

I don't know the outcome, but I can reach out to someone that's a stranger on LinkedIn and ask for 15 to 30 minutes of their time to learn more about their career or their industry." And little by little, you're chipping away, and you're not letting the feelings get in the way of you making that change.

It's so much more complicated than that, right? The job market right now is not great, but the folks that I know that are continuing to get interviews, that are continuing to land jobs right now are leaning heavily on these skills. The skills of tapping into their network, the skills [00:30:00] of knowing how to articulate their skills, and also finding that alignment of really knowing, okay, there's a big alignment between the mission of this company, this organization, or this job, and the work I wanna do and my values and my strengths, and bringing it all together to convince someone else to hire you.

So thank you for sharing a little bit more about you and how it has helped you to think more about your values and your strengths. I hope that you will continue to carry that into your work like you did in our time working together. And before we wrap up, I'm curious if there was anything else you were hoping that I'd ask you, and if not, if someone wants to reach out to you, if they're inspired by this conversation and they wanna connect with you, is there a way that they can reach you or learn more about you and your work?

Reem: Yeah, absolutely. I'd love the opportunity to connect and, participate in this network of mentorship with other [00:31:00] students or other professionals. So I use LinkedIn a lot, so I think we can connect on LinkedIn, which I think will be mentioned in the description of this episode.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I highly recommend getting into the habit of connecting with folks on LinkedIn. I don't think I have you on LinkedIn, so I might just connect with you on LinkedIn as well. So go ahead if you resonated with what you heard, send Reem a LinkedIn request, connect, and that way you can keep, you know, building your network, and we can keep supporting one another.

Thank you so much for coming on here today, for sharing your wealth of knowledge and insights, all the gems behind the scenes of what you learned. And thank you also for your time developing these free resources. I know folks are gonna benefit so much from it. And if y'all download it and find it helpful, reach out.

Let us know. We want to hear feedback. If you DM me, if you email me, if you message me, I'm gonna [00:32:00] forward it to Reem so that she knows that this episode and the work that she did mattered, 'cause that's the whole point of this, right? Making the knowledge accessible and having that kind of public impact. So let us know what your thoughts were about the episode or about the resources, and thank you again, Reem.

It's been a pleasure working with you

Reem: Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, it would absolutely make my day if someone reaches out to say that this work has helped them. yeah, and I really enjoyed my time with this externship, so yeah. Thank you for having me here on this podcast.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: One of the biggest lessons from this conversation is that career exploration can begin before you know exactly where you want to end up. You can approach it as a gradual and systematic process shaped by your values, ongoing reflection, and small yet consistent steps. [00:33:00] Reem reminded us that STEM PhD students develop valuable skills in technical communication, problem-solving, project management, independence, and even resilience.

She also emphasized the importance of building a network of mentors, speaking with career advisors, conducting informational interviews, and pursuing internships or externships that allow you to explore new options. As you reflect on this episode, ask yourself, "Which skills have I developed that I may be overlooking?

And what is one manageable next step I can take to learn about a new career that aligns with my strengths and/or values?" Be sure to check out the show notes to access the free career development brief and the free grant-writing toolkit, and of course, to connect with Reem on LinkedIn. If these resources support you, please reach out and let us know.

[00:34:00] This is why we work together. This is why we provided these resources for you, so please stay in touch. And as always, I'll talk to you all next time.

Thanks so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, here are three ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. The second way is to get your copy of my free resource kit linked in my show notes. This kit includes tools, worksheets, and curated podcast playlists to guide you through applying to and navigating grad school.

The third way to support my show is by joining my email newsletter, where I share key takeaways and additional resources. Thanks again for listening, and until next time