The high-profile and prestigious journal Science Translational Medicine published an editorial in its April 29, 2015, issue about efforts to prepare graduate students for careers in biomedical research outside of academia.  Five principal investigators of Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST) grants from the National Institutes of Health penned the piece, including Ambika Mathur, dean of the Graduate School, who is the lead author.

“Having this article published legitimizes the value of multiple career pathways that should be made available to our trainees,” Mathur said. “This was also an amazing opportunity to showcase Wayne State’s leadership role in national graduate education. I am honored to serve as principal investigator of our BEST program.”

Wayne State’s BEST program has three successive phases: exploratory seminars, didactic workshops and experiential internships.

Phase One acquaints students with multiple career options from the day they enter the Ph.D. program, with a set of two-hour seminars that explore six career tracks with industry partners, faculty and alumni in the areas of undergraduate teaching, law, communication, business, community engagement and government.

Phase Two comprises a series of daylong workshops on the career options identified in Phase One. 

“This is probably the BEST program’s most novel strategy,” Mathur says. “These workshops act as a crucial ‘bridge’ between the exploratory seminars in Phase One and the internship experiences in Phase Three.”

The internships offer students experiential learning opportunities about career paths through placements with state agencies, nonprofit organizations or private industry. 

“We are excited by the approaches taken by BEST awardees to promote changes in biomedical research training,” said WSU President M. Roy Wilson. “I’m pleased that this program, led by Dr. Mathur, is playing a key role in creating a more robust and productive biomedical research community.” 

Last summer, the Graduate School established its Office of Graduate Career Services (OGCS), with a full-time director, as the focal point of career and professional development in both academic and nonacademic domains. The OGCS revamped the Graduate Professional Development series to include seminars on basic employment skills, such as conducting a job search, preparing for an interview and converting a CV to a resume. Faculty and staff also offer specialized workshops on abstract writing, poster presentation, professional communication in the workplace and strategies for presenting scientific ideas to non-specialist audiences.

For more information about the BEST program at Wayne State, please visit gradschool.wayne.edu/best/.