Preparing for Faculty Careers Course (EDUC 343C)

How will you prepare yourself to obtain a great faculty job - and to thrive as a professor once you begin your career?

The Preparing for Faculty Careers (PFC) course is designed for advanced doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars from any discipline who are considering a faculty career.

Learning Objectives

By participating fully in this 10-week course, you will:

determine how your values, skills, and goals align with a faculty career
explore different types of faculty roles and different institutional contexts
discuss how to identify and apply for appropriate faculty positions
develop a plan to thrive once you land a faculty position

Program Description

Course sessions will include guest speakers from Stanford and other campuses and small group and individual work. The course will also offer optional networking events and lunches for participants to learn from each other and from faculty guests, as well as additional optional career development workshops to support an academic career.

The four parts of the course will guide participants through an exploration of the academic career and prepare them to launch their academic job search:

How do I figure out if I actually should pursue an academic career? (“Reflect”)
What kinds of faculty positions exist and what do these look like in practice? (“Explore”)
How do I conduct a search and successfully land the right job? (“Dive In”)
How do I prepare myself for the job?

Details

Open to postdoctoral scholars, advanced doctoral students, and other affiliates from any school or department. All participants are required to attend at least 7 of 9 Thursday sessions and to participate actively. Online tools will be used to support participants' self-reflection and individual progress.

Course meets weekly on Thursdays (required), 8:30-10:20AM. Optional workshops and networking opportunities will also be offered weekly.

Required sessions: Thursdays, April 2 - May 28, 8:30-10:20 am.
- Attendance in at least 7 of 9 of the Thursday sessions is required.
Optional workshops: Tuesday lunchtimes between April 7 - May 26, topics TBD.
- Additional workshops on career development topics for academia will be offered each week. These are optional and will be open to the larger postdoc and grad student community.
- Lunches, coffees, and other opportunities to connect with other PFC participants, and learn from faculty guests will also be offered for PFC participants exclusively.

Registration Process

Apply to the Faculty Careers Course
This year the course is not open for registration via Axess. Graduate students who require 1-2 units of course credit should contact prepforfacultycareers@stanford.edu to discuss options.

Optional session dates and details will be announced to PFC participants later.

Partner Organization

Office of Postdoctoral Affairs

Time Commitment

> 8 hours

Grad Grow Competencies

Teaching & Mentoring
Career Development

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