After the thesis: portraits of UNIL PhDs
The survey among more than 2,000 doctoral graduates of UNIL and conducted between 2018 and 2019 by the Graduate Campus has shown that there is a great diversity of career paths after a PhD. The pursuit of an academic career is one option among others: three quarters of those we interviewed have continued their career outside of academia.
What are the different possibilities for a career after the doctorate? How does a professional path beyond academia happen, and how to make the transition? What skills developed during the doctorate are valuable on the job market? How to make it through the different stages of an academic career?
Fifteen former UNIL doctoral candidates have accepted to talk about their journey. They share their experiences and advice, provide relevant information for how to prepare for after the thesis, and explain how they came to be in their current role. This series of portraits, in the form of interviews, is aimed at doctoral and postdoctoral researchers who are considering the next steps in their professional life – in the academic world or beyond – and who wish to explore different career options after a doctorate.
From November 2020 to June 2021, we're publishing a new portrait every two weeks.
Our heartfelt thanks go to those PhDs who accepted to share their experience with us, and to Anne Develey (Docteure en Lettres, 2019), who managed the project.
Are you looking for more portraits of PhDs? The FBM Doctoral School at UNIL has a series of portraits on their site, Drs Alumni Network. The CUSO has also published video interviews with PhDs from the universities of western Switzerland.
You’ll find other portraits on the following external sites:
• VITAE – Researcher career stories
• PhD Career Stories
• PhDs at Work
• From PhD to Life
