by Talia Planas-Fontanez The following is an article review of, “Through internships, Ph.D. students expand their skills and explore their options” by Elisabeth Pain. “If the professional profile of your curriculum is the appetizer, your work experience is the main course.” –Charley Mendoza. The work history in your resume is an essential part of any job application. It reflects the experience required for that position, and sets you apart from other candidates. Based on your work experience, an employer will determine if you can be an asset or a wrong fit. However, even after the completion of doctoral training, a significant number of students recognize that lack of experience can be an obstacle for any entry-level job in non-academic post-doctoral careers. How does a PhD graduate, with no previous industry experience increase their chance of getting a foot in the door? Answer: Through an internship that will provide you with relevant experience, plus skills and connections in industry. Within the last 10 years, internships with industrial, nonprofit, or governmental organizations are becoming increasingly popular in today’s competitive job market. These opportunities have been providing graduate students a chance to expand and diversify their skillsets, helping them establish new networks, and gain valuable work experience outside academia. An internship is a great opportunity to distinguish yourself in a sea of job applications! PhD Graduate Career Paths After you complete your PhD, a variety of careers spanning academia, communications, law, biotech, pharmaceuticals, and more, are waiting for you. You have the option to apply for jobs where you will continue to use not only your academic subject knowledge, but also the range of transferable skills that you have gained during your graduate career. According to a 2012 NIH report, 70% of the biomedical PhD students that graduated in the US in 2009 do a postdoc. Even more interesting, when looking at post-graduate career paths, 43% of Ph.D. students end up in academia, either in research or in teaching, while 57% end up working in industry, government, or scientific enterprise. 
To explore these employment options, internships are important and could be a key part of your training. Graduate programs and universities in Europe, such as the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research council in London, and the Institut des Sciences Moléculaires d’Orsay in France are starting to incorporate what they call a “third mission” (Jongbloed et al., 2008). This term refers to innovative activities that, in addition to the traditional responsibilities of research and teaching, universities can offer to facilitate academic engagement within industry and society. Elisabeth Pain mention that “in France, all Ph.D. candidates with a doctoral contract are entitled to take up to 32 days a year away from the laboratory to perform paid work in teaching, science communication, technology transfer, or consulting”. In the United Kingdom, the major government funding body, Research Councils UK, launched a prominent new Policy Internship Scheme in 2015, “encouraging research council funded PhD students to incorporate a three-month internship, with one of a selected number of influential policy organizations in the UK, into their PhD experience” (Wilson Review, 2012). These internships provide a valuable link to the private and public sectors, for both individual PhD students and their university departments. Initiatives like these create new channels of communication and opportunities for collaboration, which are indispensable in the biomedical sciences. Create your own opportunity! Completing an internship as part of your research training can be a great career development opportunity. The most important part is defining your goals and what you hope to obtain out of the experience. If your institution does not offer specific programs, you may decide to apply for an advertised internship or approach a personal industry connection that you may have, to see if they would be willing to offer internships. Here is a list of some opportunities that could be of interest. Take the time and explore them! National Cancer Institute https://www.cancer.gov/grants-training/training/at-nci#summer RAND Graduate Student Summer Associate Program https://www.rand.org/about/edu_op/fellowships/gsap.html Merck Research Labs (MRL): ADME Group Eli Lilly https://www.lilly.com/discovery Genentech https://www.gene.com/careers/university-and-early-career/interns-co-ops Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) http://www.ppic.org Edits and suggestions that contributed to the development of this post were made by fellow bloggers, Eileen Oni and Paulina Krzyszczyk.
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