Careers Class schedule—living document that will change over the semester

1 credit = 16 classes

 

Date

Topic

Assignments due

8/27

Introduction

 

8/29

Career Objectives

Write down your personal career objectives: where do you want to be in 5 years and in 10 years?   List some backup plans in case your first career goals are not immediately achievable for any reason

9/3

Strengths and Weaknesses

Read  https://80000hours.org/articles/personal-strengths/

 and write down what you think are your important strengths and weaknesses.

9/5

Job opportunities

Find 3 open job opportunities of potential interest in 3 different employment categories (academic, research-only, government, for-profit industry, non-profit organization.   (see job opportunities pdf in class website)

9/10

Resumes

Prepare 3 one-page resumes for the 3 open candidate jobs (see resume-asignment.pdf in class website)

9/12

AI

Describe how AI might impact your career preferences.  See  https://aiwhim.com/will-ai-replace-your-science-career/ and https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2023/11/how-ai-is-shaping-scientific-discovery

9/17

Proposals

Turn in class discussion proposal.   Arka: workshop report

9/19

Proposals

Write an AI-assisted proposal concept and describe its strengths and weaknesses.   Large Language models:

https://libguides.library.arizona.edu/ai-literacy-instructors/beyond

 

No class week of 9/23

Alfred out of town

10/1

Rishi – AI theory and recent advances

Find a deep-learning paper to discuss

10/3

Mackenzie Mills (10 min);  Arin – Use of AI in science coding

TBD

 

No class week of 10/7

Europa Clipper launch!

 

No class week of 10/14

LPL field trip

10/22

David—Time management

Watch “How to gain control of your free time” and make note of all tasks you did in the last two days (in 30-minute chunks)

10/24

Kiki—astronomy outreach

watch a popular astronomy-related TED talk or outreach video—what made the presentation effective (or not)?

10/29

Ricardo—Developing new skills; DEI issues

TBD

If time: NASA review panel experience--Namya

10/31

No class

Happy Halloween

11/5

Isaiah--LinkedIn

TBD

11/7

Namya—proposal writing

Pick a proposal call of your choice and talk about how you would address it.   

11/12

Arka—Making effective presentations to different audiences

Revise your personal career objectives:  where do you want to be in 5 years and in 10 years, with backup plans.  What (if anything) changed and why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Potential student-led class discussion topics:

Developing new skills (that you don’t typically learn in classes)

Making effective public presentations (to different audiences)

How to create or sustain a positive working environment

Dealing with obstacles and challenges

Diversity, equity, inclusion issues

More on proposals

How to prepare an effective CV (full summary of your accomplishments, more than the 1-page resume)

Career stories

More on AI