Career of Choice Philosophy

Vision

Creating a community where every trainee finds and follows their career-of-choice.

Mission

BioSci Careers creates a community of mentors to support the academic advancement, professional development, and career-of-choice decisions of our graduates, medical students and postdoctoral fellows. Through individualized counseling, curriculum and connections, our faculty, alumni and employers teach through their real-life stories and empower trainees to define and tell their own.

Philosophy

Stories are remembered up to 22% more than facts alone. When combined with facts, stories engage partners on both a cognitive and emotive level so that they listen more closely and trust you more quickly (Jennifer Aacker, Harnessing the Power of Stories). As such, the best way for you to define your academic and career options is to connect the themes in others’ stories to your own.

BioSci Careers is your community. Beyond a traditional “career center” model, we believe you are the center of our mission and you deserve opportunities to move beyond basic career development resources such as CV critiques and mock interviews. Through individualized connections opportunities, BioSci Careers provides a forum for faculty, alumni, employers, peers, trainee/student group leaders, and campus partners to share their stories and most useful resources. In turn, we create a diverse community in which to develop and tryout the various drafts of the story which will eventually lead to your career of choice.

Success is personal. We do not measure success by the number of job offers you receive; we measure it by your ability to achieve success as only you define it. As such, we support the myriad ways in which your training experience translates into a fulfilling career that aligns with your personal interests, values, and abilities. This alignment is the formula for the story you will share with your mentors and future employers. The safe, exploratory environments provided by our counseling/coaching and curriculum offerings empower you to discover your own definition of success. We measure success by your ability to achieve success as you define it.

Finding your career of choice takes time. Our ADAPT model—a developmental approach that bridges academic training with professional and career growth—was created with this in mind so that we can help you shape and tell your unique story, one chapter at a time.

Everyone has a story. We look forward to hearing yours.

Core Values

Diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives contribute to scientific and workforce innovation;
Success is a training experience and a career that aligns with your personal skills, interests, and values;
Training and career success are achieved when you are encouraged, mentored, and provided myriad outlets to explore and pursue all of your options;
Opportunities to develop and share stories within a community of peers provides this outlet;
AND, all career options are equally valuable.

BioSci Careers Perspective on Diversity

BioSci Careers values diversity of background, experience, and perspectives as an asset to scientific training and workforce innovation. As such, inclusion is our practice and equity is our goal. We work toward this end in the following ways:

Counseling/Coaching: creating safe spaces for trainees to explore their identities and discuss issues of acceptance within our community;
Curriculum: providing formal programming (e.g.: Out on the Market; Cross-cultural communication in the Workplace) and resources (e.g.: many selections in our Graduate Career Library) around diversity and inclusion;
Connections: actively seeking out diverse representation in our offerings and educating ourselves on social justice issues and striving for diversity of background, experience, and perspectives on our team.

Note: If incidents of oppression and/or bias occur on-campus or are perpetuated by a Stanford affiliate, they should be reported through the university 'acts of intolerance' protocol: https://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/policies/acts-intolerance-protocol/reporting-procedure.

Who We Serve

While we welcome all Stanford University trainees, we are the only career community on campus specializing in serving medical students, masters students, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the Biosciences. Using a partnership model, we incorporate individual trainees, trainee/student group leaders, faculty, alumni, campus partners, and employers into the decisions we make and the curriculum and services we provide.

Tell Your Story.