Above: York University's Career Centre hosted a live Webcast in collaboration with Science magazine
York University's Career Centre and Science magazine's The Next Wave have launched a new initiative to bring career resources to more students. Over 80 North American universities were invited to take part in a live Web cast titled Interviewing Skills for Scientists. The Webcast on March 9 was presented by Next Wave and hosted by York's Career Centre.
Participants and remote audience members had the opportunity to ask a panel of experts questions about the interview process. Graduate students across North America were able to watch and participate in the workshop as it happened and had the chance to have their questions answered by submitting their text questions to an online moderator.
The panel discussion was geared toward helping graduate level scientists understand and prepare for interviews by learning how to apply research and management skills in the private sector.
Right: York graduate students watched and participated in the live Webcast.
York's Computing & Network Services provided the expertise and co-developed the technology that was used for the live Webcast. The Career Centre initiated this collaboration and acted as the host and liaison between Next Wave and the university community.
Online participants were asked to rate the experience and 93 per cent rated the Webcast as "excellent" or "very good" and 84 per cent strongly agreed they would participate in another event of this type.
This initiative represented a new change in direction for Science magazine's Next Wave and was so successful, they are now planning a business model based on their experience at York.
More about Next Wave
Science's Next Wave is a weekly online publication that covers scientific training, career development, and the science job market. The Next Wave is published by Science magazine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Next Wave is read by scientists at different stages of their careers: grad students, post-doctorates, scientists in industry, faculty members and undergraduates read. In 2003, over 32,000 computers accessed the Next Wave site each month, and the average number of Next Wave pages viewed per month exceeded 131,000.