Physics Careers Presentation
February - May 2020
Towards the beginning of 2020, I had the idea to create a presentation aimed at physics students at BSU. The goal was to expose them to the many career options open to them after graduation and how to begin preparing for them. Preparing early is especially important for physics majors since a physics degree on its own doesn't come with any specialized training to make a student stand out against the competition.
After discussing the presentation with the department chair, Dr. Charles Hanna, I expanded the audience to also include faculty and prospective students. I also talked with Tiffany Watkins, the department's career and academic advisor, and Lauryn Roper, one of the career counselors from BSU's career center, about the resources available to students. I delivered the presentation over Zoom in May. The presentation was about an hour long and included an appearance by Lauryn discussing the resources offered by the career center.
The slideshow was made using Microsoft PowerPoint. The presentation has four general sections:
- Introduction - Slides 1 to 7
- Career Paths - Slides 8 to 29
- Building Skills - Slides 30 to 38
- The Job Search - Slides 39 to 44
I also made two handouts to accompany the presentation.
The first handout lists career resources for students to take advantage of. It's broken into sections for resources focused on identifying potential employers, networking, resume building, and a few other resources.
The second handout outlines the process I developed for my own online job searching. It begins with putting together a keyword list, then selecting a search platform, and finally reviewing job qualifications and applying.