Useful certificate goal for academic transitioning to industry?

December 14, 2021 1:08 PM

I'm a former academic who is transitioning into industry, and I need a goal.

I'm very goal oriented. Its hard for me to learn something without a goal in mind. So, learning Python is hard, learning Python in order to implement XYZ package for a paper I'm writing is easy.

I'm leaving my postdoc to go into industry. I'm in the social sciences (quantitative). I have a job lined up doing social science work for a private company. I don't know where this will lead---everything I do is kind of data science adjacent, although a CS undergrad is probably a better programmer than me. But I of course have a PhD and have published widely and have decent substantive knowledge in my domain.

What's some goal---either certificate, writing a methodological/statistical paper, completing some online course, some technology that isn't R or Python or SQL, that I can do that will teach me something new? Ideally on a 3 month timeline. And ideally something that will help my industry career! Thanks!

posted by MisantropicPainforest to Work & Money (6 answers total)

If you've got R and Python and SQL then PowerBI will be fairly straightforward and useful in many a data science arena. A LOT of businesses that aren't out and out data businesses, but which have a need for data science, use PowerBI.

Here are Microsoft's online PowerBI courses, and their main PowerBI certificate.
posted by underclocked at 2:07 PM on December 14, 2021

In my experience, the first thing is recognize the most of the world runs along at the 101,102 course level of sophistication, if that high. I worked for a company where the superpower was information transfer between PhDs and the less educated. You need to learn to express yourself in the language of the common man, and accept the lack of accuracy that results. Example, I recently heard a discussion about the use of the "mutate" as applied to viruses. (Only genes mutate.)

That pet peeve out of the way, what you want is industry knowledge. To give another example, a person might know how to stimulate development of antibodies, needs to know at least something about manufacture of a million doses, transportation requirements, information needed by doctors, etc.
posted by SemiSalt at 2:20 PM on December 14, 2021

Moving into industry you might consider studying Agile methods and processes, or a structured approach to process improvement like Lean or Six Sigma.

If not, Tableau or Power BI or Looker (depending on what your employer uses) is a good idea.
posted by jeoc at 2:27 PM on December 14, 2021

Do you have a mentor and/or a community of practice in your new industry? I’ve journeyed from academic librarian to data scientist/engineer over the past few years, and I’ve found community events and 1:1 conversations to be extremely helpful in acclimating myself to the different set of norms (as the years go on, I realize how peculiar and weird my corner of academia was in retrospect!)

So, you said concrete. Maybe find one community of interest (eg for me it’s my local R Ladies chapter) and come to a (virtual) event, with an open mind to becoming a regular. Also, try reaching out to one person who you find inspiring for a coffee or virtual conversation, in a “I’m starting out in this industry and would love to learn more” way. Future you will thank present you - that’s my prediction anyway.
posted by elephantsvanish at 8:03 PM on December 14, 2021

Seconding elephantsvanish's excellent advice!

It would help a lot to know more about what kind of work you'll be doing. Tableau, PowerBI, and their ilk are crucial for some analytical jobs, but I haven't used them at all in my 12 years. You say you're doing social science work - for me, the most powerful extensions to our shared skillset have been 1) Rmarkdown and Git for making awesome, maintainable, reproducible reports, and 2) R's interactive web app framework, Shiny, for when you really need to let your audience fiddle with the parameters to understand your findings.

GIS skills might be relevant to your work, and certificate programs for that are widespread. But I've spent a lot of time on GIS over the years with VERY rare opportunities for application, so I can't recommend it unless there's an obvious connection to this upcoming job.

Please feel free to DM me if you don't want to get more specific about your upcoming job here.
posted by McBearclaw at 1:37 PM on December 15, 2021

Definitely look into UX research. Loads of researchers have PhDs. General Assembly has a course witha three-month timeline, but there are lots of other courses out there! i just got into research ops from academia and I would be glad to chat about it! The pay is great.
posted by ancient star at 10:00 PM on December 16, 2021