Georgia State University’s History Department has received a $3,000 Career Diversity for Historians grant from the American Historical Association (AHA) to fund programming that will introduce graduate students to a wide variety of career opportunities.
The grant was created to address the decline in traditional teaching jobs available for Ph.D. students.
“Georgia State has already demonstrated its willingness to innovate in terms of undergraduate retention and graduation rates,” said Denise Davidson, program director. “This is an opportunity to do that on the graduate level.”
Grant recipients are chosen based on location, diversity, program size and past successes. Georgia State is one of only five awardees for this year’s career diversity grant.
Starting this fall, Georgia State’s career diversity programming will run through May 2017.
The department will host five workshops covering topics such as networking, career diversity, communication skills, resume writing and quantitative literacy.
“We know how to help students market themselves for jobs in academia, but we are less able to prepare them for alternative careers paths,” said Davidson. “Through this grant, we will be able to develop networks with local industries to learn more about how we can help our students follow alternative career paths.”
The History Department, the Graduate Student History Association and the Office of the Associate Provost for Graduate Programs are also providing additional funding for the program.
“We’re hoping that this program will help our students be more successful. So many people get a Ph.D. in history and end up with a low-paying or insecure job,” said Davidson. “This program will help our students open their horizons, recognize there are other careers out there and teach them how to market the skills they get as graduate students.”