On June 6, over 400 attendees are expected to congregate in the Medical Sciences Building, as the Life Sciences Career Development Society (LSCDS) will be hosting its eighth annual career day, with the aim of bridging the gap between academia and industry by providing opportunities for students to network with professionals.
LSCDS is the largest and only faculty-recognized career development society at the Department of Medicine. It is unique in that it is managed entirely by student-trainee executive members with an interest in industry. It has secured the support of the Faculty of Medicine, the School of Graduate Studies, and, more recently, the Office of Alumni Relations at U of T. Over 2,000 trainees collectively attend its career development events each year.
In the past years, LSCDS events have been increasingly successful “We aim to set the bar higher with every year, fully maximizing our resources — but it is what drives us to not meet, but exceed expectations — even our own,” said Sharon Wang, PhD candidate and LSCDS executive member.
“We owe much of this success to sustainable relationships we’ve created with industry over the years and our alumni that have benefited from LSCDS [and] have moved on to industry, and are now coming back to pay it forward,” added Wang.
Last year 15 companies participated in the career information fair, but this year LSCDS anticipates hosting over 20. Wang quipped, “If the MSB building had more space, we would have invited more industry guests!”
Apart from providing an opportunity to network, the events organized by LSCDS fulfill the unmet demand for career awareness among graduate trainees, who would otherwise have limited exposure to careers outside of academia on campus.
The organizers of LSCDS have only one one piece of advice for the students attending career day this Friday: come prepared.
Lusia Sepiashvili, PhD candidate and LSCDS executive, said, “This is your opportunity to shine,” adding, “Such events provide rare and unprecedented interaction opportunities with industry professionals who are concentrated in one place on one day.”
