Resources for Faculty Advisors

Welcome to the Bridges resources page for faculty advisors of French and Francophone Studies students. Advisors often feel they lack the resources, knowledge, or experience to talk to students about how graduate degrees can be pathways to other careers. This page provides resources for approaching various student advising scenarios, from an undergraduate first considering graduate school to a graduate student exploring careers outside of academia. The resources and references below have been tailored to further strengthen your existing advising strategies. The emphasis is upon how people whose careers, whether in or out of academia, started with graduate degrees in French and Francophone Studies, find all sorts of ways to thrive both personally and professionally. They make valuable contributions to public life, anchored in knowledge they acquired through research, and they make their advisors and institutions proud.
This page is organized around a range of advising scenarios:

When an undergraduate approaches you about pursuing graduate studies in French and Francophone Studies, you’ll likely wonder how best to address the realities of academia today. Pausing to ask them questions about their aspirations, strengths, and what they know of the realities of academia today, but also to explore with them how graduate degrees can lead to careers beyond academia, is a good place to start. Here, you’ll find resources to help you support undergraduates seeking to make informed decisions about their future.

• Humanities Indicators - Detailed statistics about occupations, earnings of humanities majors, as well as the career paths of graduates with advanced degrees in the humanities.

• UC Santa Cruz History Department Guide for Students Considering Graduate School can serve as a model for how your department (and you) can help undergraduates navigate their interest in graduate programs in history.

New graduate students at the MA or PhD level often require support as they transition to the rigors of graduate studies and start to set long-term academic and professional goals. The resources below focus on early graduate career planning, a time when along with acquiring knowledge regarding how to navigate graduate programs and academia more generally, students can also benefit from intentional conversations about  academic-adjacent pathways, and ideas for how  doctoral skills and work can be put into practice and shared beyond the academic community.

• Career Allies, Ohio State Imagined Futures Initiative.

• An interview with Judith Coffin about her experience advising students.

• Nacada promotes and supports quality academic advising in institutions of higher education to enhance the educational development of students. Nacada has published specific resources for advisors.

• UVA PhD Plus program.

• Iowa Humanities for the Public Good.

• Versatile PhD.

• Humanities for All.

• Michigan Professional Development.

Some graduate students in French and Francophone Studies know they will seek careers outside traditional academic paths from the first day of their graduate studies. Others make the decision to move into other fields over the course of their studies. These resources help advisors support students as they explore and prepare for non-academic or academic-adjacent careers. Students feel most supported when careers outside academia are addressed as  goals in and of themselves rather than safety nets. 

• Bridges Database — See what other French and Francophone history graduates are doing beyond the professoriate—and encourage your students to use this connecting tool.

• MLA Connected Academics Project — this Mellon-funded project offers some useful resources for both career explorers and advisors.

• PhD Futures podcast — a resource for advisors to educate themselves about the issue of career diversity, the questions their students may have, and the range of approaches available.

• Imagine PhD — a career exploration and planning tool for the humanities and social sciences.

• Toward a Trackless Future: Moving beyond ‘Alt-Ac’ and ‘Post-Ac, co-authored by Meridith Beck Sayre, Marta Brunner, Brian Croxall, and Emily McGinn,

• How faculty can support graduate students and postdocs looking for non-academic work

• AHA Graduate Education Resources - Consider creating and offering a course within your department on career diversity, and encourage your students to take it (and/or work with them on the course’s development). A good example found under that page, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Professional Lives of Historians Syllabus.

As doctoral students approach the completion of their graduate degrees, they need clear guidance on navigating the job market, not only within but also outside academia. The resources here are designed to facilitate this transition.

• State of the Field - The WSFH’s White Paper on the hiring market, with a view to the role that departments and faculty mentors can play in advising students who target an academic career.