(31e) Life after Graduate School: How Skillsets Learned in Academia Translate to Industry

In graduate school, we are often told upon graduation that we are the leading experts on our dissertation topics. I have always thought about it a little bit differently. Maybe I am an expert in some areas, but more than anything I am aware of the potential depth in every single topic I encounter and am thus acutely aware of what I do not know. Since transitioning from academia to industry, this awareness has been critical. I am less afraid to ask questions, less afraid of being wrong.

Shortly after starting at Braskem, I was invited to join a small, multifunctional global team charged with determining whether it made sense for our company to enter the Additive Manufacturing (often colloquially called 3D printing) space. In the US, Braskem sells railcar volumes of material (200,000 lbs) to other businesses. Any modification to a Braskem commercial material is evaluated based on cents per pound changes – an increase of 1 cent per pound translates to a rather large loss of margin. In terms of sales, Braskem is not set up to be a direct-to-consumer company which is necessary for entering the Additive Manufacturing space. The end users are not just other companies, but also at-home hobbyists accustomed to ordering materials via e-commerce sites. My team members and I were charged with convincing a company that frequently can get caught in a commodities mindset why they should take a leap of faith on this market that has been around for decades but only recently started to undergo extreme growth. To achieve this, I wore many different hats, but more importantly I had to adapt, troubleshoot, problem solve, and ask questions when things (inevitably) did not go as planned.

In this talk, I will discuss several areas where my activities in graduate school translated directly to my ability to plan and execute projects in industry, the importance of never taking a single step in a system for granted, the importance of failure, and how a well-executed PowerPoint slide deck never hurts.