BONSAI, Mizzou CAFNR partner to develop student business skills
According to BONSAI president Loriana Sekarski, it’s a problem the science industry has struggled with for years: graduate students lacking what she calls “soft skills,” a term related to the emotional intelligence, personality traits, social graces, interpersonal skills and leadership ability that characterize their workplace relations.
In collaboration with Monsanto Company and the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, Sekarski says BONSAI, a leadership coaching and consulting company, has created a program to equip doctoral and postdoctoral students with the soft skills to solve the problem.
The program, Preparing Tomorrow’s Leaders for Science, graduated their first group this spring.
“We have been hearing from the industry that our past graduates are technically brilliant, but they need the ability to collaborate, communicate effectively, lead and network to get the results,” Sekarski said. “With this elite group of students, we have demonstrated that we can achieve this goal and better prepare them for careers in science.”
The three organizations developed PTLS to merge the gap between what graduate students learn in school and what future employers expect.
“PTLS provides a unique opportunity for science-based doctoral candidates to polish skills such as effective communication, project management and strategic thinking,” said Marc Linit, senior associate dean of research and extension at CAFNR. “With their scientific knowledge, students who complete the PTLS course also have complementary skills that make them highly employable and will help them to be successful professionals.”
BONSAI says it has worked to make PTLS more than a typical college course: students are involved in discussion with executives, corporate trainers and psychological experts, and they receive personal instruction from Sekarski.
“The one-on-one coaching with Loriana was extremely helpful,” said Jason Zhang, a graduate student who was recently hired as a research scientist at Rembrandt Foods. “You don’t get many chances in your life to have somebody coach you like that. It helped me get job interviews and my current position.”
New CAFNR doctoral and postdoctoral students in biochemistry, bioengineering, food sciences, social sciences and plant sciences are currently being interviewed for a PTLS class at MU this fall.
Photography provided by BONSAI.