On 8th June 2017, APECS invited interested current and future APECS-members to join our career panel discussion on "Career opportunities in Arctic Social Sciences" during ICASS IX, the ninth International Congress on Arctic Social Sciences, in Umeå, Sweden. The event was co-organized by APECS International and APECS Sweden and attracted an audience of around 20 people. Our panelists were Gail Fondahl (University of Northern British Columbia), Anna-Lill Drugge (Centre for Sami Research, Umeå University), Mare Pit (German Arctic Office, Alfred Wegener Institute), and Björn Dahlbeck (Swedish Polar Research Secretariat).
When the panelists shared their experiences in the first part of the session, their accounts offered a glimpse of the diverse paths that professional careers may take. Supposedly ‘messy’ career paths outnumbered the ‘standard career’, and it became clear that academia is by far not the ‘last stop’ for Arctic Social Scientists. Asked about a skill they would not put on their CV, one panelist revealed that some of your crucial career skill may come out where you least expect them: “I love to rinse the sewage drain in the kitchen. I like to take away the hinder and clear the way – and that fits, I work as a manager.”
(Panel organizers: Gerlis Fugmann, Gesche Blume-Werry, Corinna Röver, Marta Bystrowska)
