Welcome to the Bridges Database!

The Bridges Database features scholars trained in French and Francophone history who have pursued non-professoriate careers in a wide variety of fields, including government, museums, education, journalism, and research.

If you're looking for career information or advice, use this database to get in touch with someone with a career path you're curious about.

If you've pursued a career beyond the professoriate and would like to be listed in the database, please sign up here or email sarah.griswold@okstate.edu and nbarton1@uci.edu

Thinking about careers beyond the academy can be intimidating, but our team has sifted through a dizzying array of resources and whittled them down. We hope that the resources we've selected can serve as a jumping off point, whether you are a Ph.D. student, a faculty member considering a career change, or a professional looking for resources and funding to continue your scholarship.

The AHA's Career Diversity Initiative
The AHA maintains a robust list of non-subfield specific support programs to help career explorers. We condense them here for you.

Resources for Students and Early Career Professionals: A collection of resources intended to help historians explore their career options.

AHA Career Contacts (how to become a Junior Contact): An AHA networking building tool for finding trained historians who now work in non-academic fields

AHA Career Diversity Five Skills: A guide to developing the "5 skills for career diversity": communication, collaboration, quantitative literacy, self-confidence & dig. literacy

Courses, Webinars, & Podcasts
Online courses, workshops, webinars, and podcasts have proliferated as the academic job market has shrunk. Here are a few to start with.

Beyond the Professoriate features a useful podcast as well as online courses and webinars that are potentially useful to faculty and students interested in careers beyond academia. The site also hosts resources, seminars, and learning modules designed for graduate programs and institutions.

“Trailblazers Beyond the Tenure Track” is an interview series hosted by Grad Futures Professional Development at Princeton University, in which graduate students interview graduate school alumni pursuing exciting careers outside of academia.

“Reimagining the Ph.D.” is a brief TEDx talk by Nadia Jaber. Although the talk is given from the perspective of someone who pursued a Ph.D. in the natural sciences, some of her insights may be of interest to Ph.D. students in History who love the subject matter, but would prefer to crossover into non-academic careers.

Imagine PhD is a free online tool for researching and planning careers with a Ph.D. in fields associated with humanities and social sciences.

Articles and Opinion Pieces about Career Diversity
It's important to consider different questions, perspectives, and possibilities when thinking about bridging careers. Here are three takes.

Jocelyn Frelier, “Continuing Questions in Reply to Careers beyond Academe,” Inside Higher Education (7 February 2023): Reflections of a former faculty member on leaving academia and the difficult questions, problems, lack of support faced in such circumstances.

Jocelyn Frelier, “Landing a Mission-Oriented Job Beyond Academe,” in Inside Higher Education (6 June 2023): On the often difficult but rewarding challenge of landing a purposeful and fulfilling job beyond the academy. This article poses several important preliminary questions to help focus your search.

Nandini Balial, ”14 Jobs for Teachers Who are Over It,” The Muse (6 March 2023): Although written for an audience of primary and secondary school educators, some of this advice on knowing when to build bridges to other professional endeavors is helpful to professors as well.

Fellowships for Beyond the Academy
A curated list of opportunities for support, fellowships, and awards earmarked for/open to applicants from beyond the academy. And go!Description text goes here