Planning Your Path to Graduate School Success

Whether you are taking your first steps as a graduate student or returning for a final year of exciting academic endeavors, GradProSkills has you covered with a variety of workshops. But how do you choose the workshops best suited for your academic, professional, and personal goals? How do you decide which workshops to take this year and which ones to leave for the next? Look no further! We recently developed a guide to help you plan your path to graduate school success from start to finish.

The GradProSkills guide provides you with workshop suggestions for every stage of your graduate journey. "It has three pages," says Kristy Clarke, Coordinator of GradProSkills. "It is broken into early-program, mid-program, and near-completion/post-program. We have tried to identify some goals that students should be thinking about at that particular stage in their program. At the same time, we have identified workshops we have that meet those objectives."

The first part of the guide is designed to help you orient yourself to the new academic environment explains Kristy. The suggested workshop offerings will allow you to meet early-program objectives such as developing a good relationship with your supervisor, adapting your reading and writing skills to the graduate school requirements, and becoming more confident in speaking in front of large groups. There are also workshops, such as GPLL10 - Graduate School Success: How to Make the Most of Your Education, that can teach you to balance work and personal life with the stresses and demands of academia. For those new students who are looking for ways to finance their graduate studies, the guide suggests workshops on how to become a teaching assistant and how to apply for funding.

The second part of the guide is focused on helping you perfect your skills. The proposed workshops are designed to make you a better researcher by teaching topics like intellectual property and ethics, as well as help you navigate subject-specific databases and tools available at the Library. Kristy explains that at this stage it is important to also start thinking about what you will be doing post program, to network, to acquire various software skills, and to learn about the demands of the job market. 

The last part of the guide is there to help you meet your final requirements and make sure you have the skills to excel at the labor market. The industry skills workshops are really advantageous to take before you graduate explains Kristy. "They are the things employers are looking for and will give you a head start on the labor market. If you miss the opportunity to take them now when they are free, they will be a lot more expensive to take after you graduate." Some of the industry skills workshops the guide recommends for students to take before they finish their studies include: GPLD651 - Project Management Essentials, GPLD146 - Managing People, and GPCB622 - The People Principle: Soft Skills and the Graduate Student.

For all workshop suggestions, check out the GradProSkills guide and start planning your academic journey today.

Not a student but advising graduate students? The guide can be of help to you too! Whether your students are looking for help in securing funding, dealing with stress, or finding a job, it can point you to GradProSkills workshops that can increase their chances of success.