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Professional Development

The School of Graduate and Advanced Studies, in collaboration with the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL), has implemented a Professional Development module for PhD graduate students. 

About the Module

There are several reasons behind the decision to create a Professional Development module.

  • While many PhD graduate students participate in professional development individually, Dartmouth graduate faculty recognized the need for all students to develop a core set of skills.
  • As part of the strategic re-envisioning plan, the Graduate Faculty Council outlined the importance of graduate students participating in professional development so that the skills they acquire through the institution's comprehensive professional and ethical development curriculum will allow them to become leaders in their fields.
  • Dartmouth graduate alumni provided feedback expressing the skills they found most valuable in their careers.
  • The Council of Graduate Schools published "Pathways Through Graduate School and Into Careers," expressing the need for graduate schools to train students for jobs both inside and outside of academia.

Workshop Details

The module has students participating in 35 credit hours in four key areas while they are graduate students at Dartmouth. The title of each workshop the student attends will appear on his or her unofficial transcript. Once the student has completed 35 hours, the full 1 credit of "Professional Development and Leadership Training" will appear on his or her official transcript.

The concept is to not only be trained deeply in the primary field of the student's choice, but also to be educated broadly in many of the skills that might be useful in their ultimate job, whether in academia, industry, or government. This leverages Dartmouth's historic strength in the liberal arts, as well as our recognized excellence in teaching. The offerings can be thought of as a common core, to which students can add electives that are relevant or interesting to them in terms of their own career objectives.

Core competencies

  • Ethics 
  • Writing 
  • Presentation and Communication 
  • Mentoring/Supervising 
  • Leadership/Team Building/Project Management/Time Management

Research skills

  • Lab Management 
  • Grants/funding opportunities 
  • Science Proposals 
  • Patents 
  • Academic job search

Teaching skills

  • DCAL teaching series 
  • Syllabus design 
  • TA workshop 
  • Laboratory Design 
  • Writing a Teaching Statement

Career exploration

  • myIDP 
  • Academic/Non-Academic Job Search 
  • CV's and Resumes 
  • Externships with alumni 
  • Alumni career panels/visits 
  • Visits to industry

Additional workshops could be taken for credit, but they must receive departmental and Graduate Studies approval. While we encourage all graduate students and postdocs to participate in the workshops, credit will only be given to PhD students.

For Graduate Programs

If a graduate program would like its students to receive credit for a workshop offered either by the department or externally, the department graduate faculty representative must provide the following information to Kerry Landers. Once approved, the department is responsible for providing the names of the students who attended the workshop so they may receive credit on their transcripts.

  • Title of Workshop 
  • Number of Credit Hours 
  • Person Presenting 
  • Description of the Workshop

For a current list of workshops, go to News & Events.