Communication

Effective and polished written and verbal communication skills are indispensable in every field and career path. As a graduate student researcher, you are already deeply engaged in developing your writing skills as you prepare your work for publication. As you advance, you are likely to find yourself presenting your work with greater frequency to diverse audiences within and external to academia. Communication as a professional development focus for graduate student means:

Integrating diverse media into your communications and presentations
Learning forms and rhetorical strategies to make the case for the stakes and importance of your research
Sharing your expertise with clarity and confidence
Listening actively to understand and then responding authentically and with empathy, especially during challenging or critical conversations
Building clarity and trust in your communications with colleagues and collaborators

This page collects resources from across the Institute that support graduate student professional development in the area of communication.

Engineering Communication Labs

The Communication Labs help students and postdocs improve their technical and professional communication skills through services and resources tailored to different technical disciplines:

Free, one-on-one communication coaching sessions with a trained peer coach from your discipline
- Get support with brainstorming, drafting, or revising.
- Work with our coaches on papers, presentations, posters, fellowship applications, faculty applications, and more.
Workshops, bootcamps, and other events
Online CommKit guides: Quick how-to articles about technical and professional communication tasks, including discipline-specific, annotated examples

Find a Communication Lab in your discipline: Click one of the departments below to make a coaching appointment or access CommKit articles.

image of MIT Writing and Communication Center

The Writing and Communication Center

The Writing and Communication Center offers free one-on-one professional advice to assist graduate students with all types of academic and professional writing and can help you further develop your oral communication skills:

Individual Consultations on oral, visual, and written projects (check available sessions here)
Workshops on various aspects of academic writing (contact us at writing-center@mit.edu)
Writing Together Online groups

Visit the Writing and Communication Center to work on: grant and fellowship proposals, journal articles, thesis or dissertation proposals and chapters, research or personal statements,teaching or diversity statements, scientific and technical reports, classroom presentations, start-up materials and pitches, conference and job talks, dissertation defense, and slide and poster design.

The Writing and Communication Center can even help with overcoming shyness/stage fright, writer’s block, and other communication challenges.

GradCommx

The Office of Graduate Education’s GradCommx initiative provides innovative training for graduate students on professional communication through a variety of media content.

Explore the excellent GradCommx content library, which includes videos,the Great Communicators podcast, “Technically Speaking,” an online comic series, and even a video game.

Videos:

Keeping Audience in Mind When Networking

Starting Research With Narrative

Giving Context When Discussing Previous Work

Explaining The Technical When Teaching

Controlling Focus When Presenting Data

Being Concise When Pitching

PhD Suggestions for Every Stage: Communications

Early Stage: Engage

• Prepare a conference paper with a writing tutor at the MIT Writing & Communication Center. Check out their resources for speakers
• Learn to speak in front of a crowd! Sign up for MIT Toastmasters. And check out Professor Patrick Henry Winston’s How to Speak course.
Middle Stage: Expand

• Develop your “Elevator Pitch” about your research with an MIT CAPD Advisor
• Read MIT resources on Elevator Pitches: the Broad Institute, the NSE Comm Lab, Sloan’s Build Your Personal Brand + Your Elevator Pitch,& the WCC’s Elevator Pitch Tutorial
• Read articles about how to write an elevator pitch, give a PowerPoint presentation, create a poster presentation, etc.: Harvard Business Review and Harvard Writing Center
Exit Stage: Enhance

• Prepare for a Faculty Interview (aka the Job Talk) for a career in academia. Check out University of Michigan’s advice on Academic Talks
• MIT CAPD’s Steps for Being Prepared for Interviewing & Advice for Researching and Practicing Interviews
• Learn how to do a virtual interview

Application materials for PhDs and postdocs: Examples and how-to guides

These resources are designed for MIT PhDs and postdocs to serve as guides through the process of career document preparation. Whether you’re converting your CV into a resume for an industry role, refining your CV for an academic job search, or creating other documents, you’ll find examples, how-to guides, and strategies here.

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Professional development certificates for PhDs and postdocs

MIT offers 2 new professional development certificates to help graduate students and postdocs fast track and focus their growth in two essential areas: mentoring and grant writing.

Learn more