Discover resources, connect with mentors, dive deeper into MIT’s 7 professional development competencies, and find out about upcoming events and opportunities.
Graduate professional development is skills-based training complementary to your academic coursework that will augment any career path you decide to follow, within and beyond academe.
Individual Development Plans, or IDPs, are a key professional development tool used within both academia and industry to establish priorities, set goals, and track progress. You can create your own tailored Individual Development Plan to guide you in self-assessment, exploration, goal setting, implementation, recording milestones, and reflection.
By creating and using an IDP, you can optimize your PhD years by planning experiences that will help you build the competencies and skills you need not only to finish your degree but to keep rising throughout your career.
Being a graduate student at MIT is an endeavor like no other.
How can you stay focused and centered with so much going on? Will you ever have time to reflect on how you got here? How can you plan your next steps while taking on so much?
These are important questions, and C.H.A.O.S. can help! C.H.A.O.S. is an acronym for a non-linear design thinking process (and a handy mnemonic device) that will help you find patterns and order within the chaos.
Offered in IAP and summer terms, the Research Mentoring Certificateprogram offers PhD students and postdocs the opportunity to develop their mentoring practice within a supportive cohort.
The Graduate Students Mentoring Circlesconnect students with alumni who provide culturally relevant perspectives on academic and industry careers. The next program will run in October 2024. Interested graduate students, email Elsie Otero at eotero@mit.edu.
The Faculty Job Search Seriesprovides PhD students and postdocs with a suite of programming, including workshops, panel discussions, and instructional lectures on elements of the faculty job search. Throughout the academic year, the FJSS provides programming that aligns with the rhythm of the typical job market cycle. Learn what you need to know when you need to know it, and create an exceptional portfolio of job search materials to launch your post-PhD career.
The Path of Professorship, a long-running, application-based 2-day workshop for MIT graduate and post-doctoral women provides information about academic careers in science and engineering, and the prepares participants to create strong, competitive applications for faculty positions. Accomplished MIT alumni who are now professors present their best tips and serve on panel discussions.
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.
The Faculty Job Search Series (FJSS)supports graduate students and postdocs who are preparing for the faculty job market. The program brings together expertise from around the Institute, including faculty, CAPD, the Writing and Communication Center, the Teaching and Learning Lab, the OGE, and the Engineering Communication Labs.
Build a strong application informed by experts across the Institute via overviews, faculty panels, deep dives, and hands-on-workshops aligned with the timeline of the faculty job search.
MIT Alumni Advisors Hub
Think of the worldwide community of MIT alumni as a vast and renewable resource that you, as an MIT graduate student, are invited to tap and leverage. Using the Alumni Advisors Hub is one of the most powerful ways there is to augment your technical training. There’s no better source of information and wisdom to inform your journey than the scholars and professionals who have been where you are now, and gone on to discover, teach, influence, and lead with excellence in the world beyond the Infinite Corridor.
Resource Library
Ready to dive in? The Graduate Professional Development Resource Library is a curated collection of articles, web resources, podcasts, books, and more.
This fall, six MIT graduate students attended the Constellations – 2024 AHRC International Conference, held from September 16–18 at Robinson College, Cambridge. This prestigious event, supported by the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership, brought together doctoral students from leading institutions, including …
Let’s Chat is a drop-in service that provides MIT graduate students with easy access to informal, free, confidential consultations with clinicians from MIT Health’s Student Mental Health & Counseling.
This spring, over 150 doctoral students and postdocs successfully completed CAPD’s new professional development certificate program. Two certificates—one in research mentoring and the other in grant writing—were launched last fall to help PhD students and postdocs advance their growth in …
Many entities throughout MIT are invested in graduate student professional development. These essential partners fuel our programs and serve as excellent resources for graduate students.
