When you participate in professional development, you build skills needed to succeed academically and thrive in your career.
Start here: DiscoverPD
DiscoverPD helps master’s and doctoral students at UW–Madison advance their academic and professional goals.
- You’ll read more about the facets of professional development.
- Our 5-minute self-assessment provides you a report of your strengths and weaknesses.
- You’ll explore customized recommendations within each facet, and add these to your Individual Development Plan.
Behind DiscoverPD is a curated database of professional development activities on campus and beyond. Your recommendations will draw from this database, or you’ll have the option to search the database if you know what you’re looking for.
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Watch the 3-minute video.
Inquiry, discovery, and creation
Disciplinary expertise and interdisciplinary connections
Leadership
Career development
Managing projects and people
Communication
Diversity and inclusion
Personal and interpersonal effectiveness
Individual Development Plan
The Individual Development Plan (IDP) helps you reflect, plan, and discuss in order to achieve your academic and professional goals.
What is the IDP?
It’s a process in which you will:
- assess your skills, interests, and strengths;
- define a written plan for developing skills; and
- communicate with your mentor(s).
The product of this process will be a written, ever-evolving IDP document.
You’ll revisit your IDP at least once per year, to update and refine as goals change or come into focus, and to record progress and accomplishments.
How it works:
To create your IDP, you can start with one of the IDP resources listed below, or attend an IDP workshop hosted by the Graduate School. Your graduate program coordinator or faculty mentor may also be able to help you get started.
UW–Madison IDP policy:
IDPs are required for graduate students and postdocs with NIH funding, and recommended for all graduate students and postdocs regardless of funding source.
IDP for Humanities and Social Sciences
ImaginePhD is a free online career exploration and planning tool for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in the humanities and social sciences.
IDP for Biological and Physical Sciences
myIDP is a web-based career planning tool, hosted by the AAAS, tailored to meet the needs of graduate students and postdocs in the sciences.
Professional Development Programming
Each semester the Graduate School, together with campus partners, hosts nearly 400 professional development events, which can be found through DiscoverPD and our events calendar.
Beyond the Tenure Track
A series that covers career exploration and job search strategy for non-academic employment.
Project management
A one-day workshop, as well as materials from past workshops, about project management.
Grants and funding
An introduction to the grant proposal process: planning, researching, writing, and follow-up.
Networking
Tips and resources for graduate students to improve networking experience and effectiveness.
Online learning
Explore strategies to prepare to learn remotely, engage in your courses, and maximize your time.
For Future Faculty
A series aimed at preparing graduate students for careers as research and teaching faculty.
Graduate research
A micro-course on conducting research, scholarly conversations, and sharing contributions.
Communicating research
Three Minute Thesis® is a competition in which students explain their research to a lay audience.
Intellectual property
An online micro-course about cultural, legal, and policy perspectives on intellectual property.
Introduction to patents
Learn the types of patents and patent concepts, the anatomy of a patent, and the patent process.
Events
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Career Exploration
Career advising for graduate students is usually offered within your school/college, department, or program, supplemented by career exploration programming offered through the Graduate School.
Aurora
Through the two programs of study in Aurora, PhD students are empowered to make informed decisions about their career path and learn successful job search strategies from other PhDs. PhD students and postdocs access resources to help them navigate the faculty job market, and explore professional careers beyond the professoriate.
Aurora’s curated content includes videos testimonials, and reflective activities, and it provides information for students across disciplines in the Arts & Sciences. It was designed and built by PhDs. The Beyond the Professoriate team, as well as all of the contributors who deliver workshops and participate in career panels and interviews, are experts in their fields who also successfully completed a PhD and launched successful and diverse careers.
Aurora benefits graduate students by:
• supporting career exploration.
• providing accessible, well-curated resources for busy graduate students.
• promoting engaged learning through reflective activities that encourage students to apply what they’ve learned.
• complementing existing graduate student professional development.
• offering recorded seminars, reflective prompts, and assessments that guide the student experience and foster user engagement.
Log in to Aurora today >>
The National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity
The National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD) is an independent professional development, training, and mentoring community for faculty members, postdocs, and graduate students. It provides online career development and mentoring resources in a ready-to-access format that you can view anytime.
Starting with a core curriculum, NCFDD offers insight into foundational skills such as planning each semester, developing a daily writing practice, cultivating a network of mentors and collaborators, and managing stress and rejection.
Members can sign up to participate in online events including webinars, bootcamps, multi-week courses, and structured writing challenges. Plus, the NCFDD Discussion Forums offer a place to connect with others to seek or share advice.
Create an account to take advantage of expert webinars, writing challenges, the “Monday Motivator” e-newsletter and more.
Once you sign up through UW–Madison's institutional membership, you will have access to the full range of resources, trainings, and courses available through NCFDD.
Sign up now through UW–Madison's institutional membership >>
Alumni career profiles
Marcela Guerrero
Assistant Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Guerrero received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, and holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Jared Knowles
President, Civilytics Consulting LLC Jared Knowles founded Civilytics Consulting, LLC, in 2016 to pursue his passion of providing high-quality public performance metrics for government services. Knowles completed his political science PhD in 2015 at UW–Madison, where he was also a fellow in the Interdisciplinary Training Program in Education Sciences.
Sasānēhsaeh Pyawasay
Native American Student Success Coordinator, University of Wisconsin System Sasānēhsaeh Pyawasay is an enrolled member of the Menominee Nation from the Menominee Indian Reservation of Wisconsin. She attended UW–Madison as an undergraduate majoring in Sociology and American Indian Studies and continued to earn a master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis (ELPA) in 2009.
- More alumni career profiles and employment sectors
ImaginePhD is a free online career exploration and planning tool for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in the humanities and social sciences.
myIDP is a web-based career planning tool, hosted by the AAAS, tailored to meet the needs of graduate students and postdocs in the sciences.
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