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 EFFECTIVENESS
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 over 300 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.
Programming grant
Funding for graduate student organizations to host professional development events.
Networking
Tips and resources for graduate students to improve networking experience and effectiveness.
For Future Faculty
A series aimed at preparing graduate students for careers as research and teaching faculty.
Advocacy
Communication and advocacy training hosted each spring in Washington, D.C.
Communicating your research
Three Minute Thesis® is a competition in which students explain their research to a lay audience.
Events
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November
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November 15
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November 15
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November 15Writing Center Workshop – How to Email Like a Professional (sec 2) 4:00PM, Writing Center (Commons), 6171, Helen C. White Hall
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November 16
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November 16
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November 16Writing Center Workshop – Responding to and Evaluating Student Writing...Without Getting Buried Under the Paper Load (sec 2) 1:00PM, 6172 Helen C. White Hall
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November 28
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November 29
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November 29
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November 29Writing Center Workshop – Developing and Delivering Conference Presentations (sec 2) 4:00PM, 6176 Helen C. White Hall
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November 29
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November 30
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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
Teddy Wiggins
Teddy Wiggins is a University of Wisconsin–Madison graduate from the School of Music, in violin performance. He is currently a co-concertmaster/principal violinist with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, a training orchestra that develops musicianship and prepares musicians for professional careers.
Instructions: If this is your first visit, create an account. To access the PhD Career Finder, log in once with through the link below. After that, the site remembers you as a UW–Madison subscriber.
About: The Versatile PhD is a confidential, online resource for graduate students, PhDs, recent alumni, and postdoctoral fellows interested in non-academic careers.
While some areas of the site are public, UW–Madison is a subscriber, which means that current students, faculty, staff, and recent alumni get access to the high-quality PhD Career Finder.
Here’s what you’ll find:
- A thriving and supportive web-based community
- Example CV-to-résumé conversions, résumés, and cover letters that resulted in PhDs and ABDs getting jobs
- Compelling first-person narratives of PhDs and ABDs describing how they established their non-academic careers
- Live and archived panel discussions featuring PhDs working in non-academic fields
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Alumni Success Stories
Rachel Mallinger
Earning her MS in agroecology and entomology (2009) and her PhD in entomology (2015) from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Rachel Mallinger currently studies attraction—the kind that involves bees and flowers, and which is especially consequential for farmers in the state of Wisconsin and beyond.
Frederick Porter
For biochemistry PhD alumnus Frederick Porter, graduate school was a start to a second phase in his career.
Zulmarie Perez-Horta
Zulmarie Perez-Horta completed her doctoral program in Cellular and Molecular Pathology from UW–Madison in 2016 and began a Science & Technology Policy Fellowship (STPF) with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington D.C. in fall of 2017.
- More alumni career profiles and employment sectors
Additional Career Resources
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.