Since 2017, the NDSU Graduate Professional Skills (GPS) Academy has offered graduate students enrolled at NDSU tools and resources for career exploration and professional development. The main focus of the GPS Academy has been facilitating graduate students’ pursuit of non-academic career opportunities. However, the GPS Academy can also support graduate students who are interested in careers within academia.
Mind the Gap
In collaboration with the Center for Writers, the GPS Academy delivers Mind the Gap as a support program for graduate students who are nearing completion of their program. The end of a graduate program can be a challenging to navigate. Mind the Gap facilitates graduate students at a similar stage of nearing completion and receive support in the writing processes and job application processes.
Let’s Talk Careers
The GPS Academy invites presenters to support current graduate students develop as professionals. Let’s Talk Careers has happened since 2020 when a panel of graduate program alumni returned to speak about how their experiences completing a graduate program have helped them in their current professions. The presenters have expanded to include graduate program alumni from a variety of professions, professionals in the hiring and sourcing roles, and representatives from the Fargo-Moorhead area discussing how graduates of NDSU graduate programs have and continue to contribute to the success of area businesses.
pd|Hub – Career Exploration
In 2023, NDSU was selected as one of fifteen R1-classified institutes to join the pd|Hub. The purpose of the pd|Hub is to provide evidence-supported practices in career exploration and professional development. Through the pd|Hub, NDSU partnered with communities of practice located at University of Wisconsin, Madison and the Georgia Institute of Technology. All three institutions implemented a career exploration model developed through a National Institute of Health funded program. The first cohorts at NDSU will complete the program in Fall 2023.
More to Explore
In addition to the programs, events, and workshops highlighted above, current and prospective graduate students can learn more about programming available at NDSU by visiting the NDSU Graduate School organization page in myNDSU: https://myndsu.ndsu.edu/organization/gpsacademy
Based upon interest and demand, the Graduate School prepares a variety of programming. For example, to assist graduate students preparing for the Three Minute Thesis Competition, the Grad Hub hosted “Poised Delivery,” a workshop aimed to help graduate students improve presentation skills. The GPS Academy has also helped graduate students and members of several graduate student organizations prepare individual development plans (IDPs).
Services that Partner with the NDSU Graduate School
The Graduate School collaborates with many of the services and resources available at NDSU. Graduate students are welcome to attend all of the events and activities. Below is a sample of the services with example events and activities.
Center for Computationally Assisted Science and Technology – High Performance Computing Workshop Series which introduces graduate students to concepts related to “big data” and the available computing resources at NDSU to conduct large-scale data analysis projects.
NDSU Libraries - Workshops designed to support graduate students locating, accessing, and organizing scholarship for their research projects, workshops related to research methods and tools available in the Data Visualization Lab (Library 201).
Learning and Applied Innovation Center (LAIC) - The Instructional Technology series, Disquisition Formatting workshops
Office of Teaching and Learning – Graduate Teaching and Learning Conference encourages graduate students to refine their teaching skills and to share their experiences from teaching.
Counseling Center – Support groups including “New to NDSU” and “Graduate Student Support Group”
Office of Multicultural Programs – “Including U” series including Women in Higher Ed, Different Like Me: Intersectionality; Different Abilities, Hidden Disabilities and Access; International and New American Perspectives; Non-Traditional Students; and more.