Six months after the shutdown back in March, COVID-19 continues to affect what students, staff, and faculty can safely do on campuses. As NIU continues remote learning through the Fall 2020 semester, all departments are adapting to best serve students’ needs now as well as in the future, when things will hopefully return to normal.
One way The Graduate School at NIU continues to support students is through its Graduate Career and Professional Development Program. While many workplaces offer career development programs for recent grads they hire, NIU’s program, one of national repute, offers something similar for students, albeit while they are still in school.
A short description of what the program does as well as some student testimonies. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wltolxHrpc&feature=youtu.be
Included among our program’s resources are online career development courses available to graduate students regardless of their career path; these courses are made available at no cost to NIU students through a partnership with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Whether or not you intend to go into an academic career, these online courses cover a wide range of topics from writing a resumé to resolving workplace conflicts. These courses include videos and activities that you can move through at whatever pace is comfortable for you. Best of all, you can earn certifications for completing certain courses. Additionally, The Graduate School at NIU also offers for-credit courses such as UNIV 601: Career Development and Planning and UNIV 602: Career Preparation for the Job Market, both of which help graduate students develop career plans and market themselves to employers.
Another key feature of the Graduate Career and Professional Development program at NIU is the Future Professoriate Program designed for doctoral students holding a graduate assistantship who wish to pursue a career in academia. The program must be completed within two years and involves some coursework – UNIV 595: Interdisciplinary Teaching Strategies Seminar as well as “an approved discipline-based teaching strategies course – as well as participating in workshops and mentoring other TAs. Through this experience, doctoral students will earn a Certificate in College Teaching, which will be noted on their official transcript. They will also accumulate professional documents that they can use to create a professional portfolio. The link to apply for the Future Professoriate Program can be found here.
Furthermore, The Graduate School has taken full advantage of distance learning and continues to offer workshops for students online. The topics of workshops range from the technical details for formatting your thesis or dissertation to the basics of collaborative research. The Thesis and Dissertation Office will host a few of these events through the Fall 2020 semester, including Tables, Figures, and Pagination on Sept. 22 and Breaking Through Writer’s Block (and Other Obstacles) on Sept. 29. The full list of The Graduate School’s workshops for Fall 2020 can be found here, and students can register for them here; you need only log in with your Z-ID and password – same as your email.
Finally, the next Graduate Colloquium program will go on in Spring 2021 as planned, although the method of delivery remains to be seen. All events in the Colloquium are public and bring together scholars and artists from a wide range of disciplines to share their work. The deadline to submit a proposal for Spring 2021 is Oct. 12, and a meeting to further discuss the 2021 Graduate Colloquium, hosted by Debbie Williams, will be on Nov. 6 at 1:30 pm on Microsoft Teams. If you wish to attend, please email Debbie at dwilliams16@niu.edu for the link.
Although the way we teach and learn had changed dramatically to adapt to these unique circumstances, the Graduate School remains committed to providing a quality educational experience to students. That includes planning for the future and helping students get ready for their post-graduate lives as well as the current matters of working and taking classes. If the last six months have taught us anything, it is that even the face of a global pandemic, we will find creative ways to meet the needs of our students and achieve our goals. We at the Thesis and Dissertation Office strongly encourage you to explore the Graduate Career and Professional Development program at NIU to see how you can best prepare now for your professional future.
