EEB graduate student orientation seminar
EEB 5100 (Planning for a career in EEB) - FALL 2020
This 1 credit seminar course is intended to provide orientation information to incoming EEB graduate students, although it is open to other students; we strongly advise new students to take it. The course will meet for about 75 min, once a week, to discuss topics related to professional development with a rotating cast of faculty, grad. students, or other EEB-connected people.
Meeting time: Tuesdays 3:45-5
Location: usually online; info. will be emailed
Course coordinators: Elizabeth Jockusch, Chris Elphick
Grading: Officially, letter grades are assigned in this course; in our minds, it's graded on an S/U basis (but there are significant paperwork hurdles to doing that officially). Regular attendance and participation constitutes satisfactory performance, for which students will earn an 'A'.
Tentative syllabus (subject to change)
Date | Presenters | Topic | Resources | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Sept. 1 | Chris Elphick, |
University/department structure and resources; Degree ontogenies | Elizabeth's presentation Chris's presentation |
Homework: build (or update) a professional web site--complete a draft website to share during the next class period. |
Sept 8 | Paul Lewis | Communicating your work: web sites | Homework: Identify, for next week's discussion, 3-5 characteristics of good scientific questions | |
Sept 15 | Dan Bolnick, Yaowu Yuan |
Formulating good scientific questions | Alon 2009 on choosing good scientific problems Schwartz 2008 on the importance of stupidity in research |
Homework: identify, for next week's discussion, a person or activity that greatly influenced your learning |
Sept 22 | Kurt Schwenk, Annette Evans |
Developing as a teacher | Graduate Certificate in College Instruction Learning style quiz |
Homework: Identify, for next week's discussion, 3-5 qualities that you look for in a mentor |
Sept 29 | Chris Simon, Sarah Knutie |
Mentoring | Homework: come up with three questions for next week's alumni panel - email to Chris, before Monday morning | |
Oct 6 | Sacha Spector, Erin King, |
Alumni panel: Careers outside academia | Homework: track the hours you spend on work this week (for discussion next week) | |
Oct 13 | Jill Wegrzyn, Mark Urban |
Work-life balance | Homework: come up with at least three questions for next week's grad. panel - email to Elizabeth, before Monday morning | |
Oct 20 | Christian Polania, Andrew Stillman, ________, __________ | Grad panel: TAing, research & anything else you want to talk about! | Homework: Identify at least 1 annual conference specific to your discipline | |
Oct 27 | Cindi Jones, Carlos Garcia-Robledo |
Conferences and professional societies | Identify at least 3 journals relevant to your discipline; look up the impact factor, read the instructions to authors for each of the journals, and figure out the cost of publishing in each. | |
Nov 3 | Robi Bagchi, Bernard Goffinet |
Communicating your work: publishing | Homework: do all of the following
| |
Nov 10 | [Pam Diggle, Gene Likens (watch the video here) |
Scientific ethics | UConn RCR training |
Homework: Identify a piece of science outreach that has influenced you in some way |
Nov 17 | Margaret Rubega, Holly Brown (NAS Research Associate in Science Education; EEB alum) |
Outreach and communication outside academia | Homework: bake a pie! | |
Nov 24 | THANKSGIVING BREAK | |||
Dec 1 | Kent Holsinger | What do you aim to accomplish in grad school (and beyond)? |
Useful readings:
Some modest advice for graduate students: Steve Stearns and Ray Huey
The full exchange is on Ray Huey's page: http://faculty.washington.edu/hueyrb/prospective.php
Stephen Stearns's later reflections: http://stearnslab.yale.edu/designs-learning
Nature editorial on life outside of academia
Nature perspective on choosing alternative careers