EEB graduate student orientation seminar
EEB 5100 (Planning for a career in EEB) - FALL 2022
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: TBD
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); note too that the resources present are from last year - when appropriate we will update them when each week's session happens
Date | Presenters | Topic | Resources | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Aug. 30 | Chris Elphick | University/department structure and resources; Degree ontogenies | Compliance & Resources slides | Homework: Build (or update) a professional web site--complete a draft website to share during class on next week. Paul Lewis's very helpful instructions will get you started . |
Sept 6 | Paul Lewis | Communicating your work: web sites | Homework: Identify, for next week's discussion, 3-5 characteristics of good scientific questions | |
Sept 13 | 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, 3-5 qualities that you look for in a mentor. |
Sept 20 | Elizabeth Jockusch Eric Schultz |
Mentoring | Good mentoring (from Nature) Getting mentoring (from Science) |
Homework: identify, for next week's discussion, a person or activity that greatly influenced your learning |
Sept 27 | Kurt Schwenk, Louise Lewis, Nick Van Gilder |
Developing as a teacher | Kurt's tips on learning Tips on engaging students |
Homework: come up with three questions for next week's alumni panel - email to Chris, before Monday morning |
Oct 4 | Sarah Bois, Erin King, Krissa Skogen |
Alumni panel: Careers outside academia | Homework: Identify at least 3 places outside of UConn where you could apply to get funding that would support your planned research. (This list might be a good place to start, but notice that it is out of date.) For each, determine the due date, how much money you can ask for, and look over the grant requirements. | |
Oct 11 | Mark Urban, Sarah Knutie |
Funding your research | Homework: Identify at least 1 annual conference or professional society specific to your discipline | |
Oct 18 | Carlos Garcia-Robledo, TBD |
Conferences and professional societies | Homework: come up with at least three questions for next week's grad. panel - email to Chris, before Monday morning | |
Oct 25 | Grads TBA | Grad panel: TAing, research & anything else you want to talk about! | Homework: track the hours you spend on work this week (for discussion next week) | |
Nov 1 | Jill Wegrzyn, Michael Finiguerra |
Work-life balance |
Jill and Mark's slides |
Identify at least 2 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. Also identify at least 2 grants you could apply for. |
Nov 8 | Bernard Goffinet, Robi Bagchi |
Writing and Publishing | Bernard and Liz's slides The Writing Workshop |
Homework: Read Lopes et al. (2018) (linked below); fill out google form, and identify a piece of science outreach that has influenced you in some way |
Nov 15 | Margaret Rubega, Dave Wagner |
Outreach and communication outside academia | Lopes et al. 2018 |
Homework: do all of the following
|
Nov 22 | THANKSGIVING BREAK | Homework: Bake a pie! | ||
Nov 29 | Pam Diggle, Gene Likens (watch the video here) |
Scientific ethics | UConn RCR training Read this blog post |
|
Dec 6 | Kent Holsinger | Succeeding in graduate school & Long-term goals |
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