Build Your Skills

The Graduate School features programs and events designed to support graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in their development, progression, and career outcomes. By focusing around the following transferable skills, graduate students and postdoctoral scholars can prepare for both academic and non-academic career pathways.

Communication

• Writing and speaking effectively for a range of purposes, audiences, and contexts
• Identifying, assessing, and using reliable and valid information sources
• Communicating with visual and digital tools effectively
• Signature programs:
  • Three Minute Thesis Competition
  • English Language Speaking Groups Program
  • Careers Beyond Academia Communicating Your Research

Leadership & Management

• Broadening awareness of self and others
• Understanding and developing management skills
• Negotiating and resolving conflicts
• Developing and valuing diversity, inclusion, and cultural fluency
• Signature programs:
  • Postdoc Leadership Program
  • Careers Beyond Academia

Ethics & Integrity

• Understanding and following professional codes of ethical conduct
• Recognizing opportunities to apply ethical decision-making skills 
• Implementing relevant codes, principles, and standards in academic and professional settings
• Signature programs: 
  • Cornell Office of Research Integrity – Responsible Conduct of Research Training Workshops

Balance & Resilience

• Prioritizing self-care, health, and wellness
• Cultivating life skills
• Developing strategies to recognize and overcome vulnerabilities and gain self-confidence
• Valuing and effectively balancing roles in multiple communities 
• Signature programs:
  • Big Red Barn Signature Events
  • Perspectives: The Complete Graduate Student
  • Graduate School Primer: Navigating Academia Workshop Series
  • Students with Families Programs

Teaching & Mentoring

• Defining goals and expectations
• Assessing needs and progress
• Fostering inclusive learning communities
• Identifying, developing, and sharing best practices through ongoing reflection
• Signature programs: 
  • Building Mentoring Skills for an Academic Career
  • Future Faculty and Academic Careers
  • Center for Teaching Innovation GET SET Workshops
  • Future Professors Institute
  • Graduate Students Mentoring Undergraduates (GSMU)
  • Inclusive Teaching Institute for Graduate Students and Postdocs

Community Building & Networking

• Developing a sense of belonging
• Creating inclusive academic, professional, and personal networks
• Establishing yourself within multiple communities
• Creating access to knowledge, opportunities, and resources through outreach and service
• Signature programs:
  • Intergroup Dialogue Project
  • Summer Success Symposium
  • Bouchet Graduate Honor Society

Entrepreneurial Mindset

• Maximizing resources to bring innovative ideas to fruition 
• Synthesizing information for calculated risk-taking 
• Collaborating with others to tackle critical challenges and transform systems  
• Imagining alternative solutions to effect change 
• Signature programs:
  • Entrepreneurship at Cornell
  • Rev Ithaca Start Up Works
  • Hackathons
  • Careers Beyond Academia
  • Commercialization Fellowship
  • eLab
  • I-Corps
  • Cornell Center for Technology Licensing (CTL) Startup Guide
  • Blackstone Launchpad Consultations
  • Careers Beyond Academia LibGuide to careers in entrepreneurship and innovation