Core Skills for G1/G2 Graduate Student Success Session 1: Unpacking the Hidden Curriculum

Session Description:
Students will learn about building relationships and mentor networks, communicating effectively with mentors, and seeking feedback through creating a mentor map, using meeting role-play, email practice, and an expectation-setting worksheet.

Series Description:
The Core Skills Series for Graduate Student Success is a practical, strengths-based series designed to help PhD students navigate the academic, interpersonal, and personal challenges of graduate school with greater confidence and intention. Through interactive sessions, students will learn to navigate the hidden curriculum, leverage their strengths, manage competing priorities, build resilience, develop mentoring relationships, and communicate effectively across a range of academic and professional settings. The series provides students with practical tools, strategies, and resources they can apply immediately to their graduate experience while building skills that will serve them throughout their careers. Ultimately, the goal is to help students not only succeed in their PhD programs, but develop the self-awareness, relationships, and habits needed to thrive in graduate school and beyond.

Each 1-hour session will be held from 12-1 PM on Zoom and will provide a short (20-minute) evidence-based mini-lecture including:

Case studies based on common graduate school situations

Small-group discussions

Reflection exercises via Canvas

Practical templates/tangible artifacts that students can immediately use

Session Description:
Students will learn how to communicate effectively with advisors, administrators, peers, collaborators, interdisciplinary audiences, and the public through elevator pitches, practicing difficult conversations, active listening, giving/receiving feedback, and intercultural communication examples.

Series Description:
The Core Skills Series for Graduate Student Success is a practical, strengths-based series designed to help PhD students navigate the academic, interpersonal, and personal challenges of graduate school with greater confidence and intention. Through interactive sessions, students will learn to navigate the hidden curriculum, leverage their strengths, manage competing priorities, build resilience, develop mentoring relationships, and communicate effectively across a range of academic and professional settings. The series provides students with practical tools, strategies, and resources they can apply immediately to their graduate experience while building skills that will serve them throughout their careers. Ultimately, the goal is to help students not only succeed in their PhD programs, but develop the self-awareness, relationships, and habits needed to thrive in graduate school and beyond.

Each 1-hour session will be held from 12-1 PM on Zoom and will provide a short (20-minute) evidence-based mini-lecture including:

Case studies based on common graduate school situations

Small-group discussions

Reflection exercises via Canvas

Practical templates/tangible artifacts that students can immediately use

Session Description:
Students will learn how to normalize setbacks, develop adaptive responses, distinguish persistence from burnout, and imposter syndrome through resilience scenarios, adopting a growth mindset, optimism and self-compassion discussion, mindfulness exercises, and more.

Series Description:
The Core Skills Series for Graduate Student Success is a practical, strengths-based series designed to help PhD students navigate the academic, interpersonal, and personal challenges of graduate school with greater confidence and intention. Through interactive sessions, students will learn to navigate the hidden curriculum, leverage their strengths, manage competing priorities, build resilience, develop mentoring relationships, and communicate effectively across a range of academic and professional settings. The series provides students with practical tools, strategies, and resources they can apply immediately to their graduate experience while building skills that will serve them throughout their careers. Ultimately, the goal is to help students not only succeed in their PhD programs, but develop the self-awareness, relationships, and habits needed to thrive in graduate school and beyond.

Each 1-hour session will be held from 12-1 PM on Zoom and will provide a short (20-minute) evidence-based mini-lecture including:

Case studies based on common graduate school situations

Small-group discussions

Reflection exercises via Canvas

Practical templates/tangible artifacts that students can immediately use

Session Description:
Students will learn how to manage multiple priorities, build sustainable habits and productivity, and avoid procrastination through a weekly planning exercise template, calendar audit, Eisenhower Matrix, and learn research scheduling.

Series Description:
The Core Skills Series for Graduate Student Success is a practical, strengths-based series designed to help PhD students navigate the academic, interpersonal, and personal challenges of graduate school with greater confidence and intention. Through interactive sessions, students will learn to navigate the hidden curriculum, leverage their strengths, manage competing priorities, build resilience, develop mentoring relationships, and communicate effectively across a range of academic and professional settings. The series provides students with practical tools, strategies, and resources they can apply immediately to their graduate experience while building skills that will serve them throughout their careers. Ultimately, the goal is to help students not only succeed in their PhD programs, but develop the self-awareness, relationships, and habits needed to thrive in graduate school and beyond.

Each 1-hour session will be held from 12-1 PM on Zoom and will provide a short (20-minute) evidence-based mini-lecture including:

Case studies based on common graduate school situations

Small-group discussions

Reflection exercises via Canvas

Practical templates/tangible artifacts that students can immediately use

Session Description:
Students will recognize individual strengths and how they influence research/scholarship, collaboration, and leadership/ teamwork. Participants will complete the VIA Character Strengths Assessment, grounded in the work of Princeton alumnus Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson, which helps people identify the 24 character strengths they naturally draw on to thrive, lead, collaborate, and make a meaningful impact. 

Series Description:
The Core Skills Series for Graduate Student Success is a practical, strengths-based series designed to help PhD students navigate the academic, interpersonal, and personal challenges of graduate school with greater confidence and intention. Through interactive sessions, students will learn to navigate the hidden curriculum, leverage their strengths, manage competing priorities, build resilience, develop mentoring relationships, and communicate effectively across a range of academic and professional settings. The series provides students with practical tools, strategies, and resources they can apply immediately to their graduate experience while building skills that will serve them throughout their careers. Ultimately, the goal is to help students not only succeed in their PhD programs, but develop the self-awareness, relationships, and habits needed to thrive in graduate school and beyond.

Each 1-hour session will be held from 12-1 PM on Zoom and will provide a short (20-minute) evidence-based mini-lecture including:

Case studies based on common graduate school situations

Small-group discussions

Reflection exercises via Canvas

Practical templates/tangible artifacts that students can immediately use