Yale Ciencia Academy Archives

Course Overview

A goal without a plan is just a dream. Luckily, career planning is a skill you can learn. This course helps scientists plan and prepare for their career journey. After taking this course, you will feel empowered to take ownership of your future by creating effective and achievable goals, timelines, and strategies. As a scientist, career planning is a skill that you will call upon again and again, and we are excited to start this journey with you!

Career Planning for Early Career Scientists is a FREE, 3-week course that will guide you through fundamental principles, skills, and strategies to prepare you for the next steps in your career. This course uses the Individual Development Plan (IDP) as a framework for career planning. Whether you are an undergraduate, a graduate student, or a postdoc, this course is for you!

Learn Valuable Career Planning Skills

This course was designed with early career scientists in mind. However, the learnings in this course are applicable to anyone interested in creating effective goals and taking control of their career planning. We discuss why you should start your career planning process as early as possible and provide strategies to execute your goals one step at a time. You will learn the importance of leveraging your networks as you plan your future and how to effectively create a community of mentors that will enrich your career. We also cover how to plan and execute your goals to prepare you for the next steps of your career, and the importance of reflection and iteration as you grow as a scientist.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Learn how to use the Individual Development Plan for your career planning
Engage in self-assessment and career exploration
Learn how to set and execute SMART goals
Utilize your mentoring network for career planning
Revise and update your plan at each step of your career

Course Structure

The course includes 3 modules with activities, reflection questions, readings, and additional resources to help you ideate, plan, and work toward your career goals.

Module 0: Getting Started: Outlines the structure of the course and covers the importance of career planning, how to engage with other participants, and how to successfully complete this course.
Module 1: Starting to Build an Individual Development Plan: Self-assessment and Career Exploration: Introduces the Individual Development Plan as a framework to use in career planning and provides skills for intentional reflection, career exploration, and decision-making.
Module 2: Strategies to Create and Execute Your IDP: Provides strategies to create and execute an effective career plan to achieve your career goals.

Built with Your Schedule in Mind

We built this course for busy students, researchers, or professionals like you! The modules are meant to be completed in about three weeks, allowing you to do course activities while attending to other responsibilities. Each module takes about 1 to 3 hours of work to complete.

Requirements

There are no requirements needed to take this course.

Format & Certification

Career Planning for Early Career Scientists is a self-paced online course. Once you pass the course, you can apply to receive a digital badge and Certificate of Completion to share and keep for your records. Passing requires you to complete all the required activities for the course, which equals 60% of the total activities.

Take the Course on Canvas

Course Overview

Mentoring Up: Strengthening and Expanding Mentor-Mentee Relationships is a FREE, 3-week course designed to help trainees like you with strategies and practical tips to develop and maintain effective mentoring relationships. This course centers on the concept of Mentoring Up, which encourages mentees to take ownership of their mentoring relationships by understanding their own needs and goals, communicating effectively, and working collaboratively with mentors toward a shared purpose. While the content of this course is focused on the experience of doctoral trainees in science, the concepts and strategies it includes can be applied to other academic stages and disciplines.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Develop self-awareness, communication, and conflict resolution skills to strengthen your mentoring relationship with your research advisor
Evaluate gaps in your mentoring needs
Create a plan to develop a mentor network to support your career development
Address challenges in mentoring relationships

Course Structure

The course includes 3 modules with activities, reflection questions, readings, and additional resources.

Module 0: Getting Started: Outlines the structure of the course and how to successfully complete this course.
Module 1: Building a Good Mentoring Relationship with Your Research Advisor: Explains the concept of Mentoring Up and presents strategies to develop and strengthen your mentoring relationship with your research advisor.
Module 2: Expanding Your Mentor Network: Helps you identify gaps in your mentor network and provides strategies to strengthen it to aid your academic success.

Built with Your Schedule in Mind

We built this course for busy students, researchers, or professionals like you! Each module takes between 1 to 3 hours to complete and can be done in a self-paced fashion in about three weeks, allowing you to attend to other responsibilities.

Requirements

There are no requirements needed to take this course.

Format & Certification

Mentoring Up is a self-paced course. Once you pass the course, you can apply to receive a Courses Certificate of Completion and a digital badge that you can share on social media. Passing requires you to complete 60% of ALL of the activities in the course.

Take the Course on Canvas

Course Overview

Public engagement is the practice of establishing intentional and meaningful interactions between scholars and different publics for the purpose of mutual learning or other social benefits. Although public engagement utilizes many of the same principles, skills, and formats as outreach or communication, one key difference is that public engagement prioritizes building partnerships with the audience to create societal impact.

Strategies for Effective Public Engagement is a FREE, 3-week course that will guide you through fundamental principles, skills, and strategies to succeed in your public engagement projects. Whether you are new to public engagement or simply want to improve upon what you have already accomplished, this course is for you!

A Course for Anyone Interested in Public Engagement

This course is designed for anyone who is interested in, planning, or executing a public engagement project. We discuss why you should get involved with public engagement and how it can enhance your personal and professional development. We also cover how to plan and execute a public engagement project and ultimately, how to assess and iterate on your work to continue to improve and grow.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Understand the benefits of public engagement
Reflect on your personal and professional motivations for public engagement
Define public engagement and describe how to do it well and ethically
Apply communication skills, like listening and receiving, to public engagement
Define your goals and desired impacts
Apply strategies to plan, execute, and assess public engagement projects

Course Structure

The course includes 3 modules with activities, reflection questions, readings, and additional resources to help you ideate, plan, and execute public engagement activities.

Module 0 – Getting Started: Outlines the structure of the course, how to engage with other participants, and how to successfully complete this course.
Module 1 – Public Engagement: Skills, Strategies, and Considerations: Focuses on why and how you should get involved in public engagement and key skills needed to be successful.
Module 2 – Starting, Executing, and Assessing a Public Engagement Project: Reviews the steps to plan, execute, and assess a public engagement project.

Built with Your Schedule in Mind

We built this course for busy scholars, researchers, or practitioners like you! The modules are meant to be completed in about three weeks, allowing you to do course activities while attending to other responsibilities. Each module consists of 1-6 brief videos and takes about 1 to 3 hours of work to complete.

Requirements

There are no requirements needed to take this course.

Format & Certification

Strategies for Effective Public Engagement is a self-paced online course. Once you pass the course, you can apply to receive a digital badge and Certificate of Completion to share and keep for your records. Passing requires you to complete all the required activities for the course, which equals 60% of the total activities.

Take the Course on Canvas

Course Overview

The process of completing your PhD and securing your next position can be stressful and the guidelines on how to do this are not very clear. The Strategic Postdoc is a FREE, 3-week course designed to help trainees like you create a plan to complete their PhD training while applying for postdoctoral positions. This course allows you to evaluate different positions and opportunities while thinking about your personal and professional goals. While the content of this course is focused on the PhD-to-postdoc transition, the concepts and strategies in this course can be applied to other professional transitions after a PhD.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Understand if a postdoc is the right next step for you
Reverse-engineer your postdoc search based on your needs, preferences, and values
Create a game plan to apply for a postdoc
Interview, negotiate, and choose a postdoc lab
Strategize finishing your PhD and moving on

Course Structure

The course includes 3 modules with activities, reflection questions, readings, and additional resources to guide you through your postdoctoral search:

Module 0: Getting Started: Outlines the structure of the course and how to successfully complete this course.
Module 1: Positioning Yourself for the Postdoc: This module will help you identify your needs, preferences, and values (NPVs) to reverse-engineer your postdoc search, should it be the best next step for you. Using videos, case studies, worksheets and reflection questions, you will build a game plan to finish your PhD and secure your ideal postdoc.
Module 2: Applying for the Postdoc: This module will guide you through the process of finding, interviewing for, and choosing a postdoc lab that is a good fit for you. You will also learn how to apply effective negotiation strategies to help you smoothly transition out of your PhD lab and into the next stage of your career journey.

Built with Your Schedule in Mind

We built this course for busy students, researchers, or professionals like you! Each module takes about 1 to 3 hours of work to complete and they can be completed in a leisurely fashion in about three weeks, allowing you to do course activities while attending to other responsibilities.

Requirements

There are no requirements needed to take this course.

Format & Certification

The Strategic Postdoc is a self-paced online course. Once you pass the course, you can apply to receive a digital badge and Certificate of Completion to share and keep for your records. Passing requires you to complete all the required activities for the course, which equals 50% of the total activities.

Take the Course on Canvas