Career & Tools
Check out this UCSB series on grad student and postdoc professional development experiences funded by the Individualized Professional Skills (IPS) Program. This week's featured video is by Anna Kim, a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering, who attended an online course for future Principal Investigators to build the skills to lead a lab. Read on to watch the video and learn more about the IPS program!
Have you ever wished you had support to take advantage of a professional or career development opportunity that lies outside the scope of your academic research? The UCSB Individualized Professional Skills (IPS) Program is designed to help graduate students and postdoctoral scholars fill in the funding gaps for pursuing opportunities that support your professional development in a variety of career trajectories.
IPS Insights: We are excited to launch a brand-new series "IPS Insights," where previous awardees share about their IPS-funded experiences in short informational videos. This week's featured video is by Anna Kim, a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering.
Anna attended the PI Crash Course: a two-day intensive boot camp of seminars, discussions, and hands-on activity sessions to provide exposure to fundamental leadership and management skills and tools needed for success as a lab leader. Watch her video to learn more about her experience!
In Anna's Words: What I Learned
"I attended an online course to learn potential skills for future lab leaders. The course is a good introduction to the topics with some seminars going further in depth. I particularly enjoyed the seminar on leadership. I think it was actually good that the seminar was moved online, as we did activity exercises and case studies in smaller groups and it worked well. Beyond the course, I also had the chance to meet and network with people who are in a similar career stage and interested in management/leadership. The course provided me with practical tools that will help me to develop my skills as a leader and guide future interactions with students."
IPS Program Overview
Awards up to $1000 are granted to eligible UCSB graduate students and postdoctoral scholars from any discipline who wish to individually tailor their career paths with outside professional development opportunities. The purpose of the IPS program is to help grad students and postdocs take greater agency in their own career path by funding exploration of a range of professional development opportunities across a variety of career and skill interests.
The IPS Program is a collaboration between the Professional Development Series at the Center for Science and Engineering Partnerships; the Graduate Division; the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; UCSB Innovation and Entrepreneurship initiative and CNSI Technology Incubator; Career Services; UCSB's divisional deans; and external donors. Learn more about the program here!