Providing Grad Students a Roadmap to Professional Success

As a third-year Ph.D. student in the University of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Sciences, Alex Rice has a full schedule. Most of her time now is spent researching the long-term sustainability of harvesting trees in the Northeast, collecting samples from every aspect of the forest — leaves, branches, soils, roots — and then using acids to determine their chemical compositions.

Rice has gained the type of valuable field research experience that all master’s and Ph.D. students seek to prepare for productive careers in academia and a variety of professional sectors. But there are other skills and strategies that she wanted to hone: how to write an effective grant proposal, for example, and how to navigate the publishing process for academic papers. Even the basics of professional networking to make those critical contacts that lead to post-doctoral positions and other opportunities after graduation is an area where talented and ambitious graduate students need guidance.

So, last semester, Rice and 37 other M.S. and Ph.D. students from UVA’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences completed a six-week online course focused on those specific professional development skills. The pilot class was funded by the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation, with curriculum developed by the Publication Academy, an online professional development platform that offers course modules on how to write high-impact journal articles, grant applications, policy briefs, and evidence briefs, as well as how to master leading reference management software used by research-oriented professionals.

“This course provided me helpful insight into grant writing which I found extremely important, as I have no experience writing a grant. Grant writing will be essential for my career, so understanding the structure and how to find funding sources are important skills to develop for my career,” Rice said. 

Addressing a need

The impetus for the online course came from the Department of Environmental Sciences’ Graduate Student Association, which partnered with Publication Academy to offer the six-week course titled “Translating Your Science into Policy, Practice, & Publications.” Open to graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, the course attracted students from four departments in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. 

Through the grant provided by the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation, Publication Academy also partnered with Virginia Tech and Shenandoah University to design similar courses for graduate students. 

“Publication Academy is thrilled to have had the opportunity to serve the UVA community through the provision of this exciting program for its graduate students. Given the outstanding results achieved, we look forward to exploring future opportunities to work with the University to support its students, faculty and staff,” said Publication Academy founder and CEO Jay Singh, who completed his graduate doctoral studies in psychiatry at the University of Oxford and clinical psychology at Universität Konstanz.

Fifth-year UVA Ph.D. student Carly LaRoche, who co-chairs the Graduate Student Association within the Department of Environmental Sciences, served as one of the liaisons with Publication Academy.

“The topics they proposed covering are a blind spot within most graduate students’ education. These are skills that aren’t taught in the classroom,” Laroche said. “We helped select the modules based on what was going to be most important for people in our department, based on feedback gathered from grad students.”

About half of the graduate students who completed the pilot course came from other academic departments within the Graduate School, including Chemistry and Biology. 

One of the most popular course modules, according to LaRoche, covered the writing process for academic publications. 

“I really appreciated learning more about the fundamentals of the publication writing process, because even though it's something that I've done before, it's always been a little bit muddled, in terms of what process I need to go through,” she said. “Having something presented that offers a clear roadmap of how to organize my thoughts and how to move forward on that makes the publication process a little bit less daunting.” 

One of the takeaways from the exit surveys completed by students who completed the Publication Academy course last semester was a unanimous interest in future classes and workshops on the publication process and networking, LaRoche said. 

Robert Joseph, a master’s student in the Department of Environmental Sciences, said he gained a lot of technical knowledge in his first semester in the program, including much of the jargon in his field of study. 

“But it can be difficult to step out of that mindset and explain my work to people who are unfamiliar with my field — even when I'm just talking to my ecology peers in the department,” Joseph added. “The biggest benefit of Publication Academy was taking a step back from my weekly responsibilities — grading, teaching, coursework, etc. — to focus on the bigger picture: the publication process and, even more importantly, my desired career trajectory.  

“I’m glad I completed the course early in my grad career so I have that framework in mind when the time comes to publish my work.”