Academic Professional Development

The University of Southern California strives to provide rigorous, intellectually challenging, and stimulating research experiences and classroom environments. The Graduate School seeks to complement the efforts of the University by providing opportunities for doctoral students from all disciplines and campuses to partake in professional development focused meetings. Striving to develop a complete and competent academic scholar-practitioner, requisite areas of academic professionalization have been identified such as:

Communication Development – The ability to communicate through written and oral formats in academic and laymen communities is vital to one's professionalism, to convey research findings, advance an array of dialogues, and assist with complex decision-making.

Interdisciplinary Opportunities – With an increasingly global world and finite amount of resources, local, national, and global problems require the intellectual and problem-solving abilities of an interdisciplinary scholarly collective.

Career Path Preparation – Understanding and preparing for multiple job types is paramount as doctoral students move from the confines of the university to the open job market within and outside academia.

Programmatic offerings will be focused to address the aforementioned areas seeking to enhance the professional skillsets as well as the overall campus experience for doctoral students. Providing doctoral students with a honed skillset positions them for greater academic success while at the University of Southern California and in their future professional endeavors.