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PhD Transferable Skills

Translating your skills and experiences.

Transferable skills are skills you acquire or learn in one setting that can be applied or translated to new and different settings, environments, and activities. Doctoral students often fall into the trap of seeing their skills as applicable in only one setting, thus do not recognize that they are qualified for a wide variety of career paths. Don’t let this happen to you! In the table below you will find a list of skills most sought after by employers. In the final column of the table are examples of activities that demonstrate these essential skills. For several of the skills you can also take online assessments to identify which areas you still need to develop.

ESSENTIAL SKILLS: Adaptability , Analytic skills , Balance & resilience , Communication skills ( oral and written ), Conflict resolution/negotiation , Cultural/Intercultural , Discipline-specific skills , Ethics & Integrity , Follow-through/Ability to get things done , Fundraising , Independent (self-starter), Intelligence , Inter-/Multi- disciplinary , Interpersonal skills , Leadership (program) , Leadership (personnel/management) , Networking & collaboration , Organization , Outreach , Project management , Research , Self-direction/Entrepreneurial skills , Supervision , Technical skills (information technology), Work ethic

Essential Skills and Competencies for Graduate Students 1 :

1 Contents of table are adapted from Blickley, et al. (2012). “Graduate Student’s Guide to Necessary Skills for Nonacademic Conservation Careers.” Conservation Biology, 27:1. 2 Winterton, Delamare - Le Deist, and Stringfellow (2006). “Typology of knowledge, skills and competences: clarification of the concept and prototype.”

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• Graduate Student Skills (UIUC) [PDF]

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The top 3 skills needed to do a PhD are skills employers want too

Senior Lecturer and Academic Lead, University of Sydney

Associate Professor, Macquarie University

Disclosure statement

Lilia Mantai is an Executive Member of the Australasian Council for Undergraduate Research (ACUR), a non-for-profit association promoting undergraduate research.

Mauricio Marrone developed the data dashboard and is the founder of ResGap.com.

Macquarie University and University of Sydney provide funding as members of The Conversation AU.

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More and more people are applying to do a PhD. What many don’t know is it takes serious skills to do one – and, more importantly, complete it.

We analysed the selection criteria for PhD candidates on a platform that advertises PhD programs. Our analysis of thousands of these ads revealed exactly what types of skills different countries and disciplines require.

Why do a PhD in the first place?

People pursue a PhD for many reasons. They might want to stand out from the crowd in the job market, learn how to do research, gain a deeper expertise in an area of interest, or pursue an academic career.

Sadly, too many PhD students never finish. The PhD turns out to be too hard, not well supported, mentally taxing, financially draining, etc. Dropping the PhD often means significant financial loss for institutions and individuals, not to mention the psychological costs of other consequences such as low self-esteem, anxiety and loneliness .

Read more: 1 in 5 PhD students could drop out. Here are some tips for how to keep going

Our society and economy can only benefit from a better-educated workforce, so it is in the national interest to manage PhD intakes and be clear about expectations. The expansion of doctoral education led to a more competitive selection process, but the criteria are opaque.

To clarify PhD expectations, we turned to a European research job platform supported by EURAXESS (a pan-European initiative by the European Commission) where PhD programs are advertised as jobs. Required skills are listed in the selection criteria. We analysed 13,562 PhD ads for the types of skills different countries and disciplines require.

We made three specific findings.

1. Top 3 skills needed for a PhD

It turns out that it takes many so-called transferable skills to do a PhD. These are skills that can be translated and applied to any professional context. The top three required skills are:

communication – academic writing, presentation skills, speaking to policy and non-expert audiences

research – disciplinary expertise, data analysis, project management

interpersonal – leadership, networking, teamwork, conflict resolution.

Trending skill categories are digital (information processing and visualisation) and cognitive (abstract, critical and creative thinking and problem-solving).

Previous research shows transferable skills are requested for post-PhD careers, including both academic and non-academic jobs. Our research shows such skills are already required to do a PhD. Those keen to do a PhD are well advised to provide strong evidence of such skills when applying.

2. Skill demands vary by country and discipline

Skill demands significantly differ by country and discipline. For example, 62% of medical science ads mention interpersonal skills. This is twice as often as in biological science ads. Digital and cognitive skills score much higher in the Netherlands than in other countries.

Our research article reports on 2016-2019 data and the top five represented countries (Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and the UK) and the top five represented disciplines (biological sciences, physics, chemistry, engineering and medical sciences). However, you can use this tool for granular detail on 52 countries – including non-European countries like Australia, New Zealand, the US, etc. – and 37 disciplines included in the data sample. For continuously updated data, please visit https://www.resgap.com/ .

3. PhD expectations are rising

We see a rise in PhD expectations over time (2016-2019) as more skills are listed year on year. The publish or perish culture prevails and rising demands on academics have led to calls for more engaged research, collaborations with industry, and research commercialisation .

PhD students get accustomed early to competitiveness and high expectations.

Read more: Is it a good time to be getting a PhD? We asked those who've done it

Research-based learning needs to start early

These insights have implications for pre-PhD education and pathways. Undergraduate and postgraduate degrees can further promote PhD readiness by embedding authentic hands-on research with academic or corporate partners, either as part of the curriculum or as extracurricular activities.

Many postgraduate degrees offer authentic research project work opportunities but are shorter. Those entering the PhD without a postgraduate degree miss out on developing essential research skills.

Authentic research experiences need to happen early on in higher education. Organisations like the Council on Undergraduate Research ( CUR ), the Australasian Council for Undergraduate Research ( ACUR ) and the British Conference of Undergraduate Research ( BCUR ) are designed to support institutions and individuals to do this effectively. They showcase great models of undergraduate research.

To get a good idea of what undergraduate research looks like, start with this comprehensive paper and catch up on undergraduate research news from Australasia .

We know research-based learning develops employability skills such as critical thinking, resilience and independence.

Embed career development in PhD programs

Doctoral training needs to take note, too, if it is to further build on the skill set that PhD applicants bring with them.

The good news is doctoral education has transformed in recent decades. It’s catching up to the call for better-skilled graduates for a range of careers. The training focus has shifted towards generating practice-based and problem-solving knowledge, and engaged research with other sectors.

Read more: It's time to reduce the number of PhD students, or rethink how doctoral programs work

Some institutions now offer skill and career training. Generally, though, this sort of training is left to the graduates themselves. Many current PhD candidates will attest that the highly regulated and tight PhD schedule leaves little room for voluntary activities to make them more employable.

Most PhD candidates also know more than half of them will not score a long-term academic job. Institutions would serve them better by formally embedding tailored career development opportunities in PhD programs that prepare for academic and non-academic jobs .

It’s not only PhD graduates’ professional and personal well-being that will benefit but also the national economy.

Sydney Horizon Educators (Identified)

School of Social Sciences – Public Policy and International Relations opportunities

Partner, Senior Talent Acquisition

Deputy Editor - Technology

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and Student Life)

10 PhD Transferable Skills You Can Use in Most Jobs

“No one wants to hire PhDs because they are overqualified and too independent!”

This is one thing PhDs are tired of hearing. How can your PhD be a liability to your career? Rather, recruiters prefer PhD candidates over others not just for their qualification but for their PhD transferable skills.

Table of Contents

What are PhD Transferable Skills?

PhD Transferable skills are exactly what the name suggests! These are skills other than technical skills that you develop in your academic program. Furthermore, these skills are so versatile that they can be used everywhere, irrespective of the designation or field. Transferable skills are desirable because if you already have them, your employer will not have to train you on them. Consequently, you can make positive contributions in any career with these skills.

Which are the PhD Transferable Skills that You Must Develop?

Considering that a doctorate degree is the highest degree in most fields, the skills that are required to excel in the same are impeccable. Undoubtedly, researchers pursuing their Ph.Ds. or postdocs develop technical skills related to their research. However, what they also need to develop is a host of research transferable skills they can use as they progress in their careers.

Which are 10 PhD Transferable Skills You Can Use in Most Jobs?

With the surge of jobs for PhD in STEM, recruiters struggle to fill those positions with talented candidates. They are always in need of trained professionals who know how to create information from scratch, and not just recreate it in a tinkering manner.

While your work experience and education during PhD is an asset, you’d be surprised to find out that employers in most sectors pay close attention to your skill set. According to a recently published survey report by LinkedIn, 57% of respondents identified soft transferable skills as more important than hard skills (technical knowledge).

Here, we list 10 significant PhD transferable skills students can use in most jobs.

1. Project Management

The most apparent thought that comes to anyone’s mind while thinking about PhD is “project management” skills. A successful research experience goes hand-in-hand with a well-planned project. As simple as it may sound, the management skills of a PhD graduate are not confined to his/her project. It starts right from ideation of the research project to final submission, which results in an ultimate success of the project. Different stages of a PhD’s journey demands customized planning and organizing to ensure that deadlines are met and projects are completed efficiently and effectively. Furthermore, a PhD makes sure that all plans are duly incorporated. Employers seek candidates with PhD transferable skills as they want someone who can not only see a task through, but can visualize what needs to happen on a project from start to finish.

2. Accelerated Learning

As a doctor of philosophy, the ability to ascertain knowledge runs thick in the veins of a PhD researcher. An inquisitive mind and quick comprehension of technical things is interlinked to your accelerated learning ability. Moreover, being a PhD, you attend conferences and read papers to stay on top of the latest trends in your field. Consequently, PhD transferable skills ensure employers of your ability to understand technical procedures, protocols, and methodologies.

3. Time Management

Time waits for none! The key to a tension-free and smooth workflow is effective time management . While planning is important, defining your deadlines, setting realistic and achievable goals, and adhering to them takes you a long way! At a job, every moment spent on an unfocused or frivolous task, is a waste of money. Contradictorily, time management may not be viewed similarly in academia. However, as a PhD your motive has been to complete your program in time. This acts as a serious motivation to develop excellent time management skills.

4. Attention to Detail

One of the essential core skills of a PhD is paying attention to the details. To the best of your experience as a researcher, you are aware that mistakes can be missed in the bat of an eye. Therefore, it is a known fact that PhDs are one of the finest people to make sure that each project runs through a fine-tooth comb. As a result, employers can count on you for detail-oriented assignments that require critical assessment and corrections.

5. Ability to Collaborate

As stated earlier, PhDs are not new to working in groups to achieve common goals. Your significant contribution in research groups, as a researcher and author during your PhD program demonstrates your ability to collaborate . Employers seek candidates who are team players making positive contributions to the success of a group.

6. Writing Proficiency

Given the nature of modern technology, writing may not be a primary task of most job profiles. However, it sure is an essential element for academic and allied knowledge dissemination careers. In due course of pursuing a PhD, you come across countless reading material from authors all around the world. This subsequently stocks up your bank of vocabulary and enhances your writing skills for an unambiguous conveyance of messages and information.

7. Leadership Skills

Leadership skills aren’t only your ability to supervise and manage a team, but to take the lead on a project and get a team to follow through and achieve goals. As a PhD you’re the “lead” for your project. While it doesn’t necessarily involve leading other people, it still means being responsible for major decisions to accomplish targets. Additionally, it is common for PhD students to work in research groups and collaborate on shared projects. Nonetheless, they also demonstrate leadership while organizing conferences and seminars for their department or university. PhDs are also seen showing leadership skills while advising students and mentoring peers.

8. Critical Thinking and Analysis

As a PhD, it’s a given that you are able to analyze data and provide logical reasoning to it. Throughout your program, you collect data, analyze it, and draw conclusions. The ability of a PhD to critically examine everything and deliver logical reasoning behind it is not new to anyone. A PhD is well versed with 360-degree logical thinking without being biased. Employers seek these research transferable skill of a PhD to consider alternative solutions to a problem and suggest next steps for efficient functioning.

9. Communication Skills

This is the master of PhD transferable skills. Even if you decide to step into a career that is a 180-degree sweep from your PhD, you’d still need to communicate! Your ability to communicate efficiently is developed right from preparing for your PhD interview, presenting papers and posters at academic conferences, defending your thesis, etc. As verbal communication affects your ability to work with your peers, it is one of the most sought after research transferable skills by employers.

10. Adaptability

A PhD isn’t only about specialization. Rather, it’s about the ability to specialize. During your PhD you learn to tackle a new topic, solve it, and move on to the next problem. Almost all careers require employees to focus on specific topics and projects in detail to achieve a specific goal. Your ability of in-depth specialization in academic research project demonstrates adaptability and flexibility —quite literally!

So the next time you are asked, “What skills do you bring to this position?”, you certainly know how to answer that! Brush up your PhD transferable skills to help you make the right career switch. Remember that your PhD isn’t a liability after all. In fact, it’s an asset! Let us know how you acquired these valuable skills that are highly sought after by employers today.

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The 7 Essential Transferable Skills All PhDs Have

During your PhD, you’re not just learning about your research topic. You’re also learning core skills that apply to jobs both in and out of academia. Most institutions don’t teach you to articulate these transferable skills in a way that aligns with how they’re described in the business world. Knowing your skills increases your value as a candidate.

Written Communication

It takes practice to become a good writer. Fortunately, as PhD student you have years of practice writing papers, conference abstracts, journal manuscripts, and of course your dissertation. The feedback you receive from your supervisor and peer reviewers will help improve your communication skills.

Research skills are valuable even in many fields outside of academia. As a trained researcher, you are able to determine the best approach to a question, find relevant data, design a way to analyze it, understand a large amount of data, and then synthesize your findings. You even know how to use research to persuade others and defend your conclusions.

Public Speaking                   

Strong oral communications skills are always valued, and PhD students get more public speaking opportunities than most. Through conference talks, poster presentations, and teaching, you will learn to feel comfortable in front of a larger audience, engage them, and present complex ideas in a straightforward way. Winning a teaching award or being recognized as the best speaker at a conference is a concrete way to prove your public speaking skills.

Project Management

Even if you’re not working as a project manager, every job requires some degree of project management. Fortunately, a PhD is an exercise in project management. Finishing your dissertation requires you to design a project, make a realistic timeline, overcome setbacks, and manage stakeholders. During this time, you will also have to manage long-term projects at the same time as short-term goals which requires strong organizational skills.

Mentoring and teaching are the two main way PhD student can learn leadership and management skills. As a teacher or mentor, you have to figure out how to motivate someone and help them accomplish a goal. You also get experience evaluating someone’s performance (grading) and giving constructive feedback.

Critical Thinking

Every PhD student learns critical thinking skills whether they realize it or not. You are trained to approach problems systematically, see the links between ideas, evaluate arguments, and analyze information to come up with your own conclusions. Any industry can benefit from someone who knows “how to think”.

Collaboration

Very few jobs require you to work completely independently, and academia isn’t one of them. Your dissertation is a solo project, but on a day to day basis you work with other people on your experiments or preparing a journal manuscript. Doing these tasks successfully requires knowing how to divide up a task, get along with others, communicate effectively, and resolve conflict.

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What makes a good PhD student?

Study tips Published 31 Mar, 2022  ·  3-minute read

Thinking about pursuing a PhD but worried you might not excel in such a research-intensive program? We believe you can do it – especially if you cultivate some of the top traits of successful PhD candidates.

It takes a special type of person to spend countless hours researching and writing about a niche topic. While all our higher degree by research candidates have unique personalities and interest areas, there are some attributes they tend to have in common – traits that make them a “good” PhD student and help them on their path to completing their thesis.

Here we’ll look beyond just how to be a PhD student and instead talk about what makes a good PhD student. What skills, attitudes and behaviours can you develop or practise now to set yourself up for success in the next 3-4 years?

What do PhD programs look for?

The criteria for getting a PhD scholarship provide some useful clues as to what makes a good PhD student in the eyes of an advisory board. In particular, you’ll benefit from having a strong academic record and proven abilities to conduct effective research . The academic transcript from your honours or postgraduate program can help demonstrate this.

More important, though, are the traits you developed in order to get those academic results:

• enduring curiosity and a love of learning
• conscientiousness and attention to detail
• organisational and time-management skills
• ability and willingness to collaborate with anyone
• persistence and resilience (pushing through challenges and bouncing back from failures)
• intrinsic motivation and self-discipline (the drive to set your own goals and follow them through).

To thrive in a PhD program, you’ll want to maintain and strengthen these attributes. The good news is anyone can practise or work on these traits to some extent, even if they don’t always come naturally to you.

Keep in mind that every candidate is different, so there’s no “correct” balance of the above attributes guaranteed to make you a good PhD student. On your research journey, you’ll quickly realise your existing strengths and any areas you might need to work on.

Some of the qualities that I find are key are being inquisitive, loving to learn and question the status quo, and being an independent and self-directed worker.

What makes a good PhD student: it isn’t a simple formula

We asked UQ PhD candidate Sarah Kendall for her advice on what makes a good PhD student. While she had some attributes to suggest, she also pointed out that candidates bring unique strengths and skillsets to their research – and this is something that can’t be quantified.

“Good PhD candidates can have many different qualities,” says Sarah.

“Some of the qualities that I find are key are being inquisitive, loving to learn and question the status quo, and being an independent and self-directed worker.”

Sarah acknowledges that some of these factors are inherent for some people more than others. But she’s also quick to remind us that completing research in a previous program can help you identify if you’ve got what it takes.

“Doing something like an honours project can definitely help you figure out whether these are qualities you have, as well as to prepare you for the kinds of behaviours you’ll need as a PhD candidate.”

Chelsea Janke, another UQ PhD candidate, adds the following behaviours and qualities to the list of what PhD programs look for:

• ability and interest to learn
• critical thinking
• problem solving
• resourcefulness
• resilience.

So, if you’re wondering how to be a PhD student, there’s clearly no one-size-fits-all answer. But if you possess a healthy combination of some of the attributes discussed above, there’s a good chance you’ll fit the bill.

Does this sound like you (or at least someone you’d like to be with some practice)? We’d love to have you contributing to the groundbreaking research projects here at The University of Queensland.

Learn more about doing a PhD at UQ

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Mastering PhD Success: 7 Must-Have Qualities for Top Scholars!

Unlocking the Secrets of Successful PhD Scholars: Top Qualities You Need to Know!

Table of contents

1. curiosity and passion for research:, 2. strong work ethic, 3. perseverance, 4. excellent communication skills, 5. critical thinking, 6. collaborative spirit, 7. time management.

Pursuing a PhD requires a lot of dedication, hard work, and perseverance. It is a long and challenging journey that can take several years to complete. However, the journey can be made smoother if the student possesses certain qualities that make them a good PhD scholar.

In this article, ilovephd will discuss some of the essential qualities that a good PhD scholar should possess.

Top Qualities of good PhD Scholar

One of the primary qualities of a good PhD scholar is their curiosity and passion for research. They should be driven by a genuine desire to learn and contribute to their field. A good PhD scholar is someone who is always asking questions, seeking answers, and looking for ways to push the boundaries of their discipline.

A PhD is not a degree that can be achieved easily. It requires a lot of hard work, dedication, and commitment. A good PhD scholar should have a strong work ethic and be willing to put in the time and effort required to complete their research. They should be self-motivated, disciplined, and able to work independently.

PhD research can be challenging, and setbacks and failures are common. A good PhD scholar should have the perseverance to keep going even when things get tough. They should be able to learn from their mistakes and use them to improve their research.

A good PhD scholar should have excellent communication skills. They should be able to express their ideas clearly and effectively, both in writing and in oral presentations. They should be able to communicate their research findings to a wide range of audiences, including peers, professors, and the general public.

PhD research involves a lot of critical thinking. A good PhD scholar should be able to analyze complex data, identify patterns and trends, and draw meaningful conclusions. They should be able to think outside the box and approach problems creatively.

Although PhD research is often an individual endeavor, it is also important to work collaboratively with peers, professors, and other researchers. A good PhD scholar should have a collaborative spirit and be willing to work with others to achieve common goals. They should be open to feedback and willing to learn from others.

Also Read: 6 Types of Research Collaboration-Every Researcher Should Know

PhD research involves managing multiple tasks and deadlines. A good PhD scholar should have excellent time management skills and be able to prioritize tasks effectively. They should be able to manage their time efficiently to ensure that they meet deadlines and make progress toward their research goals.

In conclusion, the qualities of a good PhD scholar go beyond just academic excellence. It takes a combination of dedication, passion, discipline, perseverance, and effective communication skills to excel in a PhD program. While the journey may be challenging, developing and embodying these qualities will undoubtedly lead to a successful career as a researcher or academic.

I hope this article would help you to know about the important qualities a Ph.D. scholar must have in academies to be successful.

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There are dozens of good reasons to pursue a graduate degree. For students on the verge of graduating with a bachelor’s, a master’s degree can provide extra knowledge and skills to skip entry-level career positions and start a career at a higher level. For workers in industry who are tired of their current role or opportunities, a master’s or PhD can be the necessary qualification to pivot into new career fields that provide a greater sense of purpose and job satisfaction.

Yet, regardless of your current circumstances and the reasons driving your interest in a graduate degree, you need to consider whether you have what it takes to survive and thrive in a graduate degree program.

The following skills are absolutely essential for any graduate student, so you might work toward cultivating them before you apply:

Communication

The number-one most important skill for anyone in any field is communication. As a social species, humans will inevitably interact with one another, and strong communication skills ensure that those interactions are successful for all parties involved. Graduate students will need to communicate with instructors, fellow students, school administrators and perhaps research participants. The most important component of communication is the ability to actively listen to others, and graduate students can practice this skill in their personal and professional lives before enrolling in their graduate program.

Adaptability

Change is the only constant through a graduate degree program. Often, graduate students begin their programs intending to focus on a specific field of study only to pivot several times to new fields and topics. This can occur because a student develops new academic interests or because their target field shifts due to a new trend or discovery. Sometimes, guiding faculty will leave, compelling students to find new connections to their field of choice. Regardless, graduate students need to be able to adapt to new situations with relative ease, or else they will be continuously frustrated in their advanced program.  

In professional settings, workers are kept on task thanks to the careful supervision of managers. In academic settings, it is the student alone who is responsible for their studies; though professors and academic counselors might offer guidance, they cannot oversee every step of every student’s study process. Thus, students need to have the discipline to motivate and manage themselves through the hard work required to obtain a graduate degree. Especially with the highest degrees, like a PhD in education , students should have strong self-direction and follow-through to ensure they will complete their programs with high-quality work in a reasonable time frame.

Intellectual Maturity

To put it bluntly, graduate students need to be smart. Information taught at the graduate level tends to be sophisticated and abstract, and students will need to have methods of learning and retaining an abundance of information in a brief period of time. Students should strive to develop skills that will drive intellectual maturity, like curiosity, before enrolling in their program, so they can push their intellectual abilities to the maximum during their graduate studies.

Even though you may have made it through college by staying to yourself and focusing only on your studies, mastering teamwork will be crucial to your success in the real world. Most professions need contact and collaboration, and you can be the most qualified person with this quality.

Managing Time Efficiently

The worst that can happen if you oversleep and miss a class while in college is that you'll have to make up for it later. In the working world, this isn't the case! It's possible that being late for work may result in losing your job for good. During your final year of college, make a conscious effort never to be late for an appointment - this will ease your transition.

Perspective and Empathy

Even though this ability has always been crucial, it appears to be steadily vanishing. It will help the students to empathize with others, comprehend their sentiments, and offer solutions to their issues.

Innovation and Creativity

This talent is essential because it coincides with the capacity for thoughtful inquiry and problem-solving . Employers increasingly rely on workers to develop original and inventive answers to problems.

Other Important Skills

All graduate students need the above soft skills to find success in their graduate programs, but most graduate students also need a certain number of hard skills before they will be able to navigate the demanding coursework of their graduate studies. Some of these valuable hard skills include:

Data Analysis

Most graduate-level studies involve some degree of research, and research always requires collecting and analyzing data. It might be worthwhile for prospective graduate students to take individual introductory data science courses online or at a local college to establish a foundation in skills like data analysis and visualization.

Every graduate program involves an abundance of writing. Some students mistakenly believe that writing is an inborn talent, but in truth, it is a skill that can be improved through practice. Before a graduate program begins, students might experiment with different strategies for improving their writing skills , such as completing Morning Pages or reading more often throughout the day.

Admittedly, self-care is not a hard skill — but it is essential for surviving and thriving in graduate school. Students need to have systems in place to ensure that they are eating healthily, exercising regularly and socializing appropriately to feel balanced and secure. It might be useful for students to develop a self-care plan before beginning any graduate program.

A graduate degree can be an immensely valuable tool for boosting one’s career — but graduate school is not for everyone. Professionals who have the above skills, or who are willing to work to obtain them before beginning their graduate studies, are more likely to see success from a completed advanced credential.

Software Skills

The fact that knowledge of computers and software is more important than ever is reflected with time. The more proficient you are in these areas from the outset, the more successful and quickly moving your career will likely be. Nowadays, virtually all well-paying graduate professions need digital skills.

Money Management

All graduate students should be able to handle money, balance a checkbook, use an ATM, read a bank statement, and understand how to make intelligent financial decisions.

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Final Words

College may be the most enjoyable years of a person's life, offering enjoyment, independence, and valuable education that supports your pursuit of the vocation of your dreams.

But for many recent graduates, leaving the familiarity of college and entering the real world may be a terrifying experience. They may be qualified for specialized occupations, but to accept and adapt to this new, fully-adult existence, they must also have learned and mastered several vital practical life skills.

We have therefore compiled this list of the most important skills everyone should have acquired before graduating college.

About the Author

Adil Altaf loves to help others by sharing useful information and seeing how informed decision-making can change the world.

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A guide for first year PhD students: Expectations, responsibilities, advice

The first year of a PhD can feel like a rollercoaster ride. First-year PhD students are ambitious and want to fulfil expectations. At the same time, they may be unsure of what these expectations and their responsibilities are. This guide aims to provide first-year PhD students with some directions and advice.

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The first year as a PhD student: Excitement, ambition, overwhelm

What to expect as a first-year phd student, responsibilities of a first-year phd student, a supervisor’s expectations of a first-year phd student, thesis/dissertation, academic skills, relationships and networking, health and well-being.

Starting a PhD is exciting. Securing a PhD position is a major life event, and often something that first-year year PhD students have been working towards for a long time.

Many PhD students cannot wait to start. They already want to prepare in the weeks and months leading up to their new positions. And once they do start, they are full of energy, ambitions and plans.

First-year PhD students want to do well, make progress with their projects and meet their supervisors’ expectations. However, it is not always clear what that means.

“Am I doing enough? Do I make enough progress? Am I smart enough? Did I bite off more than I can chew?”

Questions like these, and insecurities, often develop early on in a PhD journey.

Furthermore, starting in a new environment can also be draining. There are new colleagues, new processes, and many unwritten rules in academia. Coupled with open questions about the direction of one’s PhD research, the first year can feel overwhelming.

To avoid overwhelm, it helps to know that the first year of a PhD involves much more than just figuring out one’s research. And absolutely normal to feel lost from time to time.

Succeeding in academia has many facets, including your thesis or dissertation, but also learning new skills, and developing relationships with supervisors, colleagues and scholars in your field. All of that takes energy.

Set realistic expectations for yourself in the first year of your PhD. Not everything will work out as planned. Research takes time, and setbacks are inevitable.

Doing a PhD is often experienced as very stressful : many PhD students are perfectionists, and a PhD requires a lot of self-responsibility. Consequently, PhD work tends to feel very personal, and criticism can sting.

First-year PhD students can deal with ‘failures’ more constructively by realizing that failures are an inevitable part of academic work, and by adopting a more welcoming attitude to criticism and feedback.

First-year PhD students can also expect to read and explore a lot. At times, this involves going down the rabbit hole of academic literature: processing new information, frameworks and perspectives before discarding them again.

Thinking, researching, experimenting, writing and editing are not straightforward processes, and a lot of learning takes place along the way.

Specific requirements and responsibilities of a first-year PhD student differ from programme to programme.

However, frequently a key responsibility of a PhD student is to develop a firm research proposal in the first year, which is often coupled with an extensive literature review.

This requires first-year PhD students to immerse themselves in the relevant literature. However, it is also recommended to read a bit outside of your field or discipline to gain new perspectives.

If a PhD programme involves course work, as is for instance the case in North America much more than in Europe, then planning and starting coursework is also often a responsibility during the first year.

All in all, a first-year PhD student is responsible to get organised and create a feasible plan for the coming years. The first year is meant to set the foundation for the PhD trajectory .

Unless the PhD programme is followed online, and unless there is a pandemic raging, first-year PhD students are additionally often expected to actively participate in the research group, lab or department in which they are based.

Active participation can range from simply showing up regularly, to attending lunches with colleagues, attending research events or presenting preliminary findings.

The internet is full of horror stories of PhD supervisors having extremely unrealistic expectations of first-year PhD students. For instance, several publications in the first year.

While this can certainly happen, I dare to say that this is not the norm.

Again, specific expectations or requirements in terms of performance and output of first-year PhD students can differ from university to university, and from supervisor to supervisor.

Beyond that, however, there are several expectations that many PhD supervisors have of first-year PhD students.

For instance, PhD supervisors tend to appreciate some levels of regularity and consistency. While it is absolutely normal to have periods where you make more progress (for instance in writing) than in others, it is not good to contact your supervisor every day for a month, and then fall off the earth for half a year.

Consistency goes hand in hand with good communication. Communication, respect and openness are fundamental elements in a good supervisor-supervisee relationship.

Many supervisors prefer first-year PhD students to ask for help and support if they experience roadblocks of any kind, instead of finding out that after a year no progress was made.

Lastly, supervisors often expect PhD students to take matters into their own hands. Instead of simply waiting for instruction, this means that first-year PhD students should be in the driver’s seat of their journey. Therefore, it is no surprise that proactiveness is one of the 10 qualities of successful PhD students.

25 things every first year PhD student should do

To turn the more abstract discussion on expectations and responsibilities into more concrete advice, the following list includes 25 things (divided into five categories) that every first-year PhD student should do.

• Read as much as you can. Write down your thoughts and observations.
• Develop a system to keep track of the literature you are reading (for instance through an excel file, notebooks, or a reference manager like Zotero ).
• Develop a literature review on your research topic.
• Familiarise yourself with your university’s PhD requirements (such as length, number of publications, required coursework, etc.).
• Read a few PhD theses from your field and university to understand what is ultimately expected from you.
• Get into the habit of writing . It does not have to be purely academic text. Write down your observations, write blog posts, and write a research diary. The more you write, the easier it gets.
• Develop a good system of communication and effective supervision meetings with your PhD supervisor/s.
• Get into the habit of talking about your research. Speak to your friends about your work, and discuss some readings with your colleagues. Try to formulate your thoughts in an accessible way. The more you do this, the easier it gets.
• Present something in a friendly environment (such as your research group) to practice public speaking .
• Learn how to prioritise tasks . Sometimes, prioritising one task means ruthlessly dropping others. Get comfortable with it. No one can do it all.
• Get to know your supervisor/s . Learn about their research and activities, their preferences and things like their preferred way of communicating. Don’t just expect your supervisor/s to adjust to your preferences, also adjust to theirs.
• Be present in your department, lab or research group. Chat with colleagues, exchange information, support each other and socialise. Collaboration is always better than competition.
• Develop a good support network outside of work. Even the nicest PhD trajectory can be stressful and frustrating from time to time. Know who has your back and can provide support and/or distraction when needed.
• Get to know the administrators and secretaries of your university. They hold a lot of power and you want them on your side!
• Start your online presence by filling out your university profile page, and setting up a professional Twitter account or a LinkedIn profile. You want people to be able to find information about you and your research online.
• Observe your energy levels and find your rhythm. Some people concentrate better in the morning, others late at night. Figure out when to tackle difficult tasks, when to schedule meetings, and when to take breaks. A PhD is not a regular 9 to 5 job. If you have flexibility in your time planning, optimise your routine so that it fits you .
• Be kind to yourself. When having negative thoughts, speak them out loud. Would you talk to your friends or colleagues the same way you talk to yourself? Probably not. Be forgiving and compassionate if you have a bad day.
• Foster an identity outside of your PhD by taking time for instance for hobbies, family and friends. It will help you to separate your self-worth from your PhD work.
• Prioritise your health and well-being . This involves for example getting proper sleep , exercising and eating healthily. Not only will you feel better, but your work will also benefit.
• Take proper breaks. Getting burnout is not a badge of honour or testimony to your dedication. Work smarter, not harder.

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• 12 March 2024

Bring PhD assessment into the twenty-first century

You have full access to this article via your institution.

Innovation in PhD education has not reached how doctoral degrees are assessed. Credit: Dan Dunkley/Science Photo Library

Research and teaching in today’s universities are unrecognizable compared with what they were in the early nineteenth century, when Germany and later France gave the world the modern research doctorate. And yet significant aspects of the process of acquiring and assessing a doctorate have remained remarkably constant. A minimum of three years of independent study mentored by a single individual culminates in the production of the doctoral thesis — often a magisterial, book-length piece of work that is assessed in an oral examination by a few senior academic researchers. In an age in which there is much research-informed innovation in teaching and learning, the assessment of the doctoral thesis represents a curious throwback that is seemingly impervious to meaningful reform.

But reform is needed. Some doctoral candidates perceive the current assessment system to lack transparency, and examiners report concerns of falling standards ( G. Houston A Study of the PhD Examination: Process, Attributes and Outcomes . PhD thesis, Oxford Univ.; 2018 ). Making the qualification more structured would help — and, equally importantly, would bring the assessment of PhD education in line with education across the board. PhD candidates with experience of modern assessment methods will become better researchers, wherever they work. Indeed, most will not be working in universities: the majority of PhD holders find employment outside academia.

Collection: Career resources for PhD students

It’s not that PhD training is completely stuck in the nineteenth century. Today’s doctoral candidates can choose from a range of pathways. Professional doctorates, often used in engineering, are jointly supervised by an employer and an academic, and are aimed at solving industry-based problems. Another innovation is PhD by publication, in which, instead of a final thesis on one or more research questions, the criterion for an award is a minimum number of papers published or accepted for publication. In some countries, doctoral students are increasingly being trained in cohorts, with the aim of providing a less isolating experience than that offered by the conventional supervisor–student relationship. PhD candidates are also encouraged to acquire transferable skills — for example, in data analysis, public engagement, project management or business, economics and finance. The value of such training would be even greater if these skills were to be formally assessed alongside a dissertation rather than seen as optional.

And yet, most PhDs are still assessed after the production of a final dissertation, according to a format that, at its core, has not changed for at least half a century, as speakers and delegates noted at an event in London last month on PhD assessment, organized by the Society for Research in Higher Educatio n. Innovations in assessment that are common at other levels of education are struggling to find their way into the conventional doctoral programme.

Take the concept of learning objectives. Intended to aid consistency, fairness and transparency, learning objectives are a summary of what a student is expected to know and how they will be assessed, and are given at the start of a course of study. Part of the ambition is also to help tutors to keep track of their students’ learning and take remedial action before it is too late.

PhD training is no longer fit for purpose — it needs reform now

Formative assessment is another practice that has yet to find its way into PhD assessment consistently. Here, a tutor evaluates a student’s progress at the mid-point of a course and gives feedback or guidance on what students need to do to improve ahead of their final, or summative, assessment. It is not that these methods are absent from modern PhDs; a conscientious supervisor will not leave candidates to sink or swim until the last day. But at many institutions, such approaches are not required of PhD supervisors.

Part of the difficulty is that PhD training is carried out in research departments by people who do not need to have teaching qualifications or awareness of innovations based on education research. Supervisors shouldn’t just be experts in their field, they should also know how best to convey that subject knowledge — along with knowledge of research methods — to their students.

It is probably not possible for universities to require all doctoral supervisors to have teaching qualifications. But there are smaller changes that can be made. At a minimum, doctoral supervisors should take the time to engage with the research that exists in the field of PhD education, and how it can apply to their interactions with students.

There can be no one-size-fits-all solution to improving how a PhD is assessed, because different subjects often have bespoke needs and practices ( P. Denicolo Qual. Assur. Educ. 11 , 84–91; 2003 ). But supervisors and representatives of individual subject communities must continue to discuss what is most appropriate for their disciplines.

All things considered, there is benefit to adopting a more structured approach to PhD assessment. It is high time that PhD education caught up with changes that are now mainstream at most other levels of education. That must start with a closer partnership between education researchers, PhD supervisors and organizers of doctoral-training programmes in universities. This partnership will benefit everyone — PhD supervisors and doctoral students coming into the research workforce, whether in universities or elsewhere.

Education and training in research has entered many secondary schools, along with undergraduate teaching, which is a good thing. In the spirit of mutual learning, research doctoral supervisors, too, will benefit by going back to school.

Nature 627 , 244 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00718-0

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PhD student- What Skills and Qualities One Should Acquire?

Doctor of philosophy is a topmost academic degree or more precisely we can say, a kind of honor in any education system. Thus for acquiring a PhD degree, one should learn many skills before becoming a PhD student. 

If you are very disorganized and not studious, trust me, a PhD becomes a bad nightmare for you. You can’t behave like you in graduation or masters. And no one will teach you how to behave in PhD.

Doctor of philosophy is something different than the tradition grading and education system. Once you enroll in it, you realize that everything is different, even though you don’t have to carry a heavy bag still there is a lot of burden on your shoulder.

A burden of work, research paper, filed work and obviously your supervisor.

If you don’t prepare yourself earlier, you got frustrated and hopeless. In the present article, I will share with you what I Learnt during my PhD, as a PhD student and that will help you.

Documentation: 

If you are disheveled, be regular and organized in your work because as a PhD student you have to save and document each and every data you collected during your reading, research and fieldwork and that is the ‘mantra’ to success in PhD.

If I want to define PhD in one line then I can say,

“You are riding a boat without direction.”

Make a field book in which document all your visits, all your trips and what you collected. In addition to this, construct a daily diary to note down your daily progress in it.

Besides making documentation, it is also very important to save the documents properly and for that make one copy of all your documents in computational formats. 

You can save it on your computer, cloud or other mobile devices so that you can get access easily anytime. Try to save docs in different file formats as well.

Three-dimensional thinking: 

A PhD student should have “ out of the box ” thinking abilities, as you are in the topmost degree, your thinking and intellectual abilities must be far higher than other students.

You know as I told in every article, PhD is not a cup of tea for all, one must have a unique and broader sense of thinking. and that’s why you need to develop an out of the box thinking abilities and a different prospectives to solve various problems.

Remember, you have to face failures every day during your PhD, henceforth, every time you must have to extract something positive from all experiments or research you do. 

Now what to do to develop an incredibly different thinking sense? the answer is,

Read more, I can say. 

Read what your heroes, scientists of your field done during their PhD period. Meet them, meet your guide, their colleagues and hear their stories. Ask them about their failures and how they had overcome them. Read failure stories and learn how they resolve their problems. 

Just read things, that is all about you have to do as a PhD student. The more you read, the more your thinking abilities build and you can smoothly do your research. And that is why the next skill you should learn is “reading.”

Reading habits:

Books are the best friends, we all know that but no one likes to read. 

“What you read makes you what you are” 

If you dig into the world’s greatest leaders and persons, books were their friends and companion. Reading makes you a different person with different emotions and gives you a different angle to see things differently. 

And bingo! That’s what you required as a PhD student. 

Approximately, 2000 literature, PhD students have to read during the entire tenure of his or her work. But besides this, as a doctoral fellow, you should read other inspirational books too to be self-confident and to be more positive.

You have to be updated every day what is going on in your field, which scientist is doing what type of research and what innovative research is ongoing. Each and everything you have to read.  

Journals, research papers , reviews, books, and stories must be read every day by a doctoral fellow. But that doesn’t mean you have to work and read day and night. Design your daily routine which includes at least 2 to3 hours reading.

And that’s the next skillset you need- zero-date planning.

Zero-date planning: 

On a blackboard or wall, write date and year at when you wish to complete your PhD. Even if you know that it can not be achievable, just plan it. 

This will inspire you to do your work-time to time. Do zero-date planning for all your works and targets. Planning and plotting must require in PhD, you know because we are floating in a pond, whose shore is unknown to us, planning things properly. For example; 

In a week, do lab work for two days, do literature review and reading for two days and field trips for two days. Isn’t it easy? 

If you getting bored with reading, plan half-day for reading and literature review and half-day for lab work. But planning is must require. Hafehazard working and reading will not take you anywhere and in the end, you will get nothing. 

Trust me because of not planning their works and just walking here and there; many of my PhD colleagues are now left a degree in between.   

Writing: 

Besides reading, another mandatory skill must require for persuing PhD is “writing”. Good writing makes your PhD thesis stand above all, even if you find less during your research work, how you present it in your thesis makes a difference for you. 

You have to learn skills to write precisely, accurately and attractively. If you are planning to go for a PhD, evaluate your English language skills, if your English is not powerful enough, trust me you will face problems. Because except PhD in language, English is mandatory in all fields.

Here is a good news!

If your English skills aren’t good enough, don’t worry. An online platform, ‘Grammarly’ will help you to learn things properly.

You just need to add an extension to your chrome browser and then, Grammarly will take care of all your writing. It will notify and autocorrect all your English errors. We have covered an amazing article on Grammarly. Read it here: Grammarly: Your PhD writing assistant.

Inspiration: 

Doing a PhD or doctoral is not as easy as completing the masters or bachelors because no fixed time duration is allowed for that. One has to work until and unless he/she has done their job or research work. 

Therefore continuous self-inspiration must be required each year. Being a PhD student you have to work with enthusiasm every day, without losing hope or getting discouraged. 

Positive attitude: 

Yet another important characteristic one should grow as a PhD student is a positive attitude . From the first day of your PhD, you have to be hopeful and positive with your works. You have to develop that attitude to complete your work in any situation, and trust me this attitude helps you to complete your doctoral faster. 

Whatever the situations, ups or downs, positives or negatives, complete your work every day with a positive attitude, tell yourself, “It’s ok to fail, it happens- not all days are same.” 

Just complete your daily routine, keep a small smile on your face and go to your family. Positive attitude and energy really help you to achieve your highest academic respect.

And as I said in the above section, it’s a kind of out of the box thinking.

Besides doing your own research and study work, you should read the inspirational lives of others. Get inspired by other scientists’ life and rejuvenate every day your soul to do your work. 

Conclusion:

Besides all these skills as a PhD student, you have to develop a different attitude, the attitude of responsibilities. You have to be responsible, leader, polite, honest and respectful person to achieve a PhD degree. 

Change is everything, you are a PhD fellow because you choose a different direction than your friends. PhD isn’t a degree only, it’s self-development, it makes you a different person. after completing your PhD, you will find a better version of you.

• 8 Criteria To Select The Best PhD Coaching
• 20 Amazing Websites and/or Resources For PhD Students
• What is Scientific Writing? + Features + Examples
• Determination is the Motivation– A PhD story of Khushbu Trivedi
• Is This New Change by UGC, May Ruin the Career of PhD students?

Dr. Tushar Chauhan is a Scientist, Blogger and Scientific-writer. He has completed PhD in Genetics. Dr. Chauhan is a PhD coach and tutor.

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• v.5; Jan-Dec 2018

How to Conceptualize and Implement a PhD Program in Health Sciences—The Basel Approach

Franziska keller.

1 Institute of Nursing Science, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Suzanne Dhaini

Matthias briel.

2 Basel Institute for Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Department of Clinical Research, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Sina Henrichs

3 Vice President’s Office for Research, Graduate Center, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Christoph Höchsmann

4 Department of Sport, Exercise and Health, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Daniel Kalbermatten

5 Division of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery and Hand Surgery, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Nino Künzli

6 Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Annette Mollet

7 Institute of Pharmaceutical Medicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Christian Puelacher

8 Department of Cardiology, Cardiovascular Research Institute Basel, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Arno Schmidt-Trucksäss

Belinda von niederhäusern.

9 Clinical Trial Unit, Department of Clinical Research, University Hospital Basel and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Sabina De Geest

10 Department of Public Health, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Objectives:

Over the past decade, several excellent guidelines have been published on how to enhance the quality of PhD education in Europe. Aimed primarily at preparing students for innovative roles in their fields, they include variously structured approaches to curricular offerings, as well as other program components applicable across specialties (eg: supervisor support, scientific conduct, transferable skills). Since 2012, the interdisciplinary PhD Program in Health Sciences (PPHS) at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Basel in Switzerland has focused on translating these guidelines into a 21st-century health sciences PhD program.

The PPHS started in 2012 based on the European Union (EU) guidelines for PhD education. This article describes the resulting interdisciplinary PhD program’s conceptual underpinnings, rationale, structures, and 10 building blocks, like student portfolios, thematic training, interdisciplinary research seminars, student-initiated interdisciplinary activities, financial support of course participation, top-up and extension stipends, PhD supervision, research integrity, alumni follow-up network, and promotional tools including a dedicated website. Students enter from Clinical Research, Medicine Development, Nursing Science, Epidemiology and Public Health including Insurance Medicine, Sport Science (all from the Faculty of Medicine), and Epidemiology (Faculty of Science).

Discussion and Conclusion:

The Basel PPHS exemplifies state-of-the-art PhD education in Health Sciences based on European guidelines and offers guidance to other groups from conceptualization to rollout of an interdisciplinary health sciences PhD program.

Introduction

Health science research is critical for societal health. 1 The current health care delivery and service paradigm demand that researchers use state-of-the-art skills to find innovative solutions to problems inside and outside of academic settings. As a result, over the past 25 years, both in North America and in Europe, the education and resources allocated for future researchers, mainly through PhD programs, has become a focus of much academic policy. 2 , 3

In North America, the bachelor’s/master’s/doctoral scheme and a transferable credit system have been in place for more than a century 4 ; in Europe, they are a very recent development. In addition, North American PhD education has a strong curricular component, whereas European programs are more research-based, with students engaging in research from the start in addition to course work.

In Europe, both the Bologna Declaration of 1999 5 and the Lisbon Strategy of 2000 2 affected the conceptualization of doctoral education and training. Both began with the premise that more and better-trained researchers were needed to make Europe the world’s most competitive knowledge-based economy. 2 , 6 - 11 From that perspective, policy makers have examined doctoral education and requested that universities develop institutional strategies 2 to train young researchers by and through original research. 12

In 2005, the Salzburg Principles confirmed that research institutions need flexible regulations to create the structures and instruments necessary to advance doctoral training. 13 Since then, the education of competent junior scientists at European universities has become a strategic goal to secure Europe’s position in the global knowledge economy. 1 Furthermore, to meet the expanding employment market needs, the May 2005 Ministerial Conference in Bergen 12 urged universities to promote interdisciplinary doctoral training and the development of transferable skills. In that context, several European Union (EU) forces driving PhD education have emerged, including the Organization for PhD Education in Biomedicine and Health Sciences in the European System (ORPHEUS), which includes around 80 European biomedical and health science faculties and institutions, and the League of European Research Universities (LERU). Working together, these groups safeguard the reputation of the PhD as a research degree, strengthen career opportunities for PhD graduates, and advocate the promotion of research at European universities.

In Switzerland, the Rectors’ Conference of the Swiss Universities 14 has developed a joint position paper on the doctorate acknowledging that their institutions’ common objectives and structures are in line with the European positions. The Rectors’ Conference 14 provides no details regarding PhD education, and each Swiss university structures, designs, and confers its own doctorates. This decentralized education mirrors the Swiss Confederation’s small-scale federalist political system. 15 In fact, along with the Swiss National Science Foundation, the main health science funding agency, the advancement of scientific research is primarily the federal government’s responsibility. 15 , 16

The University of Basel, Switzerland, is a publicly funded university founded in 1460. It currently serves almost 13 000 students, of whom 16% are PhD students. 14 Due to strong collaboration with the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, the University of Basel has become a cluster for health sciences. Its 7 faculties offer numerous PhD programs and establish regulations for the implementation and monitoring of doctoral training. 17 From that perspective, the Faculty of Medicine established the PhD Program in Health Sciences (PPHS) 18 in 2012, following a call by the University Rectorate for funding to stimulate and support the development of doctoral programs. The PPHS was launched as an interdisciplinary, inter-professional PhD training platform for students from 6 health-related PhD disciplines offered by 2 faculties: Clinical Research, Medicine Development, Nursing Science, Epidemiology and Public Health including Insurance Medicine, Sport Science (all from the Faculty of Medicine), and Epidemiology (Faculty of Science).

Thus, the PPHS is a support system for PhD education to optimize students’ scientific, professional, and personal development. The program’s mandate reflects the call to increase inter-professionality at the national and international levels and allows maximum networking across health science disciplines that share methodological and statistical approaches.

The PPHS’s governance is headed by a steering committee consisting of 1 representative professor from each of the 5 participating departments, 3 PhD student representatives, and the program coordinator. Guided by national and international guidelines as well as evidence, contextual factors, and university regulations, they decide on program strategies, operationalize the instruments necessary to roll out those strategies, evaluate the quality of proposed initiatives, and continuously optimize their approaches.

Their aim is that each PhD student is fully integrated into a research group and complies with mandatory university PhD regulations regarding publications and European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credits. The PhD students are selected by the supervisors. Following the PhD regulations of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Basel, they require a degree from the University of Basel or other acknowledged institution, usually in form of a master’s degree in the field relevant to the planned area of study. Acceptance to the PhD program and progress (toward completion) are monitored by an interdisciplinary PhD board at the level of the Faculty of Medicine. Main criteria for acceptance are the professional background of the candidate, the fit with the supervisor, the subject of the PhD thesis, the quality of the proposal—in particular the adequacy of the methods—and the fulfillment of the financial guarantee for the whole PhD. A personal PhD committee directly supervises each student’s PhD. The program is thus composed primarily of research-based training, complemented by structured training activities provided through the PPHS’s educational infrastructure. The PPHS has no direct supervisory role.

The PPHS is evaluated by the Rectorate of the University of Basel at the end of a financial period. The evaluation is based on the general academic objectives, the organizational structure, the appointment procedure of the students, the structure and content of the training, the activities of the doctoral students within the program, the supervision concept, the mobility of the students, the internationality of experts, the quality of assurance and reporting, the existing collaborations, and the adequate use of funds. PPHS evaluates each course offering and makes regular surveys among its member students.

As an educational platform, the PPHS’s goal is to enable students to become qualified researchers with a comprehensive knowledge base specific to their discipline, to acquire advanced training, and to enhance their research dissemination skills. And as an example of current innovations in European PhD education in health sciences, we describe the conceptualization, implementation, and primary outcomes of the PPHS at the University of Basel.

The PhD Program in Numbers

Although the PPHS started in late 2012, only in 2015 the PhD students had to register and we can track them. Before 2015, all the PhD students of the included disciplines were automatically members. The number of registered PhD students is growing (2015: 65, 2018: 94). Therefore, we have only very few graduates. The mean time to degree lies between 3 and 4 years. Some graduates continue in the academic world, in their specialized formation as doctor or go to the private sector ( Figure 1 ).

Number of PhD students enrolled in PPHS. PPHS indicates PhD Program in Health Sciences.

The PPHS: Description of its 10 Building Blocks

The PPHS has been conceptually guided by the Salzburg II recommendations, 13 the LERU guidelines for PhD education, 19 good practice in doctoral training, 20 and the ORPHEUS standards 21 ( Table 1 ). It consists of 10 building blocks, all guided by interdisciplinary competencies and supported by a coordination office as well as the transferable skills offerings at the University of Basel (see Figure 2 ).

Eight fundamental recommendations for a PhD program derived from the Salzburg II recommendations, 13 the LERU guidelines for PhD education, 19 good practice, 20 and the standards of ORPHEUS. 21

Abbreviations: LERU, League of European Research Universities; ORPHEUS, Organization for PhD Education in Biomedicine and Health Sciences in the European System.

The PPHS and its 10 building blocks.

Interdisciplinary competencies as defined by the PPHS

The PPHS competency framework ( Table 2 ) outlines the minimum competencies to be acquired by each student for completion of a health sciences PhD. In addition to assessing existing and lacking competencies, it guides students and supervisors regarding individual training needs. It anticipates and adjusts for the large variability in new students’ methodological and statistical skills. To ensure up-to-date information and meet current and future needs, this framework is continuously revised and adapted.

Interdisciplinary competency framework as defined by the PhD Program Health Sciences.

Abbreviations: CRF, Conditional Random Field; RCT, Randomized Controlled Trial; SOP, Standard Operating Procedure.

The PhD students obtain 3 sets of interdisciplinary competencies during their PhD training ( Table 2 ):

• Knowledge and scientific competencies : research methods, information literacy, scientific writing, professional conduct, ethics and integrity, and awareness of interdisciplinary contexts.
• Organization and management competencies : project management, self-management, and teaching.
• Leadership and personal competencies : communication and leadership.

All PhD students have to submit a Learning Agreement together with a full research proposal of their PhD project after the first 6 months of admission at the University of Basel. The Learning Agreement describes how they plan to fulfill the mandatory 18 ECTS. The PhD Board of the Medical Faculty provides written approval or feedback on the yearly Progress Reports and the Learning Agreement.

PPHS’ 10 building blocks

The PPHS consists of 10 building blocks (see Figure 2 ), chosen both to reflect the principles of doctoral education ( Table 1 ) and to optimize students’ professional development in view of the 3 sets of competencies ( Table 2 ).

Student portfolio

Each PhD student’s PhD track is individually developed within the framework of the applicable PhD regulations and the PPHS—taking into consideration the student’s professional background, needed competencies, and chosen research type. All also obtain ECTS credits in the 3 competency domains. They report their research in a cumulative dissertation of at least 3 papers. This makes PhD education “highly individual and by definition original” 13 and fundamentally different from bachelor- or master-level studies. The individual PhD track is reflected in an individually compiled student portfolio comprising information on course work as well as the PhD project’s aims and timetable. During the program, each portfolio also contains an overview of the student’s plans regarding attendance of workshops and courses (totaling a minimum of 18 ECTS credits [1 ECTS credit requires 25-30 hours of work]), national and international conferences, teaching activities, and publications. The student portfolio is individualized and tailored to the students’ needs of statistical and other methodological skills as well as competencies specifically required for the proposed PhD studies (see also Interdisciplinary competencies as defined by the PPHS).

Throughout the PhD program, the portfolio not only provides orientation and structure but also serves as a tool to assess progress. 24 - 26 Based on its content, each student is required to write an annual self-assessment for discussion with his or her PhD committee and for submission to the PhD board of the Faculty of Medicine. At this level, the PhD committee and the PhD board will take action to deal with any significant issues such as potential delays and related financial discussions or problems in the supervision of a PhD project. PhD students appreciate this regular written feedback on their performance.

PhD supervision

In line with university regulations, each PhD student is supervised by a specially chosen PhD committee. 27 Each committee meets at least once yearly to discuss the student’s annual self-assessment.

The ORPHEUS network 21 has established best-practice indicators for high-quality PhD supervision, certifying supervisors to mentor students, and to recognize and react to barriers to PhD students’ success. 28 , 29 In addition, an annual PPHS workshop helps senior researchers to promote the quality of their supervisory skills. Fully booked since their implementation, these workshops are highly appreciated by the supervisors.

Thematic training

One key change in PhD education in recent years has been the introduction of a wide range of professional development courses. 20 As students enter the PhD program with widely varying skills, training is available from basic to advanced levels. As all health sciences specialties employ comparable methodological approaches (eg, quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, implementation science), these form the core content of PPHS training. Therefore, the PPHS offers health science–specific courses valuable across specializations:

• “Proposal Writing in Health Sciences,”
• “Good Scientific Conduct in Health Sciences,”
• “Academic Writing in Health Sciences, “
• “Essentials in Health Research Methodology,”
• “Walking in the Editors’ Shoes: Peer reviewing and journal editing for young researchers in health sciences,”
• “How to prepare a job application inside or outside of academia.”

All courses are optional and there is no defined course sequence. However, the first 4 mentioned courses are more suitable for PhD students in their first year and the 2 courses at the end of the list above are more suitable for advanced PhD students. A new agreement with the structured Swiss School of Public Health PhD Program in Public Health provides free access to further set of methodological and advanced courses.

For all the courses, Learning Outcomes are defined which reflect the competencies framework of PPHS. At the end of each course, students have to take an examination (mandatory) to evaluate if the PhD students have reached the Learning outcomes and hence acquired the necessary competencies.

Various international guidelines underpin the importance of training transferable skills (see also Table 1 ). 20 , 23 The trans-faculty Transferable Skills Program organized by the University of Basel Graduate Center offers a wealth of courses for all PhD students, enabling skill set enhancement through individualized selections of courses. Students in the Faculty of Medicine can also acquire ECTS credits through participation in these courses, further enhancing cross-discipline networking. This approach follows the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation 23 recommendation that “doctoral training must be embedded in an open research environment and culture to ensure that any appropriate opportunities for cross-fertilization between the disciplines can foster the necessary breadth and interdisciplinary approach.”

Financial support for course participation

The PhD students must have the possibility to go to other universities. 28 PPHS financial support is available to all member students to attend external (including online) courses that complement their PhD education. Students can apply for up to 2000 CHF per PhD study in financial support to participate in courses not offered at the University of Basel. To be eligible, courses must be linked to the student’s portfolio, award ECTS credits, and cover competencies essential to the student’s PhD studies.

Interdisciplinary research seminars

Reflecting the European Commission’s 23 promotion of interdisciplinary cross-fertilization in research, PPHS interdisciplinary research seminars encourage networking and stimulate the exchange of diverse scientific perspectives and approaches, contributing to a creative and productive research environment. In this regard, the monthly meetings of the “Methods in Health Sciences” PhD Journal Club offer opportunities for members from all disciplines to present research manuscripts and receive critical feedback in an interdisciplinary peer review environment. In addition to their direct educational value, these presentations promote professional communication skills among peers. Following the peer review and discussion segments, a “meet and greet” period allows students to network and share experiences.

Student initiated interdisciplinary activities

International doctoral education should support bottom-up initiatives, also called student-initiated activities, 28 (p19) as “the ability to drive initiatives is part of a doctoral candidate’s process of becoming an independent researcher”; hence the annual PPHS call for student-initiated activities. Under the “Invite your expert” competition, which awarded 4 students in 2016, PPHS gives the opportunity to invite an international expert to deliver a lecture at the University of Basel. This encourages the participants to initiate activities autonomously, build transferable skills, and develop independent organizational skills.

Top-up and extension stipends

For students to benefit fully from their programs, their funding must be sufficient “to nurture an open and investigative research mindset.” 28 To allow excellent PhD students the opportunity to deepen their research experience, competitive PPHS top-up and extension stipends are available. Top-up stipends support unplanned and newly emerged projects during the PhD program; extension stipends allow the analysis and publication of additional material at the end. As a PhD’s financing must be guaranteed for 3 years at registration, these instruments add value and research resources beyond the program’s primary scope. In 2015, 10 stipends led to 16 additional publications.

Research integrity

In concordance with the 2015 ORPHEUS conference message 30 that knowledge and awareness of research integrity are central to the career development of all PhD students, starting in 2018, several PPHS courses will focus on good scientific conduct. Given the PPHS program’s interdisciplinary approach, best scientific conduct practices will soon be established across all the participating disciplines. Students are made aware of the University of Basel’s Code for Good Practice in Research 31 as well as the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences brochure, “Integrity in Scientific Research.” 32

Alumni follow-up network

Alumni networks help PhD students and the PPHS with career orientation information and feedback regarding the program’s quality. 23 , 33 Regular meetings with alumni expand the PPHS network and facilitate continuous assessment of its career development support. 34

Website and other promotional tools

For profile-raising, networking, and dissemination purposes, an interactive website is the most important PPHS promotional tool ( www.pphs.unibas.ch ). Offering a group identity in an interdisciplinary framework, 35 it includes links to the social media where current events are regularly posted. In addition, PPHS activities include welcome events for all new PhD students during their first year, a PhD day, and annual PPHS updates via faculty meetings (reaching out to supervisors), all of which raise PPHS awareness among PhD members and their supervisors. Student feedback is collected after each activity via a short questionnaire, and observations are constantly integrated for quality control and improvement.

PPHS coordination

The coordination of a PhD program is an overarching theme and not one of the building blocks ( Figure 2 ). According to Pifer and Baker, 24 PhD program administrators play key roles in establishing and fulfilling the missions, purposes, and processes of PhD education. University management should ensure that relevant staff members have pertinent competences to handle all day-to-day business. 28 The coordinator should be a research professional, normally holding a PhD. He or she must implement, monitor, and execute the designed strategy and activities decided by the PPHS Steering Committee, which comprises the second PPHS operational component.

The annual PPHS budget is 175 000 CHF, of which one-third is allocated to personnel costs. The remainder funds the activities of the 10 building blocks. The PhD students are paid by their supervisors.

Sustainability of the PPHS depends on continuous funding. Discussions are underway to integrate it within a larger Swiss interdisciplinary structure’s PhD Program in Public Health (Swiss School of Public Health+, SSPH+). 36 , 37 If the plan is adopted, the public health infrastructure will be combined with that of clinical research. Hopefully, such a mix will provide a model that will successfully bolster the academic public health work force. 38

This article describes the conceptualization and development, based on European guidelines and international evidence on PhD education, 20 , 28 of the PPHS, an interdisciplinary health sciences PhD program at the University of Basel, Switzerland. As the European Union is showing an increased interest and investment in developing forward-oriented PhD programs, awareness of this program can help universities to reflect on their own initiatives. For those introducing PhD programs, it will help to operationalize the various guidelines. A vibrant and highly functional interdisciplinary program, the PPHS promotes all the ideals put forward on the topic by the Directorate General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission. 23

As a single-faculty project, 39 the PPHS initially grew out of informal collaboration between staff from various health science disciplines. Admittedly, the competitive funding for PhD programs provided by the University Rectorate was crucial for the program’s launch. In countries with fewer resources available, 40 , 41 the PPHS remains relevant, as the program concept and building blocks can be adapted to the resources available. Where budgets are severely limited, the core components to be considered are the student portfolio and supervisor training.

The University of Basel’s individualized PhD tracks, including 18 ECTS points and involving research throughout the 3 years of the PhD, contrasts strongly to US-based PhD programs, which begin with course work, leading to qualifying examinations, followed by a research project. 2 It is beyond the scope of this article to evaluate the pros and cons of both models: both models have clearly emerged from distinct educational and societal contexts. Highly structured PhD programs with large formal course work components 2 are certainly an improvement on the loosely organized PhD tracks formerly common in Europe. The PPHS is a flexible educational platform that allows students and supervisors to plan PhD tracks while ensuring compliance with PhD requirements, course offerings, and other useful instruments. Considering the ultimate goal of optimizing the PhD experience, supervisors of PhD students also receive ample attention 27 ; supervisor courses have been booked out quickly clearly, indicating a strong need for this type of support as well as a willingness to improve supervision.

This article demonstrates that some principles drawn from international guidelines are easily transferred into practice. Others, such as transparent international recruitment of PhD students ( Table 1 ), are more difficult to implement, as they require close collaboration and homogenization of participating institutions’ processes. However, continuous monitoring of international guidelines helps to improve critical structures continuously.

The PPHS needs to be interpreted in the context of a policy that provides major incentives for PhD education. Active integration of national and local programs such as the PPHS into national structures would add further value for PhD students seeking interdisciplinary training and networking beyond those available through their universities.

Funding: The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Contributions: FK, SD and SDG took the lead in writing the manuscript. All authors provided critical and substantial feedback and helped shape the manuscript. MB, NK, AS, and SDG conceived the original idea. SDG supervised the whole project.

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What Makes A Good PhD Supervisor?

• By Dr Harry Hothi
• August 12, 2020

A good PhD supervisor has a track record of supervising PhD students through to completion, has a strong publication record, is active in their research field, has sufficient time to provide adequate supervision, is genuinely interested in your project, can provide mentorship and has a supportive personality.

Introduction

The indicators that you’ll have the best chance of succeeding in your PhD project are multi-factorial. You’ll need to secure funding, find a research project that you’re interested in and is within your academic area of expertise, maybe even write your own research proposal, and find a good supervisor that will help guide you through PhD life.

As you research more into life as a doctoral student, you’ll appreciate that choosing a good supervisor is one of the most important factors that can influence the success of your project, and even If you complete your PhD at all. You need to find a good supervisory relationship with someone who has a genuine research interest in your project.

This page outlines the top qualities to look for as indicators of an ideal PhD supervisor. But before we get to that, we should be clear on precisely what the supervisor is there to do, and what they are not.

The Role of a PhD Supervisor

A PhD supervisor is there to guide you as you work through PhD life and help you make informed decisions about how you shape your PhD project. The key elements of their supervisory role include:

• To help ensure that you stay on schedule and maintain constant progress of your research so that you ultimately finish your PhD within your intended time frame, typically three to four years.
• To advise and guide you based on their knowledge and expertise in your subject area.
• To help you in the decision-making process as you design, prepare and execute your study design.
• To work with you as you analyse your raw data and begin to draw conclusions about key findings that are coming out of your research.
• To provide feedback and edits where necessary on your manuscripts and elements of your thesis writing.
• To encourage and motivate you and provide ongoing support as a mentor.
• To provide support at a human level, beyond just the academic challenges.

It’s important that you know from the outset what a supervisor isn’t there to do, so that your expectations of the PhDstudent-supervisor relationship are correct. A supervisor cannot and should not create your study design or tell you how you should run your experiments or help you write your thesis. Broadly speaking, you as a PhD student will create, develop and refine content for your thesis, and your supervisor will help you improve this content by providing you with continuous constructive feedback.

There’s a balance to be found here in what makes a good PhD supervisor, ranging from one extreme of providing very little support during a research project, to becoming too involved in the running of the project to the extent that it takes away from it being an independent body of work by the graduate student themselves. Ultimately, what makes a good supervisor is someone you can build a rapport with, who helps bring out the best in you to produce a well written, significant body of research that contributes novel findings to your subject area.

Read on to learn the key qualities you should consider when looking for a good PhD supervisor.

Qualities to Look For in A Good PhD Supervisor

1. a track record of successful phd student supervision.

A quick first check to gauge how good a prospective supervisor is is to find out how many students they’ve successfully supervised in the past; i.e. how many students have earned their PhD under their supervision. Ideally, you’d want to go one step further and find out:

• How many students they’ve supervised in total previously and of those, what percentage have gone onto gain their PhDs; however, this level of detail may not always be easy to find online. Most often though, a conversation with a potential supervisor and even their current or previous students should help you get an idea of this.
• What were the project titles and specifically the areas of research that they supervised on? Are these similar to your intended project or are they significantly different from the type of work performed in the academic’s lab in the past? Of the current students in the lab, are there any projects that could complement yours
• Did any of the previous PhD students publish the work of their doctoral research in peer-reviewed journals and present at conferences? It’s a great sign if they have, and in particular, if they’re named first authors in some or all of these publications.

This isn’t to say that a potential supervisor without a track record of PhD supervision is necessarily a bad fit, especially if the supervisor is relatively new to the position and is still establishing their research group. It is, however, reassuring if you know they have supervision experience in supporting students to successful PhD completion.

2. Is an Expert in their Field of Research

As a PhD candidate, you will want your supervisor to have a high level of research expertise within the field that your own research topic sits in. This expertise will be essential if they are to help guide you through your research and keep you on track to what is most novel and impactful to your research area.

Your supervisor doesn’t necessarily need to have all the answers to questions that arise in your specific PhD project, but should know enough to be able to have useful conversations about your research. It will be your responsibility to discover the answers to problems as they arise, and you should even expect to complete your PhD with a higher level of expertise about your project than your supervisor.

The best way to determine if your supervisor has the expertise to supervise you properly is to look at their publication track record. The things you need to look for are:

• How often do they publish papers in peer-reviewed journals, and are they still actively involved in new papers coming out in the research field?
• What type of journals have they published in? For example, are most papers in comparatively low impact factor journals, or do they have at least some in the ‘big’ journals within your field?
• How many citations do they have from their research? This can be a good indicator of the value that other researchgroups place on these publications; having 50 papers published that have been cited only 10 times may (but not always) suggest that this research is not directly relevant to the subject area or focus from other groups.
• How many co-authors has your potential supervisor published with? Many authors from different institutions is a good indicator of a vast collaborative professional network that could be useful to you.

There’re no hard metrics here as to how many papers or citations an individual needs to be considered an expert, and these numbers can vary considerably between different disciplines. Instead, it’s better to get a sense of where your potential supervisor’s track record sits in comparison to other researchers in the same field; remember that it would be unfair to directly compare the output of a new university lecturer with a well-established professor who has naturally led more research projects.

Equally, this exercise is a good way for you to better understand how interested your supervisor will be in your research; if you find that much of their research output is directly related to your PhD study, then it’s logical that your supervisor has a real interest here. While the opposite is not necessarily true, it’s understandable from a human perspective that a supervisor may be less interested in a project that doesn’t help to further their own research work, especially if they’re already very busy.

Two excellent resources to look up publications are Google Scholar and ResearchGate .

3. Has Enough Time to Provide Good PhD Supervision

This seems like an obvious point, but it’s worth emphasising: how smoothly your PhD goes and ultimately how successful it is, will largely be influenced by how much time your research supervisor has to provide guidance, constructive academic advice and mentorship. The fact that your supervisor is the world’s leading expert in your field becomes a moot point if they don’t have time to meet you.

A good PhD supervisor will take the time to meet with you regularly in person (ideally) or remotely and be reachable and responsive to questions as and when they arise (e.g. through email or video calling). As a student, you want to have a research environment where you know you can drop by your supervisors’ office for a quick chat, or that you’ll see them around the university regularly; chance encounters and corridor discussions are sometimes the most impactful when working through problems.

Unsurprisingly, however, most academics who are well-known experts in their field are also usually some of the busiest too. It’s common for established academic supervisors to have several commitments competing for their time. These can include teaching and supervising undergraduate students, masters students and post-docs, travelling to collaborator meetings or invited talks, managing the growth of their academic department or graduate school, sitting on advisory boards and writing grants for funding applications. Beware of the other obligations they may have and how this could impact your work relationship.

You’ll need to find a balance here to find a PhD supervisor who has the academic knowledge to support you, but also the time to do so; talking to their current and past students will help you get a sense of this. It’s also reassuring to know that your supervisor has a permanent position within your university and has no plans for a sabbatical during your time as a PhD researcher.

4. Is a Good Mentor with a Supportive Personality

A PhD project is an exercise in independently producing a substantial body of research work; the primary role of your supervisor should be to provide mentoring to help you achieve this. You want to have a supervisor with the necessary academic knowledge, but it is just as important to have a supportive supervisor who is actively willing and able to provide you constructive criticism on your work in a consistent manner. You’ll likely get a sense of their personality during your first few meetings with them when discussing your research proposal; if you feel there’s a disconnect between you as a PhD student and your potential supervisor at this stage, it’s better to decide on other options with different supervisors.

A good supervisor will help direct you towards the best outcomes in your PhD research when you reach crossroads. They will work with you to develop a structure for your thesis and encourage you to set deadlines to work to and push you to achieve these. A good mentor should be able to recognise when you need more support in a specific area, be it a technical academic hurdle or simply some guidance in developing efficient work patterns and routines, and have the communication skills to help you recognise and overcome them.

A good supervisor should share the same mindset as you about finishing your PhD within a reasonable time frame; in the UK this would be within three to four years as a full-time university student. Their encouragement should reflect this and (gently) push you to set and reach mini-milestones throughout your project to ensure you stay on track with progress. This is a great example of when a supportive personality and positive attitude is essential for you both to maintain a good professional relationship throughout a PhD. The ideal supervisor will bring out the best in you without becoming prescriptive in their guidance, allowing you the freedom to develop your own working style.

Finding a PhD has never been this easy – search for a PhD by keyword, location or academic area of interest.

To sum up, the qualities you should look for in a good PhD supervisor are that they have a strong understanding of your research field, demonstrated by regular and impactful publications, have a proven track record of PhD supervision, have the time to support you, and will do so by providing mentorship rather than being a ‘boss’.

As a final point, if you’re considering a research career after you finish your PhD journey, get a sense of if there may any research opportunities to continue as a postdoc with the supervisor if you so wanted.

You’ve impressed the supervisor with your PhD application, now it’s time to ace your interview with these powerful body language tips.

Tenure is a permanent position awarded to professors showing excellence in research and teaching. Find out more about the competitive position!

Learn 10 ways to impress a PhD supervisor for increasing your chances of securing a project, developing a great working relationship and more.

Join thousands of other students and stay up to date with the latest PhD programmes, funding opportunities and advice.

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Fieldwork can be essential for your PhD project. Use these tips to help maximise site productivity and reduce your research time by a few weeks.

An abstract and introduction are the first two sections of your paper or thesis. This guide explains the differences between them and how to write them.

Dr Tuohilampi gained her PhD in Mathematics Education from the University of Helsinki in 2016. She is now a lecturer at the University of Helsinki, a Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales, Sydney and has also founded the company Math Hunger.

Ellie is a final year PhD student at the University of Hertfordshire, investigating a protein which is implicated in pancreatic cancer; this work can improve the efficacy of cancer drug treatments.

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Resume Dos and Don’ts for Ph.D.s

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By: Jennifer S Furlong & Stacy M Hartman

In this article , check out tips and strategies for navigating the creation and maintenance of a resume as a PhD student & graduate for the internship and/or job search process in industry opportunities, including in-depth information about each section within the document, as well as the differences between a CV and resume, and the benefit of creating a master document to collect everything in one place for use in creating targeted resumes quickly and easily.

20 good skills to put on resume for new grads

Looking for the top skills to include on your resume as a new grad? This guide highlights 20 essential skills to showcase your value to employers.

As a new graduate, it can be challenging to know which skills to highlight on your resume. Employers are looking for candidates who can bring a diverse set of skills to the table, and it's essential to show that you have the skills that are in demand in today's job market. Here are the top 20 skills that new grads should consider including on their resumes:

1. Critical thinking

Employers expect candidates to have strong critical thinking skills to solve problems and make informed decisions. Demonstrate your ability to analyze complex situations, evaluate different perspectives, and develop creative solutions that meet business goals. Provide examples of how you have used critical thinking to improve processes, increase efficiency, or solve complex problems.

2. Creativity

Employers appreciate candidates who can bring fresh ideas to the table and find innovative solutions. Highlight your creativity by sharing examples of how you have solved problems in unconventional ways or how you have introduced new processes that have led to positive results. Provide specific examples of how your creative approach has positively impacted your previous roles or projects.

3. Leadership

Leadership skills are highly sought-after by employers as they demonstrate the ability to motivate and manage others effectively. Highlight your experience in leading teams or projects, and provide examples of how you have inspired team members to achieve common goals. Share specific examples of how you have created a positive work environment, delegated tasks, and provided constructive feedback to team members.

4. Teamwork

Employers value team players who can collaborate, communicate effectively, and support their colleagues. Highlight your ability to work in a team by sharing examples of how you have contributed to a team's success and how you have handled conflicts or disagreements. Demonstrate how you have actively participated in team meetings, brainstorming sessions, and collaborative projects.

5. Time management

Effective time management is crucial in the workplace, and employers look for candidates who can manage their workload efficiently. Demonstrate your ability to prioritize tasks, meet deadlines, and handle multiple projects simultaneously. Share specific examples of how you have managed your time effectively to complete projects on time and handle unexpected challenges.

6. Organization

Employers seek candidates who are organized and can manage multiple tasks and projects effectively. Highlight your organizational skills by providing examples of how you have kept track of details, managed projects, and met deadlines consistently. Share specific examples of how you have organized your workday, kept track of project timelines, and prioritized tasks to meet deadlines.

7. Attention to detail

Employers look for candidates who pay attention to detail, especially in industries such as healthcare, finance, and law. Showcase your ability to catch errors, maintain accuracy, and deliver high-quality work. Highlight specific instances where your attention to detail has resulted in positive outcomes, such as catching errors before they become costly mistakes, ensuring compliance with regulations, or improving the quality of deliverables.

8. Adaptability

The job market is constantly evolving, and employers want candidates who can adapt to new situations and challenges. Highlight your flexibility by sharing examples of how you have adjusted to changes in your previous roles or how you have learned new skills quickly. Demonstrate your ability to be open to new ideas, take on new responsibilities, and adjust your approach to achieve results in a changing environment.

9. Customer service

Employers want candidates who can provide exceptional customer service to build strong relationships with clients. Highlight your experience in providing customer service and showcase how you have handled challenging situations to ensure customer satisfaction. Share specific examples of how you have handled difficult customers, resolved complaints, and exceeded customer expectations.

10. Communication

As a new graduate, it's essential to showcase your communication skills through your resume and interview. Employers seek candidates who can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing, to convey ideas, collaborate with team members, and interact with clients. Highlight your ability to tailor your communication style to different audiences, use active listening skills, and convey complex information in an easy-to-understand manner. Share specific examples of how you have effectively communicated in your previous roles or projects.

11. Data analysis

Data analysis is becoming increasingly important in many industries. Highlight your ability to collect and analyze data by showcasing your experience in data analysis tools and techniques. Share specific examples of how you have used data analysis to inform decision-making, identify trends, and solve complex problems.

12. Technical skills

Depending on your field, you may need to have technical skills, such as coding or proficiency in specific software programs. Highlight your technical skills by providing examples of how you have used them in previous roles or projects. Showcase your ability to learn new technical skills quickly and adapt to changes in technology.

13. Project management

If you've managed projects in the past, be sure to highlight your experience. Employers want candidates who can manage projects from start to finish. Showcase your project management skills by sharing specific examples of how you have planned, executed, and monitored projects, managed resources, and delivered successful outcomes. Highlight your ability to collaborate with stakeholders and communicate project progress effectively.

If you've worked in sales, highlight your experience. Sales skills are valuable in many industries. Showcase your sales skills by providing examples of how you have achieved sales targets, built relationships with customers, and closed deals. Highlight your ability to prospect, negotiate, and communicate effectively with clients.

15. Marketing

If you've worked in marketing, highlight your experience. Marketing skills are valuable in many industries. Showcase your marketing skills by providing examples of how you have developed and executed marketing campaigns, managed social media platforms, and analyzed market trends. Highlight your ability to create compelling content, work with cross-functional teams, and measure the success of marketing initiatives.

16. Public speaking

Public speaking is a valuable skill that requires confidence, preparation, and effective communication. Showcase your ability to speak in front of an audience by highlighting your experience in delivering presentations, leading discussions, or participating in public speaking events. Emphasize your ability to connect with the audience, deliver messages with impact, and handle questions and feedback.

17. Interpersonal skills

Interpersonal skills are essential in the workplace and involve communication, collaboration, and relationship-building. Highlight your ability to build positive relationships with colleagues, clients, and stakeholders by providing examples of how you have worked with diverse teams, managed conflicts, and demonstrated empathy and respect. Emphasize your ability to listen actively, provide feedback constructively, and communicate effectively in different settings.

18. Research

Research skills are valuable in many industries and involve gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data to inform decisions and solve problems. Highlight your ability to conduct research by showcasing your experience in designing and implementing research studies, collecting and analyzing data, and synthesizing information. Emphasize your ability to use various research methods, tools, and technologies, and to present findings in a clear and compelling way.

19. Writing

Writing skills are essential in many industries and involve communicating ideas, information, and messages through various media. Highlight your ability to write by showcasing your experience in writing different types of documents, such as reports, proposals, emails, or social media posts. Emphasize your ability to write clearly and concisely, adapt to different audiences and purposes, and use correct grammar, syntax, and punctuation.

20. Presentation skills

If you've given presentations in the past, highlight your experience in delivering effective and engaging presentations. Emphasize your ability to plan and prepare presentations, use visual aids and multimedia effectively, and deliver messages with clarity and impact. Provide examples of how you have adapted your presentation style to different audiences, managed time effectively, and received positive feedback.

Hard Skills vs soft skills

When crafting your resume or preparing for an interview, it's important to understand the difference between hard skills and soft skills. Both types of skills are valuable, but they serve different purposes in the workplace. Here's a breakdown of hard skills vs. soft skills and how to showcase them effectively:

Hard Skills:

Hard skills are specific, technical skills that can be taught and measured. Examples of hard skills include programming, data analysis, or graphic design. These skills are typically learned through formal education, training programs, or on-the-job experience. Hard skills are often used to demonstrate proficiency in a particular area or to qualify for a specific job.

To showcase your hard skills, it's important to be specific and provide concrete examples of how you have used these skills in past roles or projects. Use relevant keywords and include any certifications or training programs you have completed to demonstrate your expertise in these areas. You can also highlight any technical tools or software programs you are proficient in.

Soft Skills:

Soft skills, on the other hand, are personal attributes that are often harder to measure or quantify. Examples of soft skills include communication, teamwork, and leadership. Soft skills are often considered to be just as important as hard skills because they can affect how well you work with others and adapt to new situations.

To showcase your soft skills, provide examples of how you have used them to achieve specific goals or overcome challenges. Use specific examples to demonstrate your ability to work well with others, communicate effectively, or lead a team. Soft skills can also be highlighted in your cover letter or personal statement, where you can discuss your personal values and work ethic.

Common Questions

What skills should i include on my resume.

It depends on the job you are applying for and the industry you want to work in. Generally, you should include skills that are relevant to the job and showcase your strengths and abilities.

How many skills should I include on my resume?

You should include the skills that are most relevant to the job, but try to keep it to around 10-15 skills. Including too many skills can make your resume look cluttered and unfocused.

Should I include soft skills on my resume?

Yes, soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and time management are highly valued by employers. These skills can demonstrate your ability to work well with others and adapt to new situations.

How should I format my skills section on my resume?

You can format your skills section as a bullet list or a table. Use bullet points to list your skills and highlight the ones that are most relevant to the job. You can also group similar skills together and use subheadings to make the section more organized.

How can I showcase my skills on my resume?

You can showcase your skills by providing examples of how you have used them in past roles or projects. Use action verbs and specific examples to demonstrate your achievements and show how your skills can benefit the company.

Can I include skills that I don't have much experience in?

It's okay to include skills that you are still developing, but make sure to be honest about your level of experience. You can also highlight your willingness to learn and improve in these areas.

Should I customize my skills section for each job application?

Yes, you should customize your skills section for each job application to highlight the skills that are most relevant to the job. Use keywords from the job description to ensure that your resume passes the initial screening process.

Should I include certifications or training in my skills section?

Yes, you can include relevant certifications or training in your skills section to demonstrate your expertise in a particular area. This can also show that you are committed to continuous learning and professional development.

In conclusion, as a new graduate, it's essential to highlight the skills that are in demand in today's job market. By including the skills listed above on your resume, you'll be able to show employers that you have the skills and abilities they're looking for in a candidate. Good luck with your job search!

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Related stories, most recent stories.

2024 Dean's Award: Mallory SoRelle, Ph.D.

"mallory makes space for building up the essential skills her students will need in their graduate careers and beyond, including topics as varied as productive note-taking...and managing power dynamics in academia.", share this story, mallory sorelle, ph.d..

Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring Assistant Professor of Public Policy

Mallory SoRelle is an assistant professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy. She received her Bachelor’s in government and sociology from Smith College and her Master’s in democracy, politics, and institutions from The Harvard Kennedy School. SoRelle also earned her Ph.D. in government from Cornell University.

Her research at Duke is focused on issues of consumer financial protection and access to civil justice. SoRelle believes that these are issues that shape the welfare of marginalized communities, though often overlooked by scholars.

She is the author of the book Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection, which delves into policymakers’ responses to consumer credit and financial regulation. At Duke, SoRelle teaches classes like Public Policy, Political Power, and Social Change and Ethics of Public Policy.

On Mentoring

What do you think are the most important qualities of a good mentor for graduate students .

There are three main things I focus on to try and be an effective mentor. First, I try to meet students where they are. Not everyone has the same goals or needs from a mentor, so I collaborate with students to provide the type of support that is most useful to them. Second, I work hard to make visible all of the hidden, informal aspects of academia to help students make informed, strategic choices about their work and professional development. Finally, I treat graduate students as adults with lives that extend beyond their academic careers, helping them make choices that will see them thrive not only as scholars but as well-rounded humans.

How have you evolved as a mentor compared to when you first started mentoring? 

I'm sure a lot! As someone who is still early in my career, I constantly feel like I am still encountering new processes and learning how to navigate new professional challenges. Sometimes it can feel like mastering successive levels in a video game. And with each new level comes more information I can incorporate into my mentorship. So, I think my ability to be a productive advisor evolves alongside my own professional development.

The benefits of a mentoring relationship for the mentee are obvious, but what do you, as the mentor, gain from it? 

I learn so much from working with graduate students. In an interdisciplinary program, most of my students do research on topics that are less closely related to my own research than what might be the case in a more traditional department. So, in that sense, I quite literally learn new substantive things from my mentees all the time. I've particularly enjoyed the opportunity to work on research collaborations with graduate students who bring different expertise to the table. But I also benefit from learning how to articulate information about research, professional development, etc. in an accessible way. And, of course, I genuinely enjoy working with graduate students, so being a mentor positively shapes my quality of life.

IN THEIR WORDS

Excerpts from SoRelle's nomination

“Mallory makes space for building up the essential skills her students will need in their graduate careers and beyond, including topics as varied as productive note-taking, conducting and learning from peer reviews, navigating the publishing market, successful conference participation, and managing power dynamics in academia.”

“She is welcoming to all of her students and works energetically to develop a sense of community within her classroom and beyond. Her syllabi are rich with diversity, offering exposure to the excellent scholarship of authors from a wide range of perspectives.”

“One of Mallory’s best attributes as a mentor is her openness. Not only does Mallory maintain an open door—she is eager to help any student, not just her advisees—but she is also very open about sharing her own processes, practices, and materials with students, especially when they are encountering a new challenge for the first time.”

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The Charger Blog

Two-Time Alum: 'My Time at the University of New Haven Has Been Instrumental in Preparing Me for Success'

Demetrius Holliman ’22, ’23 MBA draws on the skills he honed as a Charger in his role as an engineer at Pratt & Whitney. And as an adjunct professor, he inspires the students who are now following in his footsteps.

March 18, 2024

By Renee Chmiel, Office of Marketing and Communications

For Demetrius Holliman ’22, ’23 MBA, his time as a Charger enabled him to grow as a leader. Whether he was volunteering in the local community or getting involved with an organization on campus , he enjoyed building his skills and making new connections.

Holliman, who earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering , is a senior project engineer at Pratt & Whitney , a leader in designing, manufacturing, and servicing aircraft engines and auxiliary power units.

"My time at the University of New Haven was instrumental in preparing me for success in various ways," he said. "Pursuing my degree in mechanical engineering provided me with a robust foundation in analytical thinking, problem-solving, and technical skills. These skills are crucial for navigating the challenges of the professional world."

As a Charger, Holliman built his skills both in and out of the classroom. He served as a mechanical design/technical assistant intern at Brother’s Harley-Davidson in Branford, Conn. , through the University’s Bergami Summer Internship Fellowship program. After completing his bachelor’s degree, he continued his education at the University, earning his MBA with a STEM-designated concentration in data analytics.

"Undertaking this degree showcased my dedication to interdisciplinary learning and equipped me with valuable knowledge in business strategy and data analysis," explained Holliman. "This combination of engineering and business acumen positions me uniquely in today's competitive landscape."

Holliman has fond memories of his time as a student, such as celebrating his Charger Pride with the University community at football games and exploring all that the Greater New Haven area has to offer. Dedicated to the local community, Holliman took part in a variety of service opportunities, including cleanup events and toy and food drives, as well as fundraisers for breast cancer support organizations and the March of Dimes.

As an active member of the Charger community, he was involved in a variety of organizations, including the University’s National Society of Black Engineers , American Society of Mechanical Engineers , and NAACP chapters. He also served as a leader in the University’s Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc. – Gamma Alpha Tau chapter. A former Charger Ambassador, he also instructed GroupX fitness classes in the Beckerman Recreation Center .

"My involvement in campus organizations and volunteering efforts during my time at the University of New Haven further developed my leadership abilities, communication skills, and sense of community engagement," said Holliman. "These attributes are integral for success in any endeavor, be it academic or professional."

Holliman continues to be an active member of the Charger community. As an adjunct professor in the University’s Industrial and Mechanical Engineering Department , he’s excited to help students power their own careers.

"My experiences at the University of New Haven provided me with a well-rounded education, a diverse skillset, and a strong foundation," he said. "This will undoubtedly propel me toward achieving my goals and making significant contributions in my chosen field."

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Gabi Chavez ’28 is looking forward to officially joining the Charger community this fall, and she can’t wait to become one of the newest members of the Chargers Women’s Track & Field team.

Graduate Student: ‘I Have Learned the Essence of Teamwork’

Jalak Popat ’24 M.S., who will complete her master’s degree in finance and financial analytics this spring, has gained real-world investment experience as a Charger. She’s looking forward to bringing the skills she’s honed into her career in finance.

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Universities Have a Computer-Science Problem

The case for teaching coders to speak French

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Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Updated at 5:37 p.m. ET on March 22, 2024

Last year, 18 percent of Stanford University seniors graduated with a degree in computer science, more than double the proportion of just a decade earlier. Over the same period at MIT, that rate went up from 23 percent to 42 percent . These increases are common everywhere: The average number of undergraduate CS majors at universities in the U.S. and Canada tripled in the decade after 2005, and it keeps growing . Students’ interest in CS is intellectual—culture moves through computation these days—but it is also professional. Young people hope to access the wealth, power, and influence of the technology sector.

That ambition has created both enormous administrative strain and a competition for prestige. At Washington University in St. Louis, where I serve on the faculty of the Computer Science & Engineering department, each semester brings another set of waitlists for enrollment in CS classes. On many campuses, students may choose to study computer science at any of several different academic outposts, strewn throughout various departments. At MIT, for example, they might get a degree in “Urban Studies and Planning With Computer Science” from the School of Architecture, or one in “Mathematics With Computer Science” from the School of Science, or they might choose from among four CS-related fields within the School of Engineering. This seepage of computing throughout the university has helped address students’ booming interest, but it also serves to bolster their demand.

Another approach has gained in popularity. Universities are consolidating the formal study of CS into a new administrative structure: the college of computing. MIT opened one in 2019. Cornell set one up in 2020. And just last year, UC Berkeley announced that its own would be that university’s first new college in more than half a century. The importance of this trend—its significance for the practice of education, and also of technology—must not be overlooked. Universities are conservative institutions, steeped in tradition. When they elevate computing to the status of a college, with departments and a budget, they are declaring it a higher-order domain of knowledge and practice, akin to law or engineering. That decision will inform a fundamental question: whether computing ought to be seen as a superfield that lords over all others, or just a servant of other domains, subordinated to their interests and control. This is, by no happenstance, also the basic question about computing in our society writ large.

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Southern California in the 1990s, students interested in computer science could choose between two different majors: one offered by the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and one from the School of Engineering. The two degrees were similar, but many students picked the latter because it didn’t require three semesters’ worth of study of a (human) language, such as French. I chose the former, because I like French.

An American university is organized like this, into divisions that are sometimes called colleges , and sometimes schools . These typically enjoy a good deal of independence to define their courses of study and requirements as well as research practices for their constituent disciplines. Included in this purview: whether a CS student really needs to learn French.

The positioning of computer science at USC was not uncommon at the time. The first academic departments of CS had arisen in the early 1960s, and they typically evolved in one of two ways: as an offshoot of electrical engineering (where transistors got their start), housed in a college of engineering; or as an offshoot of mathematics (where formal logic lived), housed in a college of the arts and sciences. At some universities, including USC, CS found its way into both places at once.

The contexts in which CS matured had an impact on its nature, values, and aspirations. Engineering schools are traditionally the venue for a family of professional disciplines, regulated with licensure requirements for practice. Civil engineers, mechanical engineers, nuclear engineers, and others are tasked to build infrastructure that humankind relies on, and they are expected to solve problems. The liberal-arts field of mathematics, by contrast, is concerned with theory and abstraction. The relationship between the theoretical computer scientists in mathematics and the applied ones in engineers is a little like the relationship between biologists and doctors, or physicists and bridge builders. Keeping applied and pure versions of a discipline separate allows each to focus on its expertise, but limits the degree to which one can learn from the other.

Read: Programmers, stop calling yourself engineers

By the time I arrived at USC, some universities had already started down a different path. In 1988, Carnegie Mellon University created what it says was one of the first dedicated schools of computer science. Georgia Institute of Technology followed two years later. “Computing was going to be a big deal,” says Charles Isbell, a former dean of Georgia Tech’s college of computing and now the provost at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Emancipating the field from its prior home within the college of engineering gave it room to grow, he told me. Within a decade, Georgia Tech had used this structure to establish new research and teaching efforts in computer graphics, human-computer interaction, and robotics. (I spent 17 years on the faculty there, working for Isbell and his predecessors, and teaching computational media.)

Kavita Bala, Cornell University’s dean of computing, told me that the autonomy and scale of a college allows her to avoid jockeying for influence and resources. MIT’s computing dean, Daniel Huttenlocher, says that the speed at which computing evolves justifies the new structure.

But the computing industry isn’t just fast-moving. It’s also reckless. Technology tycoons say they need space for growth, and warn that too much oversight will stifle innovation. Yet we might all be better off, in certain ways, if their ambitions were held back even just a little. Instead of operating with a deep understanding or respect for law, policy, justice, health, or cohesion, tech firms tend to do whatever they want . Facebook sought growth at all costs, even if its take on connecting people tore society apart . If colleges of computing serve to isolate young, future tech professionals from any classrooms where they might imbibe another school’s culture and values—engineering’s studied prudence, for example, or the humanities’ focus on deliberation—this tendency might only worsen.

Read: The moral failure of computer scientists

When I raised this concern with Isbell, he said that the same reasoning could apply to any influential discipline, including medicine and business. He’s probably right, but that’s cold comfort. The mere fact that universities allow some other powerful fiefdoms to exist doesn’t make computing’s centralization less concerning. Isbell admitted that setting up colleges of computing “absolutely runs the risk” of empowering a generation of professionals who may already be disengaged from consequences to train the next one in their image. Inside a computing college, there may be fewer critics around who can slow down bad ideas. Disengagement might redouble. But he said that dedicated colleges could also have the opposite effect. A traditional CS department in a school of engineering would be populated entirely by computer scientists, while the faculty for a college of computing like the one he led at Georgia Tech might also house lawyers, ethnographers, psychologists, and even philosophers like me. Huttenlocher repeatedly emphasized that the role of the computing college is to foster collaboration between CS and other disciplines across the university. Bala told me that her college was established not to teach CS on its own but to incorporate policy, law, sociology, and other fields into its practice. “I think there are no downsides,” she said.

Mark Guzdial is a former faculty member in Georgia Tech’s computing college, and he now teaches computer science in the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering. At Michigan, CS wasn’t always housed in engineering—Guzdial says it started out inside the philosophy department, as part of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. Now that college “wants it back,” as one administrator told Guzdial. Having been asked to start a program that teaches computing to liberal-arts students, Guzdial has a new perspective on these administrative structures. He learned that Michigan’s Computer Science and Engineering program and its faculty are “despised” by their counterparts in the humanities and social sciences. “They’re seen as arrogant, narrowly focused on machines rather than people, and unwilling to meet other programs’ needs,” he told me. “I had faculty refuse to talk to me because I was from CSE.”

In other words, there may be downsides just to placing CS within an engineering school, let alone making it an independent college. Left entirely to themselves, computer scientists can forget that computers are supposed to be tools that help people. Georgia Tech’s College of Computing worked “because the culture was always outward-looking. We sought to use computing to solve others’ problems,” Guzdial said. But that may have been a momentary success. Now, at Michigan, he is trying to rebuild computing education from scratch, for students in fields such as French and sociology. He wants them to understand it as a means of self-expression or achieving justice—and not just a way of making software, or money.

Early in my undergraduate career, I decided to abandon CS as a major. Even as an undergraduate, I already had a side job in what would become the internet industry, and computer science, as an academic field, felt theoretical and unnecessary. Reasoning that I could easily get a job as a computer professional no matter what it said on my degree, I decided to study other things while I had the chance.

I have a strong memory of processing the paperwork to drop my computer-science major in college, in favor of philosophy. I walked down a quiet, blue-tiled hallway of the engineering building. All the faculty doors were closed, although the click-click of mechanical keyboards could be heard behind many of them. I knocked on my adviser’s door; she opened it, silently signed my paperwork without inviting me in, and closed the door again. The keyboard tapping resumed.

The whole experience was a product of its time, when computer science was a field composed of oddball characters, working by themselves, and largely disconnected from what was happening in the world at large. Almost 30 years later, their projects have turned into the infrastructure of our daily lives. Want to find a job? That’s LinkedIn. Keep in touch? Gmail, or Instagram. Get news? A website like this one, we hope, but perhaps TikTok. My university uses a software service sold by a tech company to run its courses. Some things have been made easier with computing. Others have been changed to serve another end, like scaling up an online business.

Read: So much for ‘learn to code’

The struggle to figure out the best organizational structure for computing education is, in a way, a microcosm of the struggle under way in the computing sector at large. For decades, computers were tools used to accomplish tasks better and more efficiently. Then computing became the way we work and live. It became our culture, and we began doing what computers made possible, rather than using computers to solve problems defined outside their purview. Tech moguls became famous, wealthy, and powerful. So did CS academics (relatively speaking). The success of the latter—in terms of rising student enrollments, research output, and fundraising dollars—both sustains and justifies their growing influence on campus.

If computing colleges have erred, it may be in failing to exert their power with even greater zeal. For all their talk of growth and expansion within academia, the computing deans’ ambitions seem remarkably modest. Martial Hebert, the dean of Carnegie Mellon’s computing school, almost sounded like he was talking about the liberal arts when he told me that CS is “a rich tapestry of disciplines” that “goes far beyond computers and coding.” But the seven departments in his school correspond to the traditional, core aspects of computing plus computational biology. They do not include history, for example, or finance. Bala and Isbell talked about incorporating law, policy, and psychology into their programs of study, but only in the form of hiring individual professors into more traditional CS divisions. None of the deans I spoke with aspires to launch, say, a department of art within their college of computing, or one of politics, sociology, or film. Their vision does not reflect the idea that computing can or should be a superordinate realm of scholarship, on the order of the arts or engineering. Rather, they are proceeding as though it were a technical school for producing a certain variety of very well-paid professionals. A computing college deserving of the name wouldn’t just provide deeper coursework in CS and its closely adjacent fields; it would expand and reinvent other, seemingly remote disciplines for the age of computation.

Near the end of our conversation, Isbell mentioned the engineering fallacy, which he summarized like this: Someone asks you to solve a problem, and you solve it without asking if it’s a problem worth solving. I used to think computing education might be stuck in a nesting-doll version of the engineer’s fallacy, in which CS departments have been asked to train more software engineers without considering whether more software engineers are really what the world needs. Now I worry that they have a bigger problem to address: how to make computer people care about everything else as much as they care about computers.

This article originally mischaracterized the views of MIT’s computing dean, Daniel Huttenlocher. He did not say that computer science would be held back in an arts-and-science or engineering context, or that it needs to be independent.

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Biden Approves $5.8 Billion in Additional Student Debt Cancellation

The incremental relief brings the canceled total to $143.6 billion for nearly four million Americans.

By Tara Siegel Bernard

The Biden administration continued its effort to extend student debt relief on Thursday, erasing an additional $5.8 billion in federal loans for nearly 78,000 borrowers, including teachers, firefighters and others who largely work in the public sector.

To date, the administration has canceled $143.6 billion in loans for nearly four million borrowers through various actions, fixes and federal relief programs. That’s the largest amount of student debt eliminated since the government began backing loans more than six decades ago, but it’s still far less than President Biden’s initial proposal, which would have canceled up to $400 billion in debt for 43 million borrowers but was blocked by the Supreme Court.

The latest debt erasures apply to government and nonprofit employees in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which can eliminate their balance after 120 payments. The P.S.L.F. program, which was plagued with administrative and other problems, has improved in recent years after the administration made a series of fixes .

“For too long, our nation’s teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters and other public servants faced logistical troubles and trap doors when they tried to access the debt relief they were entitled to under the law,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said.

Since those October 2021, more than 871,000 public service and nonprofit workers have received debt cancellation totaling $62.5 billion; before that, just 7,000 had reached forgiveness since the program was created more than 15 years ago.

Starting next week, borrowers who are set to receive the latest round of debt cancellation through the P.S.L.F. program will receive an email notification from Mr. Biden — a reminder of his administration’s work just eight months before the presidential election.

An additional 380,000 federal borrowers in the P.S.L.F program who are on track to have their loans forgiven in less than two years will receive emails from the president notifying them that they will be eligible for debt cancellation if they continue their public service work within that period.

Many of these borrowers have been helped by programs that tried to address past errors that may have failed to credit individuals for payments. As a result, many borrowers received account adjustments, or additional credits, pushing them closer to the repayment finish line.

Millions of borrowers with certain types of loans are still eligible for some of those adjustments, but they will need to apply to consolidate those loans by April 30 to qualify.

“There are a lot of people who need to consolidate by this deadline to benefit and potentially access life-changing student loan relief,” said Abby Shafroth, co-director of advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center. They include borrowers with privately held loans in the Federal Family and Education Loan , Perkins Loan and Health Education Assistance Loan programs, she added. (People with direct loans or loans held by the Education Department don’t need to do anything to have their payment counts adjusted; it happens automatically.)

Besides P.S.L.F., the administration has extended relief through a variety of other federal relief programs: About 935,500 borrowers were approved for $45.6 billion in debt cancellation through income-driven repayment plans, which base monthly payments on a borrower’s earnings and household size. After a set period of repayment, usually 20 years, any remaining debt is erased.

Another 1.3 million people had $22.5 billion wiped out through the federal borrower defense program, which provides relief to those defrauded by their schools.

The administration’s latest round of completed debt relief comes on the heels of its bungled rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, which was supposed to simplify the process. Instead, technical and other problems have created delays, leaving colleges without student financial information that they need to make aid offers. Students have been left in limbo, unable to make decisions on where they’ll attend college.

Tara Siegel Bernard writes about personal finance, from saving for college to paying for retirement and everything in between. More about Tara Siegel Bernard