About This Course

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

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

Learn Valuable Career Planning Skills

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

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

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

Course Structure

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

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

Built with Your Schedule in Mind

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

Requirements

There are no requirements needed to take this course.

Format & Certification

Career Planning for Early Career Scientists is a self-paced course. Once you pass the course, you will receive a Courses Certificate of Completion and, if you opt-in, a digital badge that you can share on social media. Passing requires you to complete all the required activities for the course, which equals 60% of the total activities. 

Course Contributors (Listed in alphabetical order)

Course Speaker

Cynthia Fuhrmann

Course Directors

Mónica I. Feliú-Mójer
Steven Paniagua
Rosa Veguilla

Platform Development & Management

Daniel McQuillen

Video Production, Graphics, and Editing

Chris George
Maggie Hubbard
Lee Rossoff
Zachary Stauffer

Executive Direction

Giovanna Guerrero Medina

Acknowledgments

We’d like to thank the following Science Communication Lab and Yale Ciencia Academy Team members for their support in the creation of this course:
Daniel Colón-Ramos
Doug Koshland
Carolina Machado
Evan Reeves
Alexandra Schnoes

Funding

This work is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number 2R25GM114000. This course is a collaboration between the Yale Ciencia Academy for Career Development, CienciaPR, the Science Communication Lab, and iBiology. 

Frequently Asked Questions

• What web browser should I use?

The iBiology Courses platform works best with current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Edge or Safari.

• What do I get at the end?

Upon completing all required activities, you will receive a printable certificate from iBiology Courses and, if you opt-in, a digital badge to commemorate your participation in the course.