Graduate Student Career and Professional Development

PREP is the MSU Graduate School career and professional development model, designed to help you plan for a successful doctoral experience and a smooth transition into your future role in academia, government, industry, corporations, or agencies. The acronym PREP foregrounds four professional skills that are key to your doctoral and professional career:

• planning throughout the graduate program to identify and successfully achieve career goals;
• developing resilience and tenacity to thrive through personal and professional stages;
• practicing active engagement in making important life decisions and in acquiring the skills necessary to attain career goals;
• and attaining high standards of professionalism in research and teaching.

Employing these skills at every stage of the graduate experience--from your first day in the program to your job search and the completion of your dissertation-- helps you maximize your opportunities for professional growth and discover a fulfilling career path.

For opportunities to learn more about these skills during your time at MSU, and for MSU resources, visit our MSU PREP workshops pages: you can explore workshops through the PREP Matrix or through broad subject areas. In partnership with graduate and professional programs across campus, the Graduate School seeks to introduce students to a range of career activities and opportunities with the goal of assisting degree completion and enhancing professional success. Our workshops are based on current scholarship on graduate student development and are themselves part of an ongoing research project through evaluation and assessment.

For resources on how to develop and use the four professional skills in the early, middle, and late stages of your graduate career visit our matrix of career and professional development resources.

Listen to a welcome from Dean Klomparens, who talks about the Graduate School’s approach to career and professional development.