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Courses

BEAM is proud to be involved in the following Stanford courses designed to help PhDs and Postdocs explore and plan their path to meaningful work. Stanford has many additional career-focused courses available. These can be found by searching "career" on Stanford Explore Courses. 

ENGR 311D: Portfolio to Professional: Supporting the Development of Digital Presence Through ePortfolios

The Portfolio to Professional (P2P) course is designed to guide and support PhD students from all disciplines in creating a digital portfolio that uses multimedia evidence to communicate the story of your professional pathway and career goals. The course will include a combination of face-to-face meetings and online activities. The course will be divided between topic sessions with weekly assignments focused on helping you design and build your e-Portfolio, and feedback sessions involving portfolio reviews with alumni, employers, and faculty. Enrollment will be limited to 15 students. 1 unit of credit or auditing is available. Usually offered in spring quarter.

For course details, visit the course website, and for the schedule, visit Stanford Explore Courses.

ENGR 311B and SGSI: Designing the Professional

How to Get a Life as well as a PhD: Seminar open to ALL doctoral students (Humanities, Sciences and Engineering). Apply principles of design thinking to designing your professional life following Stanford. Topics include: Introduction to "design thinking", a framework for vocational wayfinding and locating profession within life overall; tools to investigate multiple professional paths. Creation of personal "Odyssey Plan" to innovate multiple prototypes for post-PhD professional launch. 

For course details, visit the course website, and for the schedule, visit Stanford Explore Courses. 

SGSI: Jumpstart Your Academic Job Search

Are you about to enter the job market for a faculty position? Get a jumpstart on preparing yourself and your application materials. This course is practical and experiential, involving practicing and editing. We will work on both written and oral parts of your job search preparation, including CVs, cover letters, research and teaching statements, and the job talk. Experts from across Stanford will present. An interdisciplinary class of peers will support you.

For course details and schedule, visit VPGE.

EDUC 343C: Preparing for Faculty Careers

For graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from all disciplines who are considering a faculty career of any type and at any of a broad range of institutions. It begins with a methodology to help determine if a faculty career is a good fit for the values, interests, and abilities of each participant. The four parts of the course will guide participants through an exploration of the academic career and prepare them to launch their academic job search:

  • How do I figure out if I actually should pursue an academic career? (“Reflect”)
  • What kinds of faculty positions exist and what do these look like in practice? (“Explore”)
  • How do I conduct a search and successfully land the right job? (“Dive In”)
  • How do I prepare myself for the job?

For course details and schedule, visit Stanford Explore Courses & VPGE.

EDUC 343A: Navigating the Academic Profession

For DARE doctoral fellows only. The roles and responsibilities of faculty members in American colleges and universities in the 21st century. How to become productive faculty members within the higher education enterprise.

For course details and schedule, visit Stanford Explore Courses.

SGSI: Stanford Graduate Summer Institute

SGSI offers immersive, interdisciplinary, accelerated courses for graduate students at no cost 2 weeks before Autumn Quarter. These half- or full-day, not-for-credit courses allow graduate students to explore other subjects, experiment with new ideas, and expand their networks amongst Stanford's diverse graduate community.

Since its inception in 2006, nearly 3,000 graduate students and postdocs have shared in this unique Stanford opportunity. Courses are open to all current and incoming Stanford graduate students who will be registered in a degree program.

For more information, visit VPGE.