International Graduate Students at UNC: ACADEMIC and PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT M/F: Male/Female Speaker [MUSIC] F: The graduate school is here as a centralized resource for all graduate students, international as well as domestic. And we collaborate with units across campus, including the writing center, the learning center, the dean of students office, every academic program on campus, to ensure every student’s experience here is successful and ends in the completion of their intended degree. F: I think it is really important, as a graduate student, to try and have a long-term vision of what you would like to do once you actually leave grad school. You want to try and gain those transferable career skills over the course of your graduate school experience. And the great thing is that the graduate school here at UNC does offer a pretty diverse array of professional development opportunities. M: On UNC campus, there are many useful resources that new international graduate students can use. For example, we have writing center, which provides a small course on pronunciation and communication skills, which later turn out to be extremely useful in my Ph.D. program. M: The writing center assists international students with their writing, their presentation skills. F: You could go to a workshop about how to put together an academic CV for a faculty position. Or you could attend a presentation on how do you put together a teaching statement if you’ve been offered a job interview at an academic institution. But, on the other end of the spectrum, the graduate school here at UNC also does a really wonderful job of providing professional development opportunities that go beyond the tenure track. There are definitely graduate students here in Chapel Hill who have an interest in maybe alternative academic careers that still lie within the higher education context, and then there are, of course, graduate students who are interested in careers completely outside the university, such as in the non-profit world or perhaps in industry. And the great thing is that there really are diverse workshop opportunities available to graduate students, so you are really able to find something that does speak to your interests in terms of your future career pathways. M: Funding is very important when you come to graduate school. F: There are different kinds of funding opportunities available for all graduate students at UNC, regardless of their citizenship status. M: There are teaching assistantships, research assistantships because there are many research centers that do a very good job. Also there are research grants that can focus either on a general prospect or focus on particular areas of research. In particular, UNC-Chapel Hill tries to support work and research that has a particular benefit to North Carolina. F: My Ph.D. has been funded through either teaching assistantships or research assistantships. M: It is imperative, as a graduate student, to find a supportive advisor. You need to find someone with whom you can communicate your concerns about research and professional development. Before choosing, you should talk to many people and try to match your research interests and also your personality attributes. F: I would really encourage new international graduate students to seek out these opportunities once they’ve settled in. So be aware that all these offerings are available, and if you are a little bit proactive about going out to find them, you probably will find something that is very relevant to your specific interests. [END RECORDING]