The Career Center offers programs and services to help all Clemson University students identify, strategize and achieve their career aspirations. As a graduate student you have all of the services offered through the Career Center.
In addition, the career center coordinates the offering of graduate student workshops & seminars in cooperation with the Graduate School, Grad360°, and Graduate Student Government
Highlighted Graduate Student Resources
The Versatile PhD mission is to help humanities, social science and STEM graduate students identify and prepare for possible non-academic careers. “We want them to be informed about academic employment realities, educated about non-academic career options, and supported towards a wide range of careers, so that in the end, they have choices.” The key concept with Versatile PhD is versatility: the ability to apply your skills and interests in a wide variety of fields.
Versatile PhD is available that demystifies nonacademic careers for students with advanced degrees. It can show plausible career paths and provide robust support should you decide to prepare for a possible non-academic career. You can:
- Read first-person narratives written by real humanities and social science PhDs and ABDs who have established non-academic careers, describing how they did it and sharing their advice from experience
- Join a thriving, supportive web-based community where you can dialogue with “Versatile PhDs” in and outside the academy
The service is completely confidential. No one at any university will know you are using this website unless you tell them.
ImaginePhD is a free online career exploration and planning tool for Ph.D. students and postdoctoral humanities and social sciences scholars. Humanities and social sciences Ph.D. students and their mentors have long recognized the need for more resources to help bridge the knowledge gap between doctoral education and the realm of career possibilities.
ImaginePhD is designed to meet this need by allowing users to assess their career-related skills, interests, and values and to explore careers appropriate to their disciplines. The tool includes a goal-setting application that enables users to map out the next career and professional development steps to achieve their goals.
ImaginePhD consists of:
- Assessments. Three online assessments allow PhD students to self-assess their career-related skills, interests, and values. Once the assessments are completed, an algorithm allows users to compare their skills and interests with those of Job Families.
- Job Families. Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars can explore potential careers by reviewing the Job Families component of the website. Sixteen job families relevant to the humanities and social sciences are contained on this page. Each job family contains detailed information about types of careers and resources to help PhD students explore, connect, build skills, and apply for positions. Sample career packets with job descriptions, cover letters, and resume examples are also contained in this section.
- My Plan. The My Plan component of the website provides Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars with the opportunity to create an individual development plan (IDP) and set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based goals that will help them advance in their graduate programs and careers. My Plan also provides the opportunity for mentors and Ph.D. students to “check-in” and agree upon the next steps in completing Ph.D. and postdoc milestones.
The Individual Development Plan (IDP) concept is commonly used in industry to help employees define and pursue their career goals. In 2003, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) proposed an IDP framework for postdoctoral fellows in the sciences. Expanding on that framework, myIDP is a unique, web-based career-planning tool tailored to meet the needs of PhD students and postdocs in the sciences.
- Exercises to help you examine your skills, interests, and values
- A list of 20 scientific career paths with a prediction of which ones best fit your skills and interests
- A tool for setting strategic goals for the coming year, with optional reminders to keep you on track
- Articles and resources to guide you through the process
There is no charge to use this site, and we encourage you to return as often as you wish.
Benefits of Enrollment
- Receive support throughout the internship and guidance on how to make the most of the experience.
- Receive academic notation of the internship experience on your CU official transcript.
- Pay only a registration fee and not full tuition on the INT course.
- By being enrolled in an internship course, the income earned by you from the internship is treated differently for financial aid determination. It may also place your scholarships on pause, not start your federal student loan repayment plan, and keep you continuously enrolled for insurance purposes. Contact Financial Aid to determine your eligibility.
The Graduate Student Professional Development Certificate is an asynchronous program conducted through a Canvas course. It has three learning outcomes:
- Explore & summarize resources at the Center for Career & Professional Development.
- Evaluate proficiency in competencies and practice articulation.
- Determine the next steps and formulate a professional development plan.
The course has 13 modules and 6 assignments. The modules include topics such as career exploration, careers outside of the academy, how to complete professional documents, job & internship search, and establishing your professional brand.
The assignments are targeted and designed to practice articulation of competencies, introduction to employers, and interview question practice. Participants are required to attend one virtual graduate student workshop and complete one appointment with a counselor to discuss any topic of their choosing (resume, CV, cover letter, job search resources, interviewing tips, etc.). The last assignment is a final reflection survey.
Applications will open in March of every year, with the certificate running during the Summer semester.
The Graduate School has several resources available to help graduate students with their career development.
GRAD 360° provides content as a service to Clemson University graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Some GRAD 360° events and content may not be in accord with every trainees’ personal priorities, opinions, or beliefs.
A2i is a national workforce and career development model with a cohort-based program.
GCTM is a brand new program focused on mentoring. Mentoring Up provides mentorship training for graduate students.
The staff of the Office of Major Fellowships is here to assist students in strategically developing robust careers throughout their time at Clemson, as well as helping them to prepare the strongest applications possible for major fellowship opportunities such as the Truman, Marshall, Goldwater, Rhodes and many others.
The Office of Major Fellowships serves the entire university student population: undergrads, grads and recent alumni.
International Services continuously monitors all updates from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of State, the Student and Exchange Visitor Program etc., to keep students and campus partners informed.
We want to develop a shared sense of belonging that ensures that Clemson is a true home for those graduate students and faculty who are the higher education pioneers of their families.
Email Dr. Jenny Presgraves at firstname.lastname@example.org with any questions.