For PhD Students

Professional Development & Postdoctoral Affairs offers an expansive professional development curriculum for PhD students at Boston University—built around our seven Core Capacities—and provides programming, workshops, and training events in career development, communication skills, project management, leadership, and self-awareness.

PhD Progression, our online micro-credentialing platform, contains a wide variety of resources to help doctoral students prepare for future careers through self-assessment and Individual Development Plans and guide them in their exploration of potential career pathways in both academic and non-academic fields. Start building skills in each of the seven Core Capacities here.

PDPA also hosts a number of workshops, panels, and other events throughout the academic year to guide doctoral students in their career development. These events are specifically designed to facilitate networking opportunities for doctoral students and foster personal and professional growth.

While PDPA supports PhD students primarily through professional development programs, as part of both Graduate Affairs and the Office of Research, we are also here to direct doctoral students to resources across the University that are relevant to other aspects of the graduate experience. The PhD Resources page contains information on a variety of PDPA and University-wide resources available to doctoral students, including resources for professional support, funding, ways you can connect with PDPA staff during our virtual office hours, and information on our doctoral podcast, Vitamin PhD! You can also visit the following links directly for more information on health & wellness offerings, living in Boston, and finding support for your research.

We acknowledge that the territory on which Boston University stands was once home to the Wampanoag and Massachusett People. As a campus community, we strive to honor and respect the proud history and continued efforts of these people to recognize how we came to reside on this land, and to seek understanding of our place within that history. Ownership of land is itself a colonial concept; many tribes had seasonal relationships with the land we currently inhabit. Today, Boston is still home to indigenous peoples, including the Mashpee Wampanoag and Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). For more information, please visit the North American Indian Center of Boston and the Commission on Indian Affairs of the State of Massachusetts.