Achievement

IGERT faculty William Harcourt-Smith (CUNY) expanded our course in Professional Development, which is required for second-year trainees and associates. The course prepares students for the rigors of academic life through a combination of hands-on projects led by the students and discussion-based seminars focusing on important issues that they would face throughout their professional careers. They prepared a mock grant, with budget and justification, received comments from the professor and their peers, and received a grade on the final version. They also constructed a personal website, wrote a press release relating to their research and learned to give effective oral presentations relating to their research interests; after several practice sessions, they gave a talk to the whole NYCEP IGERT faculty and student body. Other topics included science and the media, the peer-review process, and ethical aspects of personal conduct, animal and human testing and skeletal biology.