It is not unusual for many Ph.D. students to become clones of their professors or major advisors. In the real world today there are only so many such positions. Similarly, even within higher education there are many types of institutions, from community colleges to elite research universities. In addition to academia, there is a need for Ph.D. and master’s graduates to be employed by private firms, government and non-profit sectors. When pursuing graduate degrees, Ph.D. students (and many masters’ students) are involved in planning a research project, collecting data, analyzing data, delivering talks, using teamwork to get a job completed, writing reports and papers, demonstrating perseverance, leading projects, communicating in various forms and so forth. These attributes are needed in a variety of occupational settings. For master’s students, recognition and marketing of these skills is probably even more important in a successful job search.
A national trend in Graduate Education originated from engineering universities in Europe about 10 years ago. The training of engineers in these institutions included “transferable skills” — skills that one obtains in the pursuit of a task or job that can be transferred to another task. In the broadest sense, these are skills such as analytical thinking, communication, initiative, project management, technical and design, and so forth. These skills can be narrowed down even further. For instance, in a narrower sense, skills for analytical thinking could include
1) understanding the whole of an issue by breaking it down into parts;
2) the ability to visualize, articulate and discover more efficient ways to perform a task;
3) using quantitative and statistical methods to solve or analyze a problem.
You would gain some expertise in these areas by 1) using logic or reason to solve a problem encountered in your research or a class project; 2) courses you took that strengthened your reasoning and logic skills; 3) a research project that required you to analyze data.
The Council of Graduate Schools in the U.S. seized this opportunity to promote transferable skills as a part of graduate education. In the course of pursing a graduate degree, both master’s and Ph.D., there are many skills students obtain that are transferable to other occupations. There is a common notion that those who go on to earn a Ph.D. are likely to enter primarily academic occupations. All Ph.D. graduates may not want to pursue a career in academia and many master’s students may not be competitive at four-year institutions for a career in academia. Acquisition of transferable skills allows graduates to compete for positions in a variety of work settings.
Students should begin analyzing their skills not only on the subject matter studied, but on the skills they both obtained and enjoyed, and “sell” these attributes to prospective employers. Transferable sills are as important as the content of the subject matter. Such skills allow students to be nimble throughout their careers, to change positions and career directions, and allow employers to take advantage of a resource that they normally would not have realized was available. These skills should be identified both on a résumé and a letter of application.
At UMKC the School of Graduate Studies in the years ahead will infuse transferable skills by 1) making faculty more aware of these skills as students are learning them; 2) having students use the career center here on campus to identify those skills that are more in line with their liking and aptitude; and 3) holding workshops on the development and becoming aware of these skills as they are being learned in their graduate education experience.
There are several U.S. universities that are leaders in transferable skills as applied to graduate education. The best known leader in the infusion of transferable skills into graduate education is Michigan State University. However, they are not alone as the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and Brandies University have also developed excellent programs on this topic. Go to the following website at Northwestern University and check out the transferable skill levels that you may have already attained! http://www.northwestern.edu/careers/media/pdfs/Graduate%20Student%20Transferable%20Skills%20Handout.pdf