Career Pathways Program Annual Report for AY 2022/23

Career Pathways launched in August 2017 as the university-wide initiative to provide graduate student professional development. It encompasses both the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) and the Preparing Future Professionals (PFP) Certificates. The Preparing Future Faculty Certificate was established in 2007, while the Preparing Future Professionals Certificate was launched in 2017 concurrently with Career Pathways. The Career Pathways program prepares graduate students for successful transition into thriving careers. With the PFP Certificate, specifically, the emphasize has been on filling the existing gap in career and professional development for master’s students and doctoral students with career plans outside of academia. Career Pathways is a gateway to resources, programs, events, and planning tools for ODU graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. With the increased emphasis on recruiting and supporting post-doctoral scholars at ODU, Career Pathways has also focused on connecting post-doctoral scholars with the program and supplementing their training with career development programming. For AY 2022/23, Career Pathways focused on introducing Career Pathways as the university-wide initiative to support graduate student career and professional development. This included disseminating information about Career Pathways to graduate program directors, graduate faculty, and hosting informational sessions. Every month a professional development newsletter was sent via email to all enrolled graduate students (see sample newsletter in Appendix C). From a programming perspective, the focus was on offering career and professional development events that address the needs of graduate students pursuing a wider range of career paths. For AY 2022/23 the continued emphasis was on career exploration and helping students understand the different career opportunities available to them.