Graduate Professional Skills Program
About GPS
Getting Started
GPS Offerings
Completing GPS
Program Partners
FAQ's
About GPS
The Graduate Professional Skills (GPS) program is an initiative from the School of Graduate Studies to help doctoral-stream (MA, MASc, MSc, PhD) graduate students become fully prepared for their future. Postdoctoral fellows click here for training opportunities.
GPS focuses on skills beyond those conventionally learned within a disciplinary program, skills that may be critical to success in the wide range of careers that graduates enter, both within and outside academe. GPS can help you to communicate effectively, plan and manage your time, be entrepreneurial, understand and apply ethical practices, and work effectively in teams and as leaders.
The GPS consists of a range of optional “offerings” with a time commitment roughly equivalent to 60 hours of work. Its successful completion will be recognized by a transcript notation.
Getting Started
To register for GPS and enrol in GPS Offerings, please visit our GPS Blackboard Community.
1. Log into U of T Portal
2. Click on the “Community” tab
3. Under “Organization Search”, type “graduate professional skills”
4. When the GPS group appears at the bottom of the page, click on the “Enrol” box in the right column
5. Click “Submit” at the bottom of the next page.
OR
Send an e-mail to gps@sgs.utoronto.ca. Please be sure to include your UTORid.
Once you have enrolled, you will see a full listing of current GPS Offerings.
GPS Offerings
GPS offerings consist of co-curricular courses, workshops, seminars, and placements offered by various units throughout the University of Toronto. You may enroll in GPS offerings from the four following skill areas:
Communication & Interpersonal Skills
Critical to almost any career is an ability to communicate effectively, concisely, and correctly in written, spoken and visual forms to a variety of audiences using a wide range of media. Effective communication depends on a variety of interpersonal skills including listening, assertiveness, influence, persuasion, empathy, sensitivity, and diplomacy. Skills also include effective use of body language and other forms of non-verbal communication.
C&I Offerings - Winter 2012 (PDF)
Personal Effectiveness
Successful graduates can engage in meaningful reflection about the place of their discipline in the world, and where and how they fit in it. This area will help you gain a keen sense of self-awareness of personal and intellectual strengths. You should be able to reassess your positions, values and future plans in light of your life experience and critical self-analysis, enabling you to achieve an appropriate life/work balance, to deal effectively with challenging situations and challenging people.
PE Offerings - Winter 2012 (PDF)
Teaching Competence
This area covers not only conventional “classroom” teaching, but any situation where you need to explain complex concepts related to your discipline and to provide clear and explicit instructions facilitating others’ understanding and learning.
TC Offerings - Winter 2012 (PDF)
Research-related Skills
Offerings here will assist you to manage the environment in which research is being done for the purpose of seeking new knowledge and the adaptation of that knowledge for practical use. You should learn suitable organizational skills and an appropriate knowledge of financial management, people management and project management. Entrepreneurial skills and knowledge of ethical behaviour are also relevant, as is an understanding of intellectual property issues.
RS Offerings - Winter 2012 (PDF)Completing GPS
Completion of GPS is roughly equivalent to one half of a full academic course in time commitment. Your successful completion of GPS will be recognized by a notation on your transcript.
To complete GPS you will be required to complete a total of 20 GPS Credits as follows:
1) A minimum of 5 GPS Credits in each of three out of the four following skill areas:
-Communication and Interpersonal Skills
-Personal Effectiveness
-Teaching Competence
-Research-Related Skills
2) 5 additional GPS Credits in any skill areas
Further information on GPS Completion is available in the GPS Blackboard Community.
Program Partners
The School of Graduate Studies is pleased to partner with the following departments in delivering the Graduate Professional Skills Program:
Academic Success Centre
UTM Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre
University of Toronto Career Centre (St. George)
UTM Career Centre
Centre for Community Partnerships
Counselling and Psychological Services
English Language and Writing Support
University of Toronto Family Care Office
Graduate Management Consulting Association
Leadership Development Program, SLPS
Let's Talk Science
University of Toronto Libraries
UTM Library
MITACS
Office of Research Ethics
Teaching in Higher Education (Woodsworth College)
Teaching Assistants' Training Program
If you are interested in becoming a GPS Program Partner, please contact gps@sgs.utoronto.ca.