Building relationship with your grad school professors can help you in your career

May 2015 015

Voici des extraits d’un excellent article que j’ai lu sur comment trouver un bon emploi en utilisant son network, dans ce domaine, vos professeurs si vous êtes en graduate school. A lire.

Classroom Connection

Students who forge strong connections with their graduate school professors often find that they pay off in the end,  whether in the form of career advice, references or job leads. Remaining just another face in the class wastes an opportunity to create bonds that can be helpful long after graduation.

If you are looking to build a professional career, there is no better way to do it than through networking. And when you are in graduate school, your professors are that very first line of your professional network.

At many professional degree programs, the majority of the professory are adjuncts who hold jobs at federal agencies, big law firms, and major corporations and can help graduates gain inroads into their fields.

It is a good idea to research faculty members before the program even starts, learning about their careers, what they have published, and whom they might know. That way you can get a jump start on figuring out which professors might be most helpful to your personal career goals and get to know them. Think about the faculty with whom you might have a natural fit, those you just get along with or whose personalities are similar to yours. Pick people to whom you think you have some connection. And don’t wait until you are about to graduate to start reaching out. The quality of a recommendation letter is going to be based on the degree to which a professor knows and is invested in a student, and that happens generally over time.

Making these kinds of connections can be harder for students in online programs, but it is not impossible. Many professors are willing to meet with online students in person, via Skype, or over the phone – and students with their eyes on the future take advantage of this, even ones who live far from where their program is based.

You can build relationships by asking questions and otherwise being engaged (but not annoying) during and outside of class. And while your academic performance matters, the interest you show can mean just as much.

And what is in there for professors? Prospective adjunct professors will get first crack at the best students. They can pick out the people who best fit what they are looking for and offer them jobs. And that happens a lot.

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