Career Building
The Graduate School offers a comprehensive range of programs and resources designed to enhance the professional, academic, and personal growth of graduate students.
In addition to learning expertise in a discipline while in graduate school, graduate students benefit by taking advantage of opportunities to develop “transferable skills”, those skills that prepare them holistically to excel in their careers, to become leaders, and to lead a balanced life.
Graduate Student Life and Development Calendar
Visit the calendar for more events and programs not listed below.
Accelerate to Industry
Accelerate to Industry, or A2i, is a professional development program dedicated to enhancing graduate and postdoctoral training for careers outside academia. First developed by the North Carolina State University, this program connects graduate students with industry companies to explore employment opportunities. Our A2i programming offers a selection of Industry Job Search Strategy workshops and luncheons for the first cohort. Topics include networking, resume and CV writing, interviewing and communication skills, offer negotiation, and more.
Preparing Future Faculty
The Preparing Future Faculty is a certificate program coordinated by MSU’s Center for Teaching and Learning and is a cooperative effort between the CTL, the Graduate School and MSU Libraries. It offers improved understanding of teaching and learning, including faculty roles and responsibilities; interaction with peers and faculty across disciplines; and improved preparation for faculty positions and the job market.
Equipping Future Entrepreneurs
The mission of the program is to empower researchers, foster an entrepreneurial mindset, provide resources for technology transfer and commercialization, and ultimately prepare participants for project launch or licensing. This program aims to empower researchers to translate promising ideas and technologies into marketable products, foster an entrepreneurial mindset among participants, provide resources for technology transfer and commercialization, and prepare participants for project launch or licensing.
Development and Research Communication Skills
3 Minute Thesis
3MT® is a competition that helps graduate students develop their verbal communication skills and challenges graduate students to present a compelling verbal presentation of their thesis or dissertation topic and its significance in just three minutes.
Graduate Student Research Symposium
The Graduate Student Research Symposium (GSRS) is an interdisciplinary forum designed to highlight the quality and variety of graduate-level research comprised of oral and poster presentations. The GSRS serves as an opportunity for graduate students to gain experience giving presentations and to receive meaningful feedback from an evaluative panel of established MSU faculty members and researchers in a conference-style venue.
Image of Research
A picture can say more than a thousand words … and sometimes more than an entire dissertation. The Image of Research competition gives students the opportunity to engage creatively with their research, share behind-the-scenes views of their research processes, or portray their academic study in visual form. Finalists will be displayed at the Union Art Gallery on the second floor of the Union.
Graduate Student Showcase
This new initiative is designed to highlight the innovative research and creative work of Mississippi State University's graduate students while fostering interdisciplinary learning and community. Selected graduate students will have the opportunity to lead an engaging, behind-the-scenes experience that showcases their research in action. Throughout the academic year, each selected student will host an interactive session, providing participants with a unique look into their research, workspace, laboratory, field site, or other setting that brings their work to life. The sign up for 2026/2027 can be found here.
Individual Development Plan
The Individual Development Plan (IDP) is commonly used in industry to help employees, students and postdoctoral fellows define and pursue their career goals. MyIDP is a unique, web-based career-planning, and free tool tailored to meet the needs of PhD students and postdocs in the sciences.
Graduate Teaching Assistant Training Workshops
The Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) Training Workshops are held twice a year and are designed to introduce students to the techniques and skills necessary to be effective instructors in the University environment and promote excellence in undergraduate education at Mississippi State University. The workshop includes two parts: the general training session, and the Classroom certification/teaching simulation session.