Being Everything for Everyone: Experiences of a Student Striving to Achieve Disciplinary Depth and Breadth

Students and young professionals today are encouraged to build skillsets in their discipline and outside of their discipline in order to be successful. Traditionally, graduate students have been encouraged to conduct discrete, focused research within their field, providing a clear research or management theme and credibility on a subject matter to potential employers. In this model, exposure to multiple disciplines only occurs after one has developed sufficient mastery in their own field, often after many years as a professional. However, the current, increased prevalence of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams, research, and management strategies provides the impetus for students to develop a breadth of vocabulary and skillsets. Since students are constrained by time, students must choose how to balance experiences that provide disciplinary and interdisciplinary training in order to best-prepare themselves to meet their career goals. This presentation will provide strategies for identifying clear and well-informed professional development priorities as a student. It also will offer suggestions for building the appropriate skillset based upon those priorities that balance depth and breadth in training. The presentation will draw upon the experiences of a diverse group of graduate students in order to identify strategies for success and pitfalls to avoid.