Professional Development Career Statement Examples

List of Professional Development Undertaken in Each Category (note that you do not have to demonstrate capability in all categories. Just complete the entry for those that apply to your program of Professional Development, and delete the categories that do not apply):

Discipline Expertise (DI):

Engagement and Influence (EI):

Innovation and Impact (II):

Career Capability (CC)

Integrity and Social Responsibility (IS)

Leadership and Initiative (LI):

Please write brief summaries of what you learned, here:

Discipline Expertise:  My knowledge of Public Health was enhanced by my successful completion of a Masters level subject in Epidemiology. I can now critically evaluate health publications using epidemiological principles, and appreciate the role of chance, bias and confounding, and their implications, in a given research situation.  In addition, this course taught me to recognise, describe and critically evaluate the major types of study designs and data collection techniques used in epidemiological study, and competently apply this knowledge to a research situation,

Engagement and Influence: I have gained experience in teamwork and networking by preparing a team presentation with other PhD candidates in my lab to a clinical conference.  We were able to showcase the implications of our research for clinical practice.

Innovation and Impact: I participated in an online workshop on “wicked problems”, in an interdisciplinary team, where we were encouraged to bring our combined disciplinary expertise to a persistent problem and attempt to come up with an innovative, novel solution.

Career Capability: I completed an online module in project management and research finance. I have also attended a workshop on preparing a Curriculum Vitae and met with a career advisor at CareerHub to discuss how to demonstrate my skills to prospective employers.  My scholarly writing has improved as a result of attending workshops on professional writing, critical thinking and preparing manuscripts for publication in professional journals.My capacity to develop resilience was improved by attending a workshop on self-awareness, values and strengths, managing difficult thoughts and emotions and communicating effectively.

Integrity and Social Responsibility: I undertook training in research integrity, which included familiarity with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research. After completing a workshop on Human Ethics practice, I applied for and received a Human Ethics permit for my PhD project and subsequently submitted the required report on my work to the JCU Human Ethics Committee.  I have focused in my PD on being able to recognise, describe and evaluate issues associated with the ethics of health research, and have undertaken additional modules on ethics for this purpose.

Leadership and Initiative: I volunteered to become an HDR Ambassador, and participated in activities with incoming candidates to help them settle into their degree. This included sessions as part of GRS Induction.  My capacity to explain my work to a general audience was improved by my participation in the JCU Three–Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, after I had attended a training workshop on how to succeed in this communication genre. During candidature, I have had three papers accepted for publication in international journals. I also presented a poster during a virtual conference.

List of Professional Development Undertaken in Each Category (note that you do not have to demonstrate capability in all categories. Just complete the entry for those that apply to your program of Professional Development, and delete the categories that do not apply):

Discipline Expertise (DI):

Engagement and Influence (EI):

Innovation and Impact (II):

Career Capability (CC)

Integrity and Social Responsibility (IS)

Leadership and Initiative (LI):

Please write brief summaries of what you learned, here:

Discipline Expertise: My knowledge of qualitative research methods was enhanced by my successful completion of a Masterclass in qualitative research design and practice. This course assisted me in preparing effective questionnaires for my current research project, and I expect to use this knowledge in my post-degree career. I also undertook a Masterclass in social theory, to help me provide a strong theoretical foundation for my project and my future research.

Engagement and Influence:  I initiated a program of Humanities Talks in the university library, with a small group of HDR candidates.  Our aim was both to share our work with the University community and to find other scholars outside our College who were approaching research questions using qualitative methods and were keen to share resources and methods. This initiative proved successful, and we now have a network of scholars who meet regularly to share knowledge, problem-solving and successes.

Innovation and Impact: I undertook a series of online workshops on recognising opportunities for innovation in the HASS disciplines, including learning how to write about my research for the online research communication site, The Conversation. I have had one article that I co-wrote with my primary advisor in published The Conversation, which was shared repeated on social media and led to a possible future collaboration.

Career Capability: To expand my career options on graduation, I undertook training in use of archives and humanities databases.  I also undertook a short course in university teaching.  My scholarly writing has improved as a result of attending JCU workshops on academic and thesis writing and critical thinking, as well as the scholarly writing masterclass for humanities candidates. I learned how develop clear, articulate and logical arguments for both my thesis and for my planned research-based book.

Integrity and Social Responsibility:  I attended workshop on research integrity in which we worked in cross-disciplinary groups to determine how we would handle suspicions of a colleague forging research results and disagreements over authorship in accordance with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research. I learned of the different disciplinary norms over assigning authorship to multi-authored publications under the Code. After completing a workshop on Human Ethics practice, I applied for and received a Human Ethics permit for my PhD project and subsequently submitted the required report on my work to the JCU Human Ethics Committee.  My understanding of sustainable personal, professional and academic practice was deepened by my completion of a Global Sustainability online course run by the eGrad School.

Leadership and Initiative: I participated in a GRS focus group on graduate outcomes, and also volunteered as an International Student Mentor.  I have written a book chapter on my research for inclusion in an edited volume.  I was on the committee for the planning and running of two HDR candidate conferences in my College, and helped to set up a Shut Up And Write group.  I was post-graduate representative on my College’s teaching and learning committee.