Career Development
There are many reasons why you may choose to pursue a PhD and even more ways to use the PhD that you will earn from our DRS program. To help you navigate your diverse options, career development education and mentorship are integrated into the DRS PhD program.
Personalized career advising starts in the second year of the DRS program once you have chosen a lab and a dissertation research project:
- Beginning in the first year, students complete an annual Individual Development Plan update using online and offline resources to identify their career development objectives and strategies to successfully achieve those objectives.
- A member of the DRS Doctoral Studies Committee serves as the faculty career development liaison. This professor will meet with you annually beginning in your 2nd year to discuss your individual career objectives and help ensure that your training is optimally aligned with those objectives.
- A portion of each of your Dissertation Committee meetings held in the fall and spring semesters during years 3-5 in the program will be dedicated to discussion of your unique career goals and strategic career planning, providing you with ongoing, personalized career planning input from five DRS faculty members.
Building skills relevant to your career development is integral to the DRS PhD program
Training in research skills and cutting-edge methodologies
The DRS PhD program is research-focused, ensuring you will master cutting-edge research approaches and methodologies facilitated by:
- Individual training in your dissertation lab
- Interactions with other DRS faculty members including those on your dissertation committee
- Access to instrumentation and resources in multiple Research Cores at UTSA
- Access to expertise within multiple Research Centers and Institutes at UTSA and the broader San Antonio biomedical research community
Training in scientific communication and networking
Effective communication skills are critical to any career path you choose to pursue after earning your PhD. The DRS PhD program proactively develops these skills via multi-tiered components of the program curriculum:
- A 2nd year course in Scientific Writing, in which you will learn to systematically prepare your very own dissertation proposal
- Multiple fellowship and grant writing workshops in the NDRB Department and broader UTSA research community
- Cash rewards for submitting predoctoral fellowship applications!
- Preparation of abstracts for presentations at conferences and manuscripts for publication of your research results
- Oral presentations in colloquia and dissertation committee meetings each semester, departmental symposia each year, and a full-length DRS seminar and public defense of your dissertation research prior to completing the program
- Funding for you to travel to regional, national, and international scientific conferences to present your research results
- Numerous networking opportunities including meeting with visiting invited seminar and distinguished lecture speakers from all employment sectors spanning academia, clinical, industry, government, and military research settings
Departmental and Campus Career Development
Resources at UTSA
Career Pathways Seminar Series
Graduate and Postdoctoral Success Center
Mini-Grant Professional Development Program to Explore Non-academic Careers
Micro-credentialing and Workshops
University Career Center
Career Counseling at College of Sciences
Professional Programs at UTSA
DRS Individual Development Plan
National and Global Career Development
Resources beyond UTSA
myIDP from AAA
American Society for Cell Biology
National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity
(open to UTSA graduate students and postdocs)
Career Exploration and Development Resources from UCSF
Society for Developmental Biology
Genetics Society of America
International Society for Stem Cell Research
American Association for Cancer Research
