Professional Development Requirement

Professional Development and Communication Requirements 

 

The Statistics and Data Science graduate programs at the University of Arizona have initiated a series of requirements that aim to enhance graduates' communication and professional development skills, in line with recommendations made by the 2012 ASA (American Statistical Association) Workgroup on Graduate Training in Statistics. 
 
Below are some recommendations for communication and professional requirements. This is not an exhaustive list and substitutions can be made with permission from the program coordinator or program chair. Also note that one item may potentially satisfy multiple requirements (e.g. an internship that concludes with a presentation and a technical report). 


PhD Students

Each PhD student is required to fulfill the following before graduation:

  1. Communication Requirements (requirements 1-2): complete one verbal and one written item for each requirement
  2. Professional Requirements (requirements 3-5): complete one item from each requirement

Communication Requirements

Verbal

Written

  1. Communications with General Audience
  • K-12 Classroom Visit
  • Mentoring/Tutoring (e.g. DataFest, Think Tank)
  • Speak to General Audience (e.g. workshop, 3 minute thesis competition)
  • Statistical consulting (STAT688 does not count)
  • Internships
  • Blog Post
  • Post a project on GitHub
  • Extended One Course report
  • Award Applications (e.g. NSF GRFP, Carter Travel Award)

 

  1. Communications with Statistical Audience
  • Professional Talk (e.g. journal seminar, colloquium, conference talk) 
  • Poster presentation (e.g. JSM)
  • GIDP showcase
  • Job talk
  • Technical report (e.g. arXiv, research paper) 
  • Student competition paper (e.g. JSM, ENAR)
  • Grant proposals
  • develop an R package

Professional Requirements

 
  1. Community Activity/Service
  • Meet speakers (at least twice total)
  • Attend a conference/workshop (at least once)
  • Attend SDS GIDP Colloquiums regularly
  • Serve as Student Representative
  • Organize professional events (e.g. DataFest, IAB, Math Circle)
  • Volunteer at community events (e.g. Festival of Books) 
  • Participate in Kaggle competition
  1. Webpage

Create a web portfolio on professional activities (contact, education, research, teaching, experiences), submit the web address to the program’s website

  1. Professional CV

One-page Biosketch, Resume

  

Master's Students

Each MS student is required to fulfill the following before graduation:

  1. Communication Requirements (requirement 1): complete one verbal and one written item for each requirement
  2. Professional Requirements (requirements 2-4): complete one item from each requirement

 

Communication Requirements

Verbal

Written

  1. Communications with General or Statistical Audience
  • K-12 Classroom Visit
  • Mentoring/Tutoring (e.g. DataFest, Think Tank)
  • Speak to General Audience (e.g. workshop, 3 minute thesis competition)
  • Internships
  • Professional Talk (e.g. journal seminar, colloquium, conference talk) 
  • Job talk
  • MS Thesis
  • Blog Post
  • Post a project on GitHub
  • Extended One Course report
  • Technical report (e.g. arXiv, research paper) 
  • develop an R package
  • MS Thesis

 

Professional Requirements

 
2. Community Activity/Service
  • Meet speakers (at least once)
  • Attend SDS Colloquiums regularly
  • Attend a conference/workshop (at least once)
  • Organize professional events (e.g. DataFest, IAB, Math Circle) 
  • Professional service 
    • e.g. consulting (STAT688 does not count), volunteer data scientist (e.g. DataKind), Kaggle participant
3. Webpage

Create a web page on professional activities (contact, education, research, teaching, experiences), submit the web address to the program’s web site

4. Portfolio

Resume - projects, experiences, skills