To earn Microbadge: Networking for Graduate Students and Postdocs:

Step 1: Complete Microbadge: LinkedIn for Graduate Students and Postdocs, and then,

Step 2: Practice interacting with professionals at a networking event or online to gather occupational information and share your professional skills and goals.  There are multiple opportunities to engage with professionals working in fields that might be of interest to you. These opportunities are excellent chances to gather information about job sectors, specific companies, organizations, and positions.  Any event (including conferences) where professionals gather can be an excellent opportunity- some UC Davis specific opportunities include:

-Networking for PhD Womxn event hosted by the Internship and Career Center. This link will take you to the ICC events calendar where the event will appear when scheduled; you can contact gpi@ucdavis.edu for more information.

-The AMS 298 Designing Your Professional Life networking session.

-This page will be updated with additional opportunities as they are identified.

-In lieu of attending a live networking event, you may also have a conversation with 5 contacts you identify via LinkedIn.  Professionals are often very willing to provide career advice for students with similar interests (although, of course, not everyone checks their LinkedIn messages frequently).

Step 3: Use this form to submit a short reflection:

• Describe the event you attended (including date and location) or provide links to the 5 LinkedIn contacts you spoke with.
• Describe what you learned from your network- what did you change your mind about?  What did you already know, but get confirmation for?
• What do you still need to find out? How are you going to follow-up with your contacts?
• Reflection and metacognition are important elements of your career development. There is no length requirement, although we do not recommend going over about 1.5 pages.

While our staff will review submissions for completeness, we will not automatically respond with feedback.  Please allow 2-3 business days for badges to be issued- you will automatically receive an email from badgr to claim your badge when it is ready.  Please direct any questions to gpi@ucdavis.edu.