Pathways Overview

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Enrollment for Pathways is currently suspended. Please check back at later date when enrollment will reopen. We are revamping the entire microcredentials program and will be sure to have a much-improved program after significant updates.

What are Pathways?

The GradPathways Institute for Professional Development is developing micro-credentials to allow graduate students and postdocs at UC Davis to track their development of skills and their achievement of goals connected to their professional development.  By acquiring digital badges connected to activities and assessments, users can monitor their progress through a variety of Pathways, share achievements and progress with mentors and potential employers, and develop the vocabulary to transparently communicate the skills they develop in graduate school. Each Pathway is composed of a series of microbadges assessed and issued according to completion of specific training and tasks in collaboration with our partners across UC Davis. The online dashboard allows students to organize, download, and share badges on other platforms. 

Each of these Pathways was created to illustrate a specific learning journey. Pathways are designed to help learners see what they’ve done and what to do next. 

The first group are pathways designed to help you build and demonstrate your skills - the badges earned at the end of each pathway can find a home on your LinkedIn page, personal website, social media, and in a resume or CV; the second group are pathways for organizing your training and preparation in areas where it is helpful to visualize and track your progress, but sharing the badges publicly may have limited value.

How does it work?

Step one: Choose one or more Pathways from the lists below and fill out the enrollment form(s).

Step two: You will be added to a digital platform called badgr, and sent instructions for accessing the training involved in the enrolled Pathway(s) via email.

Step three: Watch this video to get familiar with exploring your Pathways on badgr.


Pathways to Build and Share Skills

Conflict Competence
Foundations in Teaching
Global Leadership v1.0 - (currently closed to new enrollees)
Graduate Teaching Community
Presenting Research to the Public
Remote Instruction
Research Computing
Self-Paced Leadership Training for Graduate Students and Post-doctoral Scholars 
Text Mining and Natural Language Processing - NEW!

Learning Outcomes Assessment - NEW and under construction!

Pathways to Organize Your Training and Preparation

Career Ready
Welcome to Grad School: Academic Research 101 - NEW!
Writing Jumpstart


Currently In Development-

We are constantly looking to expand our offering of Micro-credentials.  Below are some of the topics we have in the works!

The Hidden Curriculum of Graduate School
Data Visualization
Career Pathways: Higher Education Administration
Career Pathways: Medical Writer
Career Pathways: Medical Science Liaison

Do you have any suggestions for the GradPathways Institute's micro-credentials project?  Email gpi@ucdavis.edu with the subject "Micro-credentials"!

Contact Us

  • Office Phone: 530-754-1457
  • Email: gpi@ucdavis.edu