This panel discussion was led by CUSP’s graduate student mentors (GSMs), a group of five PhD candidates at Columbia who have been assisting CUSP admin with curriculum development for the academic year 2023-2024. GSMs shared their own academic and personal experiences with CUSP scholars, with specific focus on their life trajectories and the choices they made that brought them to pursue a PhD at Columbia. This event offered CUSP undergraduate scholars the opportunity to ask specific questions about the GSMs’ journeys from students to PhD scholars, as well as get an insider view on what it takes to succeed in graduate school.

This workshop was led by Minna Taylor, the founder of an NYC-based communication consultancy, Energize Your Voice.

Minna began the workshop by sharing best practices on structuring a presentation, which she emphasized was rooted in good storytelling. To Minna, the best presentations are those in which the audience perceives the presenter to care about the message they are sharing; if a genuine emotional connection is made, the audience is far more likely to remember the presentation. To aid in this, Minna recommended centering a presentation around an "anchor point" –– something that the presenter knows to be true. This anchor point should not only serve as the focus of the presentation, but also as a touchstone for the presenter.

After reviewing the basic structure of a presentation, Minna next asked the attendees to apply this lesson by creating a mock presentation. Working together with their neighbors, the scholars were tasked with creating a five-minute ad hoc presentation. By the end of the workshop, scholars had received very useful advice on projecting confidence while pitching an idea or completing an interview––extremely important skills to develop given that many in the room were thinking ahead to summer internships or postgraduate career plans.

This workshop was led by Minna Taylor, the founder of an NYC-based communication consultancy, Energize Your Voice. Students aren’t always confident about how to best address academic or social problems. They spend time going back and forth in their minds about how to word their requests to professors, how to address a conflict with a friend without ruining the relationship, or even how to speak out about the overwhelm they feel when balancing school commitments. Confusion on how to communicate and what to communicate causes stress.

To address this stress and clear up the confusion students feel when speaking up, they must learn how to advocate for themselves and communicate more directly about their needs. In this workshop, students learned how to fix the communication errors that lead to misunderstandings and missed opportunities. In this 90 minute workshop, students learned:

• Conflict resolution: how to find a solution when presented with clashing perspectives such as when you need more time on an assignment or when need space from a friend

• Being proactive: how to communicate solutions instead of passively waiting for the other person to address a problem

• Effective communication: how to communicate clearly and directly such as following-up about an issue you already communicated, delivering bad news, asking for something you don’t know if you can get

This presentation was given by Vyju Manian, Senior Associate Director in the Career Management Center at Columbia; she specializes in guiding international students, from building professional networks and networking skills to searching for jobs and navigating the visa process, to interviewing and negotiation.

Vyju outlined some common job application mistakes – submitting generic resumes, applying only to well-known companies, applying without a referral, and neglecting to follow up – and advised emphasizing curiosity and seeking assistance as career-building tools. She emphasized the importance of asking for help and reaching out to others.

Opening the next segment of her presentation with the common question “What is your passion?”, Vyju emphasized that it is okay not to know. Reframe the question, she suggested: take on the idea that there are many things that excite you, and it is possible that passion will develop after doing those things for a longer time. When getting started, she recommended reaching out to the Center for Career Education; student clubs; friends and family; Columbia alumni; peers. A signed offer is built on self-exploration, developing a target list of industries/roles, creating marketing documents, networking, and then applying for jobs under the right circumstances. “You will be okay as long as you keep moving.” 

Storytelling figured importantly in Vyju’s presentation. Your written story is told through your CV, cover letter, LinkedIn, and outreach email; your verbal story is told through pitches on social media and interviews, as well as 30-minute behavioural interviews through Columbia. She drew on “The 2-Hour Job Search” by Steve Dalton to present the “TIARA framework” – Trends, Insights, Advice, Resources, and Assignments – as a guide to knowing what to talk about when meeting an expert in an industry. “During the interview,” Vyju emphasized, “it’s all about storytelling.”