Professional Chemist Skills Student Site

While the focus of chemistry courses is first on teaching chemistry content, we have come to realize that integrating professional and academic development supports and more fully enables the learning of chemistry. By helping our students to be more aware of their strengths and how to capitalize on them through professional/academic development activities, our expectation is that genuine learning improves, leading to retention of chemistry knowledge, improved performance in future courses, effective collaborations that are at the heart of modern scientific practice, and improved scores on graduate school entrance exams such as the MCAT.

In the Professional Chemist Skills (PC Skills) curriculum, students will study the theories of learning and think deeply about who they are as lifelong learners. This type of self-reflection is useful at any stage of academia, leading to the scholarly development of first years, seniors, and even faculty and staff. In addition, the skills and mentoring received through the integration of content and professional/academic development should aid students in the first steps towards finding a fulfilling career after graduation.

Each module is broken down into the following three phases. Consult your instructor's directions as to how and when you will be completing each phase within a module. Some tasks are meant to be completed individually while others as group work. Your instructor will provide details specific to your experience.

Use of this website:

This website is a repository for the resources your instructor will use while leading you through the PC Skills curriculum. It is not meant to be a self-guided site. That is, you will not get the full curriculum by just progressing through the modules without guided instruction. Thus, it is in students' best interest to wait for instructions before progressing through the site.

The skills, activities, and discussions created as part of this curriculum were developed from the following resources:

Strengthsfinder:

Clifton, D.O.; Anderson, E.; Schreiner, L.A. Strengths Quest: Discover and Develop Your Strengths in Academics, Career, and Beyond, 2nd ed.; Gallup: New York, 2006.

Gallup. CliftonStrengths for Students: Your Strengths Journey Begins Here; New York, 2017.

Rath, T.; Conchie, B. Strengths based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow; Gallup: New York, 2008.

Growth Mindset:

Brock, A.; Hundley, H. The Growth Mindset Coach: A Teacher's Month-by-Month Handbook for Empowering Students to Achieve; Ulysses: Berkeley, CA, 2016.

Brock, A.; Hundley, H. The Growth Mindset Playbook: A Teacher's Guide to Promoting Student Success; Ulysses: Berkeley, CA, 2016.

Dweck, C.S. Mindset: the New Psychology of Success; Ballantine Books: New York, 2016.

Self-regulated learning and learning strategies:

Agarawal, P.K.; Roediger, H.L.; McDaniel, M.A.; McDermott, K.B. How to use retrieval practice to improve learning [online]; Washington University in St. Louis: St. Louis, MO, 2018. http://pdf.retrievalpractice.org/RetrievalPracticeGuide.pdf (accessed June 20, 2018).

Duckworth, A. GRIT: The Power of Passion and Perseverance; Scribner: New York, 2016.

Nilson, L.B. Creating self-regulated learners: Strategies to strengthen students' self-awareness and learning skills; Stylus Publishing: Sterling, VA, 2013.

Nilson, L. Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors, 3rd ed.; Jossey-Bass: San Fransisco, CA, 2010.

Oettingen, G. Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation; Current: New York, 2015.

Interpersonal strategies:

Brock, A.; Hundley, H. The Growth Mindset Coach: A Teacher's Month-by-Month Handbook for Empowering Students to Achieve; Ulysses: Berkeley, CA, 2016.

Clifton, D.O.; Anderson, E.; Schreiner, L.A. Strengths Quest: Discover and Develop Your Strengths in Academics, Career, and Beyond, 2nd ed.; Gallup: New York, 2006.

HSTEM: Being Human in STEM. HSTEM Inclusive Curricular Practices Handbook; Amherst College: Amherst, MA, 2017; accessible by request at http://www.beinghumaninstem.com/inclusive-curricular-resources.html.

Rath, T.; Conchie, B. Strengths based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow; Gallup: New York, 2008.

Inclusive Practices in STEM:

HSTEM: Being Human in STEM. HSTEM Inclusive Curricular Practices Handbook; Amherst College: Amherst, MA, 2017; accessible by request at http://www.beinghumaninstem.com/inclusive-curricular-resources.html.

Job skills:

American Chemical Society. College to Career - Chemistry Careers. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/careers/college-to-career.html (accessed Apr 20, 2020).

American Chemical Society. Internships for Undergraduate Chemistry Students. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/students/college/experienceopp.html (accessed Apr 20, 2020).

Oettingen, G. Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation; Current: New York, 2015.