CUSP’s Beyond the Classroom series focuses on professional development, including marketing oneself for the job market, navigating the transition from academic to professional life, and strengthening leadership and presentation skills.
Upcoming Events
Signature Talk Framework Communications Workshop, Tuesday, September 24, 2024
Do you worry about communicating your ideas to others in such a way that they will understand and agree with you? Do you wish you had a simple system in place that you could always depend upon to build bridges between yourself and others, no matter the content of what you are trying to communicate? If so, we hope you will attend our first Beyond the Classroom event this year, our Signature Talk Framework Communications Workshop! At this workshop, renowned communications specialist Michelle Miller will help CUSP students establish a dependable system so that they can consistently speak to the heart of their listener and connect big ideas to a larger purpose -- through intuitive and strategic storytelling. Come to this fall's event to learn how to communicate effectively! This event will be held in person at 401 Lerner on Tuesday, September 24 at 6:00 PM EDT. Registration is first-come, first-served, and the signup sheet will close Thursday, September 19 at 5:00 PM EST, so please do not wait to submit your RSVP.
Annual GSM Panel, Wednesday, October 9, 2024
This panel discussion will be 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 2024-2025. GSMs will 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 is offered every year, and it grants 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 event will be hosted on zoom at 6:00 p.m EST. The zoom link will be sent one week before the event, so check your emails and the student calendar! No RSVP is required.
Interview Like a Rockstar!, Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Step into the spotlight and elevate your interview game with Interview like a Rockstar. This interactive session will equip you with the skills to craft compelling narratives, articulate your achievements, and navigate interview challenges with ease. Benefit from practical tips and personalized feedback from a seasoned professional. Empower yourself to stand out in a competitive market. Sign up for this event and become the rockstar candidate interviewers are looking for!
Information on sign-ups will be sent a week before the event. This event will be held in person at 401 Lerner at 6:00 PM EST. Registration is first-come, first-served, so do not wait to submit your RSVP!
Pitchprov, Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Info coming soon!
Brooklyn Navy Yard, Friday, March 7, 2025
Info coming soon!
Waste Management Plant Tour, Friday, April 4, 2025
Info coming soon!
Past Events
GSM Journeys: From Students to Scholars, January 24, 2024
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.
Workshop with Minna Taylor, February 28, 2024
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.
The Signature Talk Framework: A Communications Workshop by Minna Taylor, November 29, 2023
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
Pivoting From School to Life with Vyju Manian, October 12, 2023
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.”