Individual Development Plans

Students will create Individual Development Plans for both research and career (rIDP and cIDP), which will serve as living documents to be developed, evolved, and utilized throughout their graduate career.

Research Individual Development Plans (rIDP)

Students will be expected to formalize their thesis research proposal in an Individual Development Plan for Research (rIDP), which will outline the research goals and highlight the broad experimental plan of the student’s project. Students will be supported in these efforts to create a rIDP with an interactive workshop given by the Professional Development and Postdoctoral Affairs Office, which has developed a course specifically for this purpose. Once drafted, the rIDP must be discussed with and approved by both primary and secondary mentors by the end of this semester, thus ensuring that multiple research perspectives (foundational and applied) have been appropriately and robustly considered. Moving forward, this will serve as a living document which will continue to be referenced and updated as the research evolves with the input of both the primary and secondary mentors.

Career Individual Development Plans (cIDP)

Students will also develop a Career IDP (cIDP), which will focus on potential career goals and exploration. The cIDP will include a skills and interest evaluation, career paths to investigate that fit this profile, and skill gaps to be filled/buffered that fit these pieces. While the cIDP will not be a major focus or time commitment for this semester, it will provide a call-to-action to begin considering future plans and become a valuable resource and foundation to revisit later in their graduate careers. The cIDPs will be reviewed yearly between students, Dr. Tytell, and a member of the BU’s BEST program.