Ph.D. Seminars Nurture In-Demand Professional Skills and More
For doctoral student Gayani Gunarathna, the Ph.D. Professional Development Series of seminars offered by NJIT’s Graduate Studies Office (GSO) has been a boon as she gets set to launch her career. Gunarathna, who will be a geotechnical engineer in New York City for WSP USA, a global engineering professional services firm, said she has a lot of useful information to draw upon from the series.
The GSO began holding the seminars this past fall, with the goal to assist students in both improving their productivity and becoming more effective in securing jobs after graduating. The topics have included time management, teamwork, communication, professionalism and much more. Attendees receive credit and can request a letter for prospective employers from the vice provost for graduate studies that documents their presence at the seminars to develop such highly valued workplace skills.
A Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) since January 2017, Gunarathna has served as a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses in soil mechanics and foundation design. She has also been a research assistant in NJIT’s Geo-Resources and Geotechnical Laboratory, directed by Bruno Goncalves da Silva, assistant professor of CEE; in fact, she helped design and create the relatively new lab that focuses on fracture processes observed in hydraulic fracturing of crystalline rocks. From Sri Lanka, with a bachelor’s in civil engineering from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, and a master’s in structural design from Kingston University in the United Kingdom, Gunarathna learned about NJIT’s graduate programs from her husband, a Ph.D. student in structural engineering soon to complete his studies as well.
She has high praise for the support she’s received from the GSO, particularly the Ph.D. Professional Development Series. The seminars she has attended have covered, among other subjects, imposter syndrome, student entrepreneurship, conducting a literature review, writing a dissertation proposal and gender equity in STEM — the last of which, she noted, “was really informative with many examples of behavior and action that encourage girls and young women to pursue their higher education and careers in the STEM fields.”
But it was a session on interviewing and hiring practices, conducted by Ron Greenberg, CEO of Growbilize and an adviser on NJIT’s College of Science and Liberal Arts board of visitors, that Gunarathna found especially worthwhile. “At this time, I was preparing myself for job interviews and since I’m an international student, I knew very little about the hiring system and the culture in the USA,” she said. “So, this was a golden opportunity for me to talk to someone who is a CEO and get his perspective on what they are looking for in a successful candidate.
“The seminar series organized by GSO was extremely insightful,” she added. “What I liked the most was that the speakers were interactive and energetic.”
Video by Andy Mattison
