Applied research experiences empower graduate students to bridge academic knowledge with real-world impact.
If you've recently started an Applied Research experience, take a moment to think about how far you've come. Reflecting helps you grow by improving your self-awareness, decision-making, and learning from your past to ensure your actions match your goals. Also, look into your right to legal care. Having legal support during a Work Integrated Learning (WIL) experience helps you handle any employment law issues and protects your rights at work.
Jump to: Legal care | Self-reflection
Legal care
The Graduate Student Association (GSA) provides graduate students with access to the Legal Care program through a partnership with Studentcare. This program offers support for employment disputes. Seeking legal counsel can feel daunting, and resolving a dispute may be challenging, as finding and hiring a lawyer can be time-consuming and expensive. Through a partner law firm, students can access legal consultation services to speak with a certified lawyer about any legal concerns. If necessary, students can also receive legal representation within their province of study, provided their case qualifies for further assistance. While most graduate students are eligible for these services, not all are automatically enrolled.
For more information, review GSA’s information on legal care.
Self-reflection
With an applied research position secured, you’re ready to start planning the experience and what is needed for you to make the most of it. Below are some reflective prompts to get you thinking critically and intentionally about your applied research experience:
- What are your major goals for your major research project, and what are you hoping to gain/learn from conducting applied research? Prompts:
- How might this research be translatable and relevant to a non-academic audience when communicating with them?
- What might be the applications and tangible impacts of your research in a real-world context outside of the university?
- Who is your intended audience to share your learnings from this research, and what do you hope they will gain from your research?
- Consider the elements of your upcoming applied research project: who will you be working with or need to work with? How do you anticipate the collaboration will take place among your stakeholders and collaborators?
- How will you communicate your applied research goals with your supervisor and employer partner? How might you ensure you are equally meeting your goals and the employers’ goals for your applied research project?
- What types of skills and knowledge would you like to develop through your confirmed applied research opportunity, and how do these goals relate to your future career plans?
- To support you in identifying what skills and knowledge you’d like to develop, you can use the future ready talent framework goal-setting chart.
- Note: the FRTF chart is not to be filled out entirely; rather, choose which competencies you’d like to develop that are relevant to your applied research project
- To support you in identifying what skills and knowledge you’d like to develop, you can use the future ready talent framework goal-setting chart.
- What are the anticipated outcomes of your applied research project? How do you plan on achieving those impacts? Below are some prompts for articulating your anticipated outcomes:
- To deepen my understanding of…
- To develop my ability to…
- To create…
- To discover [connections between X and Y, about]…
- To research…
- To improve…
- How do you foresee this applied research project contributing to your larger career plans?