"We are Family"

3 crochet baby hats

At Waterloo we understand that many of our graduate students are (or are about to become) parents who are trying to balance their studies with family obligations.

Supporting student professional development: An individual approach

Professional Skill Foundations

In the academic context, we often refer to graduate students as if they belong to one group, defined by their engagement in graduate studies, however, in reality, we know that each of our graduate students is unique.

GSPA 2022 - our year in review

Happy holidays from GSPA picture 2022

Check out our 2022 year in review!

Let GRADventure support your graduate ventures!

GRADventure logo

Graduate school is hard. This is something that isn’t said enough. It is a tumultuous period of transition, where you are still a student, still a learner, but also stepping into leadership roles as a TA or Graduate Instructor, and also increasingly expected to operate independently as a researcher. At the same time, most of us are trying to balance academic responsibilities with professional goals, forced to think about present or future employment. That is a lot to handle! And it’s normal for of us to struggle with that array of responsibilities during this pivotal period of our lives. So please take a moment to recognize that just being here, just doing this work, you are accomplishing something hard, and deserve to congratulate yourself for that.

A UWaterloo innovation: The GRADflix competition

GRADflix

With its many start-up incubators and entrepreneurial support programs, it’s easy to understand why University of Waterloo has been named Canada’s top innovation university for 29 years running. There is no exception when it comes to the “out of the box” entrepreneurial thinking of Waterloo’s staff, who are always looking for innovate new ways to provide programming for graduate students.

“Show me the money!” – scholarship competition season

Funding your graduate education

To say that applying for a major scholarship is a team effort would be a definite understatement! The team includes you, your department co-ordinator and graduate officer/associate chair, your supervisor, referees and staff in Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (GSPA). In this blog post, I’ll go through specifically what the GSPA awards program team does to support and manage the scholarship competitions – giving you a bit of a behind-the-scenes peak into the process.

Behind the scenes, a journey to convocation

convocation hall uwaterloo

This spring, 1250+ degrees and diplomas were presented to graduate students who achieved the culmination of their hard work and celebrated their convocation ceremony. However, students are not the only ones who worked hard to get to this day!  In this blog post, I will share with you some of the "behind the scenes” work that staff and faculty across campus manage, to make convocation a remarkable celebration for you.

Growing, with data as our fertile soil

Graduate Students, Voice Your Opinion

As we are presented with glimpses of spring, crocuses confidently popping up, geese obliviously constructing their nests in high-traffic places, there is a collective sense of growing and building. This renewed energy is evident on campus as well where things that have laid dormant for a few years (much like anything in our closets that require ironing) are now being re-instated. As we return, there are increased opportunities to enhance our processes, to do things better - and a key element is making sure that how we (institutionally speaking) allocate our energy and resources is informed by data.

Let’s connect!

GRAD blog

Welcome to the first edition of what we’re calling GRADblog – a place for us in Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (GSPA) to share with our friends and colleagues’ info on current initiatives and events of importance to graduate students and the graduate community.