PD20: Strategies for Career Success

PD20: Strategies for Career Success expands on the content from PD19: Tactics for Workplace Success, leading you to move beyond a tactical approach to the development of your professional skills to one that is strategic.

Topics include the role of self-reflection in developing strategies for workplace success, admitting ignorance to develop improved knowledge, communicating conclusions and recommendations, recognizing, and avoiding types of bias and fallacious thinking, and application to professional conduct. 

What will you do in PD20?

  • Practice setting goals to develop workplace competencies and professional attributes specific to engineering that you'll be expected to have for graduation.  
  • Learn how critical thinking and communication skills are used to assess good reasoning, interpret textual and visual information, and work through ethical and professional situations.  
  • Develop strategies for workplace success through self-reflection. 

Grading information

To pass PD20, you must satisfy both requirements below:  

  • earn an overall grade of at least 60% on Assignments 1 - 4 (plus any bonus opportunities) 

  • receive a minimum of 60% on the Major Reflective Report  

If you have a question about grading in PD20, contact the course team

Course instructor

Greg Andres

Greg Andres 

Dr. Andres is a continuing lecturer within the Department of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo. He earned his first bachelor’s degree in theology from a small college in southern Saskatchewan and pursued his growing interest in philosophy at the University of Waterloo, where he successfully obtained bachelor's and master’s degrees. He then attended the University of Western Ontario for his doctoral studies, focusing on one question: which logic — if any — is the correct logic? 

Since then, Dr. Andres has returned to the University of Waterloo to pursue his passion for teaching. Greg’s enthusiasm and thought-provoking lectures engage students and frequently result in animated debates in and out of the classroom. Greg was recognized for his exceptional teaching with the Arts Teaching Award in 2013.

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Student testimonials

I liked the discussion of the intellectual virtues of honesty, humility, and rigour. I also liked the modules on communication and life-long learning, perhaps because these are things I am interested in as a whole.

[This course] allowed me to reflect on the content as well as my experiences at work [and] tied into what I was experiencing and how I could approach those situations.

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Questions about PD courses?