Teaching Graduate Students the Art of Science

Graduate students traditionally learn the trade of research by working under the supervision of an advisor, much as in the medieval practice of apprenticeship. In practice, however, this model generally falls short in teaching students the broad professional skills needed to be a wellrounded researcher. While a large majority of graduate students considers professional training to be of great relevance, most graduate programs focus exclusively on disciplinary training as opposed to skills such as written and oral communication, conflict resolution, leadership, performing literature searches, teamwork, ethics, and client-interaction. Over the past decade, we have developed and taught the graduate course The Art of Science, which addresses such topics; we summarize the topics covered in the course here. In order to coordinate development of professional training, the Center for Professional Education has been founded at the Colorado School of Mines. After giving an overview of the Center’s program, we sketch the challenges and opportunities in offering professional education to graduate students. Offering professional education helps create better-prepared graduates. We owe it to our students to provide them with such preparation. Organizations, People and Strategies in Astronomy I (OPSA I), 113-134 Ed. A. Heck, © 2012 Venngeist.