GradCURRENTS News & Features

Unlock Your Potential: UC’s Bearcat Promise Career Studio

With an increasingly competitive job market, are you ready to level up your career game? Well, UC has an auspiciously adept resource for you. The Bearcat Promise Career Studio is a place where you can enjoy career planning, coaching, and several tools and resources. Learn how you can use the Career Studio to help you stand out amongst the competition.

Be The Change: Celebrating World Kindness

November 13th is World Kindness Day, a day dedicated to promoting and celebrating acts of kindness around the world. As we approach the benevolent event, it’s crucial to reflect on the importance of inclusivity, positivity, and compassion. As you navigate your way through graduate school, you should remember that even the smallest acts of kindness can have a profound impact on those around you. Here are a couple ways you can celebrate World Kindness Day.

Digital Detox or Dive In? Deep dive into phone addiction

In today’s digital landscape, much of our social and emotional well-being is influenced by the smart devices we carry everywhere with constant and unlimited access to. You’ve likely walked around campus and saw dozens of students staring down at their phone screen seemingly chance they get. Or you’ve had a sit down with a friend and instead of conversing, you’ve found yourselves lost in your phone screens. Moments like these can show that perhaps we’re at a point where we should be having an honest dialogue about our potentially unhealthy cellphone habits.

Budget Friendly Halloween Tips for Grad Students

Spooky season’s just around the corner! Halloween’s the perfect time to unleash your monstrous creativity, snack on some delicious goodies, and unwind from the rigors of graduate school. However, sometimes there’s this pesky obstacle to fully immersing yourself into the Halloween spirit: your budget. Lay down the horrific gasp, as there are still plenty of ways to enjoy the spooky season without having to break the bank. Here’s how graduate students can celebrate Halloween on a budget and still have a supernatural time.

Own Your Narrative: Strengthen Your Personal Brand

So, you want to stand out to potential employers. You plan to have the best resume, a robust portfolio of work experience, a large network, and the perfect interview outfit. These and many more professional tenets are imperative to differentiate yourself from the crowd of eager job seekers. However, there is another side to professional development you’ll need to cultivate with care during your graduate school experience: your personal brand. Here’s the Graduate College’s guide to personal brand development.

Student Spotlight: Leading Tech Innovation with Heart

Technology is evolving faster than ever, but for many underprivileged communities, access and education for these advancements lags behind. With innovation increasing, there comes a growing necessity for human-centered thinkers and solutionists to tip the scale. And amongst those pioneers is Lily Botsyoe, a second-year information technology PhD student. She’s a member of UC’s Presidential Fellowship Program, a cohort-based experience that develops doctoral students’ skillsets in and out the classroom through real-world learning and problem solving. Spurred on by the digital inequity she witnessed during her upbringing in Ghana, her mission is clear: innovation should serve people, and technology should work for anyone. In this candid Q&A, Botsyoe shares the moments that sparked her love for technology, the importance of community building, and her vision for a more innovative future. Read Lily's story.

Navigating the World of AI in Grad School

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way we live, work, and learn, and knowing how to use it responsibly is more important than ever. As a graduate student, you’re right in the middle of this growing technological shift of AI. This presents a challenging question; where do we draw the line? Everday use is fine, however, AI use in creative and academic work is murky territory. AI comes with implications that can affect your academics, professional careers, and the fabric of our very own society. We should use AI to supplement our intuition, not replace it. Here’s how you can incorporate AI into your daily life and maintain your ingenuity.

Start to Finish: Managing Procrastination

It’s the normal Sunday evening of a long week. You’re decompressing and getting ready for the week ahead. Excitement has you beaming for everything coming up – and then you suddenly remember an assignment. You scramble and get everything submitted before the clock strikes the elusive 11:59 p.m. deadline.

Another Sunday night of assignments done, but did it have to end like this? Graduate school can feel like a juggling act, with research, working, classes, and personal commitments competing for your time and attention. It’s easy to take an “as long as it gets done” approach, but the endless cycle of procrastination doesn’t have to define the graduate experience. Procrastination can snowball into a bad habit, we have the practical guide to managing it.

Beyond the Basics: Level Up Your Resume Writing

September is “International Update Your Resume month,” a superb time to polish off your resume to the next level. Whether you’re preparing to enter or transitioning into a different job market, a good resume is integral to meeting your career goals. 

How can you make your resume stand out? What hidden tools are out there for you to employ? We’ve compiled a list of top-secret resume hacks to help you make your resume unforgettable this September.

Don't Get Hacked: Five Tips to Protect Your Credit

No one is protected from a cyberattack. You need to be vigilant in protecting your personal information. Whether the stolen information is social security numbers, bank account details, or even the answers to those forgettable security questions – your credit can be vulnerable at any time. But not to worry – here are 5 tips you can use to leave cybercriminals in the dust.

Discover, Specialize, and Connect: Your Guide to UC Graduate College

As a graduate student, you’re here to specialize in a field that matters to you. Perhaps CCM’s award-winning music and theater programs caught your eye, or you’re looking to publish your PhD dissertation. Regardless of your nationality, ethnicity, or academic focus, it’s this shared pursuit of specialization that brings us together. Explore professional tools and resources.