Gregory A. Huber
Forst Family Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Yale University
Contact and other information is available on my homepage.
Professional Development Material for Graduate Students
Graduate school is designed to be a temporary condition. As such, much of the expertise students develop to navigate through the PhD program and onto the job market is lost, because those who know more leave. This pattern, which I now realize affected my own time in graduate school, has become more apparent to me from serving both as an advisor to individual students and as the department's director of graduate studies (DGS).
Below are several documents, most developed either while I was DGS or from presentations I've given to students, that attempt to overcome this loss of knowledge and the lack of (useful) forward-looking information. Comments and feedback are always welcome.
How to sign up for online journal content alerts (PDF).
Keeping track of current research is an important part of being an active scholar. This document provides a list of online journal announcement services and detailed instructions for how to sign up to receive them. (If you notice any errors or details that are out of date, please let me know.)
A year-by-year checklist for navigating the (Yale) PhD program in Political Science (PDF).
This is a set of checklists that I developed for PhD students while I was DGS. The key idea is to provide students at the beginning of the PhD program with a list of programmatic requirements and general expectations for each year in the PhD program, as well as potential trouble spots to avoid. Providing all of this material "up front" allows students to understand the changing expectations as they progress from students to researchers. The specific requirements are particular to Yale, but the general structure and advice are portable. (If you happen to develop something from these, please let me know and I'll post other versions.)
How to present your work at academic conferences (PDF).
Presenting work at an academic conference is a key way scholars share their work with others. It is also great practice for a future job talk. This presentation covers the nuts and bolts of distilling your work into a 12-15 minute talk, delivered as a 12 minute talk with the 7 slides I think most people can describe effectively in that amount of time.
Preparing for the future Political Science job market (PDF).
This is a forward-looking presentation that is designed to give students a sense of how the academic job market, as well as the tenure system, work. In keeping with the general "know what's coming" theme, it is designed to allow students to understand what is coming later so they can adapt optimally now.
A checklist for the academic job market (PDF).
Another checklist, also developed while I was DGS, that gives students a realistic set of deadlines and things they need to do, beginning the June before they go on the fall job market.
How to give a job talk (PDF).
This is a talk I've given numerous times over the last 15 years about how to approach the "job visit," which encompasses both the formal job talk and all that comes before and after.
Advice on being a mentor (PDF).
Congratulations! You've completed the Ph.D. and now with those fetching robes (and wonderful hats) you are supposed to be wise. Others may even ask you for advice. These are edited remarks about how to be a mentor that I made at Yale's 2014 Graduate School Commencement Convocation upon receipt of the Graduate School's 2014 Graduate Mentor Award in the Social Sciences. I think some of what I said is funny.