PROPEL Curriculum

Activities will occur about 1-2 times per month, typically lasting 2-3 hours each (not including preparation or travel time). Social and networking events will be coordinated in partnership with other UW departments hosting PROPEL Scholars and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Scholars will meet with their Primary Mentor (the PI of their host lab) at least twice per quarter and with their Secondary Mentor (a postdoctoral fellow assigned when they join the program) at least once per quarter.

    • Sept. 4: Meet & Greet! Come meet the other PROPEL NW Scholars, mentors, postdocs, and PROPEL team!

    • Sept. 23: Grad school selection & application prep: Informational session to discuss the structure of graduate programs, understand the components of an application, identify features of competitive applications, and more. We will provide redacted graduate student applications as examples.

    • Review examples of successful applications

    • Draft Personal Statement and Scientific Background.

    • Oct. 14: Personal statement and scientific background workshopping: Work with postdoc mentors and graduate students to discuss drafts of written applications.

    • Nov. 6: Build Your Own Research Community: Understanding graduate research training: This module introduces you to the academic research training environment, and the roles and responsibilities of your primary research advisor(s). This module will also help you understand imposter phenomenon and become a more confident researcher.

    • Nov. 18: Professionalism in the workplace: Bring questions/concerns about working in a lab. We will do our best to address everyone’s questions.

    • Dec. 9: Build Your Own Research Community: Module 2: Finding your graduate research lab: This module presents strategies to help you create a plan of action for choosing a research advisor and lab. This module will also help you identify your preferred mentoring styles.

    • Jan. 6: Navigating the interview process: Discuss what to expect during and after the interview process, how to talk about your research in a meaningful way, and formulate questions to ask during the interview.

    • Feb. 7: Build Your Own Research Community: Module 3: Establishing a positive mentoring relationship with your research advisor: In this module, you will learn strategies for cultivating healthy and productive professional relationships with your research advisor(s). This module will also help you assess your preferred communication styles, practice strategies of effective communication, and align expectations for your research training experience

    • Mar. 10: Literature review: Read scientific paper(s) and discuss jargon, interpret figures, identify assays used, and review the impacts of discovery. 

    • Apr. 14: Mastering the art of a captivating talk: Lecture to review different ways to tell a scientific story, how to set-up a good question, hypothesis, how much data to present, and provide examples of model slides.

    • May 12: Practice talk workshop: Scholars present their research progress (15 min each, with 5 min for questions). Graduate students and postdocs will provide written feedback on each talk.

  • PROPEL Research Symposium!