Course:BMEG590/Sample-Assessment
Below is a sample BMEG 590 Integrative Assessment that is intended to give you an idea of what we are looking for.
Review of Plan
When I first created my Professional Development Plan in September 2016, I was quite unsure of exactly what direction I saw my career taking following the completion of my Master’s degree. I was leaning towards a career in industry, specifically working in product development for a medical device manufacturer, ideally in the field of orthopaedics and biomechanics. I was also considering a career in research, either in academia or industry, as well as one in medicine and applying to medical school.
Based on these interests, I set out to focus my professional development on gaining skills and experience in the areas listed below.
- Project management
- Leadership
- Written communication
- Oral communication
- Visual/graphic communication
- Ethics
- Entrepreneurship
- Teamwork
- Networking
- Teaching
- Career planning
- Languages
Over the course of my Master’s program, I completed 9 courses/workshops to address my professional development goals. These courses, as well as a description of the above mentioned career paths that would benefit from them and the time requirement of the course, are listed in Table 1.
| Skill(s) | Career Path(s) Benefited | Course/Experience | Date(s) Completed | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teamwork | All | MITACS: Essentials of Productive Teams | July 6, 2016 | 8 |
| Time Management | All | MITACS: Time Management | February 19, 2017 | 5 |
| Career Planning | Forensic Biomechanics | Informational Interviews with Professionals in the industry | February 12 – February 21, 2017 | 4 |
| Career Planning | All | Graduate Pathways to Success: Know Your Strengths, Explore Your Options, Design Your Career | May 24, 2017 | 6 |
| Self-Management | All | Graduate Pathways to Success: Roadmap to Resilience in Grad School and Beyond | June 6, 2017 | 3 |
| Professional Effectiveness – Communication | All | MITACS: Writing Effective E-mails | June 24, 2017 | 3 |
| Teaching/Instruction, Leadership, Facilitation | Academia | Instructional Skills Workshop | July 2, 2017 | 24 |
| Interpersonal, teamwork | All | Graduate Pathways to Success: Conflict Resolution – Managing Tough People and Even Tougher Situations | December 8, 2017 | 3 |
| Research ethics, good research practices | Academia | Research Integrity Training | December 12, 2017 – January 11, 2018 | 8 |
| Total | 64 |
Table 1 –Professional Development Opportunities Completed and Associated Skills and Time Requirements
Reflection on Experiences
While all of these experiences were extremely valuable for me, three stand out as the most significant in shaping my career plan; the informational interviews with professionals in the forensic biomechanics industry, and the Graduate Pathways to Success “Know Your Strengths, Explore Your Options, Design Your Career” and “Roadmap to Resilience in Grad School and Beyond” workshops. I found these the most influential because they helped me narrow down the career paths I was originally considering, and in fact guided me to make a major decision concerning my Master’s program.
Shortly after beginning my Master’s, I became aware of the Forensic Biomechanics industry and found it more and more interesting the more I looked into it. I decided it would be beneficial to seek out professionals in the industry to learn more about what a career in it would involve, as well as the process of getting into the field. In terms of the type of work involved in a such a career, I learned that it was extremely well suited to my skills and interests, and at first I had really thought I found my calling. Then I learned that it is pretty much necessary to have a PhD in the field of injury biomechanics to be successful in this field. As I never really had the desire to pursue a PhD, I found myself faced with the decision of whether it would be worth the additional work and time as a student in order to have such a career. I went back and forth for a number of months, but as I progressed through my Master’s research project, and realized more and more that research was not my thing, I concluded that it would not be worth it for me to continue with gradate school for 4+ years to complete a PhD, just for this one job. Upon doing some additional research, I learned that there are many successful professionals in the accident reconstruction industry, which is similar to forensic biomechanics and very closely related, who only have Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Engineering, so if I really wanted to work in the overarching field of forensic engineering, it would still be possible without having completed a PhD.
The “Know Your Strengths, Explore Your Options, Design Your Career” workshop was so beneficial for me because it helped me to link not only my professional and technical skills, but also my personality and personal strengths and weaknesses, to my career plan. Prior to the course, we had to take a quiz to help us identify our top five strengths. My results, which included both technical and personal strengths, did not surprise me; however, through taking this workshop, I learned how I could effectively use these strengths to build my career. We learned how to pick apart job postings to find the requirements that were best met by our strengths and that it is okay to build upon your strengths rather than always trying to fix your weaknesses. We also looked at how strengths themselves can have strengths and weaknesses and how these can shape your career path. After spending some time reflecting on what I had learned in this workshop, I came closer to the realization that a career in industry, as opposed to research and academia, was better suited to my strengths and interests. Although I was identified as a learner, someone who enjoys the process of learning, rather than the outcome, a trait I would associate with someone who enjoys academic research, I was also identified as an achiever, someone who takes great satisfaction from being productive, and disciplined, someone who enjoys routine and structure, two traits which I associate myself with more than being a learner and also that relate more to a career in product development and design then research. Moving toward this realization has been essential narrowing down the original list of careers I was considering and ultimately shaping the career path I am now intent on pursuing.
I found the “Roadmap to Resilience in Grad School and Beyond” workshop particularly valuable because it taught me what it really means to be resilient and some of the different approaches to resiliency. I also learned that resilience can be “deposited” to use later in life and that these “resilience deposits” are valuable experiences that will shape where we go and what we can do. It is also through recognizing these “deposits” that we can effectively build a professional profile by drawing on the strengths you gained through your resilience. Ultimately, the most important thing I took from this workshop is that resilience doesn’t necessarily mean just putting your head down and pushing through, or “grinning and bearing it” when things get tough; sometimes it means reflecting on the situation and seeing if there is some way to change it for the better. This was such an important lesson for me, because, a few months later, I was able to reflect on it when I made the major decision to transfer from the MASc to the MEng program. I was realizing more and more every day that research wasn’t my thing and I was losing passion for my project and motivation to see it through. I did not want to completely abandon graduate school, so I decided to take a step back and look at my options. Because I had realized by that point that what I really wanted was a career doing product development work in the medical device industry, I decided to look into the MEng program and the possibility of transferring into it. With additional research and talking to a variety of different individuals from both academic and industry positions, I concluded that the switch was the best option for me. As soon as I confirmed that the transfer was possible and started the process to do so, I felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I was so much happier and I knew immediately that I had made the right decision.
Finally, although it did not play a major role in shaping my career path, I did find the Instructional Skills Workshop a very interesting and worthwhile experience. In the second year of my Master’s, I was a TA for two undergraduate Mechanical Engineering courses, for which I definitely drew from what I learned in the ISW to plan my lessons and contribute to my student’s learning. However, I believe that what I learned in this workshop will also benefit me in a future career in the medical device industry. Some of the most important things I learned were; that a lesson is not a presentation and you must make it engaging to be effective, that providing an objective at the beginning of the lesson is important so that students know what they are expected to take from he lesson, and that it is important to incorporate a variety of teaching and active learning techniques into each to meet the different learning styles of your students. Although the workshop was very focused on teaching in an academic setting, these takeaways can easily be applied to a career in industry in situations where you are training new employees, presenting a new product or concept to a group of potential users or investors, or trying to explain a complex technical idea to someone in a different department of your company. Furthermore, because we also had to plan and deliver three different lessons as part of the workshop, I became more comfortable in presenting to large groups of people and was able to greatly strengthen my oral communication and presentation skills.
Conclusion
To conclude, although all of the professional development opportunities I completed over the course of my Master’s program have been beneficial to me in some way, three played a major role in shaping my career path. These were; informational interviews with professionals in the forensic biomechanics industry, and the Graduate Pathways to Success “Know Your Strengths, Explore Your Options, Design Your Career” and “Roadmap to Resilience in Grad School and Beyond” workshops. Since the start of my program just under two years ago, these experiences have enabled me to narrow down the three initial career paths I was considering, in addition to the new ones I contemplated along the way, to conclude that the one I am most interested in, and will strongly pursue following the completion of my degree is the medical device industry, specifically working in product development for a medical device manufacturer. It is my belief that such a career best utilizes my strengths and experiences and best supports my passions and interests. These three professional development experiences were also immensely helpful in my decision to transfer from the MASc to MEng program, and in assuring me that it was the right decision for me and my career goals. I am not sure if I would have come to such a realization, or done so when I did, if it had not been for these professional development activities. I am incredibly grateful that I had the opportunity to participate in these workshops, and would recommend many of them to friends and colleagues.