Welcome Yale Organizations!
The Graduate Professional Experience (GPE) Fellowship program is a new initiative that offers currently enrolled Yale Ph.D. students the opportunity to work for a semester with a host mentor in a Yale organization. Â This program is designed to enable graduate students to expand their professional skill set, explore careers and receive mentorship by experienced professionals outside their academic program without prolonging their time to degree. Host organizations in turn can leverage a highly skilled group of students to work on projects.
By hosting a Ph.D. student in your organization, you will be able to:
- Leverage the many skills of Yale Ph.D. students on your projects
- Expand graduate students’ understanding and appreciation of university administration
- Help Yale graduate students gain new professional skills
- Expose Yale graduate students to possible career paths and professional roles
For more information about the GPE Fellowship program, click here. To view current opportunities, click here. This program is sponsored by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and administered by the Office of Career Strategy.
Fellowship Description
For the 2023-2024 academic year, Yale GSAS will support up to 30 Graduate Professional Experience Fellowship per semester.
- Student stipend: Â For the Fall and Spring terms, GPE Fellows will receive a $1500 stipend. For first time fellows, $750 of the stipend will be covered by the graduate school and the host office is responsible for the remaining $750. For returning fellows, the host office is responsible for the full $1500 stipend.
- Student hours:Â GPE Fellows will work 5-7 hours per week during each term on a project with the host organization.
During the fellowship, we encourage host mentors to provide opportunities for the GPE fellow to learn about careers and build their professional network through job shadowing, meetings and conversations with the host mentor and other professionals.
At the end of the fellowship, both the host mentor and the GPE will provide reflections so that improvements and suggestions can be incorporated into this new program.
Please note: Â The GPE Fellowship does not count towards the fulfillment of a doctoral student’s teaching requirement. Â For more information on teaching requirements, please see the GSAS website
Please contact Assistant Dean of Graduate Student Professional Development Suzanne Young, PhD with any questions.
GPE Mentor Testimonials
“Our Yale graduate students are immensely talented, and anything we can do to support their career trajectory and expand their networks/knowledge is really important. We had a wonderful experience with our fellow, who was great to work with, really helped shape the vision of her exhibition, and followed through on implementing a lovely online exhibition.”
–Melissa Grafe, Head of the Medical Historical Library
“My experience with the fellow has been amazing, largely through her excellent attitude and skills. Despite being on different coasts/time zones, we have worked productively on the project and had a lot of fun. I have introduced her to the wider Administration Team and have set up check in Zoom meetings for her to network with key leadership on campus. I asked the fellow to use this opportunity explicitly to get what she wanted developmentally, and this has really helped make the experience tailored to her career. Beyond the project itself, we have explored all aspects of how to create a communications strategy, brand identity etc. To help her practice writing, she even wrote a story for YaleNews!”
–Jon Atherton, Communications Officer, Yale West Campus
