Aidan Smyth views his time in grad school as an opportunity to “to develop, learn and reflect on many important transferrable skills, and learn how to market them.”

That’s why the incoming Graduate Students Association president plans to attend “SHIFT: From Learning to Earning,” a conference for graduate students that brings together in-house experts at Brock for a day of teaching and learning about changing gears from student life to career life.

The Faculty of Graduate Studies’ Vitae Essential Skills programming for graduate students is presenting the conference, which happens Thursday, April 30, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Pond Inlet.

SHIFT offers 11 career development workshops that will include presentations by Vitae campus partners Career Services, A-Z Learning Skills, Student Development Centre, and the Centre for Pedagogical Innovation. The Faculty has also recruited workshop facilitators from the Centre for Lifespan Development Research, and Youth University and Community Learning.

Graduate students can still register for the event by going to the Vitae website. Although some workshops are filled, participants will have access to all workshop materials and worksheets following the conference. The last day to register is April 24.

Several Niagara-based specialists in career development circles are involved in SHIFT, including keynote speaker Mario De Divitiis, executive director, Leadership Niagara, and workshop facilitators Sandra Summerhayes, a human resource specialist who runs a professional training business, and networking mentor Marsha Shandur.

Completing the list of workshops is ‘Canadianizing’ Your Job Search,’ presented by Simon Drum and Monika Parsons, graduate student assistants with Career Services. This session is designed to help international graduate students better understand the Canadian job market with advice on how to write resumes to develop a job search strategy.

This is the second year for SHIFT. Last year 65 graduate students attended a half-day event.

The conference was expanded to a full day of programming based on feedback from graduate students, who indicated a strong desire to learn more about potential career paths and how to prepare for finding work. Expanding the conference will help support the demand for such information.