This document has been customized by the GDPE DEI committee and program staff for you, GDPE graduate students, to be used in conjunction with our Annual Progress Report while reducing overlap between the two. Many IDP templates are available in a wide variety of formats, and graduate students and advisors can use a different template or create one their own if the choice is agreed upon by both parties.

An IDP helps students to assess and evaluate their own skills and aptitudes, and determine an appropriate set of goals for utilizing their skills and aptitudes to pursue their long-term professional and personal goals they have after graduation.

The document is student-driven, and meant to be revised or updated periodically, to capture a student’s changing set of tools, values, and interests, and adjust their goals in conjunction with the resources available to them in their programs, and at their institutions, in their intended areas of expertise.

The IDP template should be completed by both the graduate student (section A) and the main faculty advisor (section B), and both sections should be discussed together. Used yearly, the document allows students to identify short-term and medium-term steps for longer-term career and personal goals, while refining their goals through program-level mentorship. This is also an opportunity for the advisor to make sure they clearly articulate goals with the student, devise new plans and provide support and guidance when expectations are not met, but also provide praise when expectations are met or exceeded.