About Us

Own Your Future, featured in University Affairs, June 2022, began as a complement to the doctoral curriculum by focusing on the often-overlooked skills and attributes of PhDs that contribute to their success within and beyond their studies. The program is now offered to all graduate students at Western University.

The experiences of graduate students - whether it’s leadership in a department or campus community, mentoring undergraduate students, or communicating research to a variety of audiences - demonstrate valuable transferable skills applicable to a variety of careers. 

Own Your Future:

  1. Enhances graduate students’ ability to identify and articulate their skills to academic and non-academic audiences. 
  2. Facilitates graduate student self-directed professional development learning.
  3. Emphasizes the value of a graduate-level degree for multiple career paths within and beyond academia.
When it comes to doctoral education, the global culture has begun to shift and to recognize the true, multifaceted value of the PhD degree.

Preparing Graduates to be Leaders in the Contemporary Labour Market

Own Your Future began with the recognition that the PhD has traditionally been considered a degree that prepares students for an academic career. Until recently, universities have not paid much attention to the fact that graduates are also successful in finding careers outside of academia. When it comes to doctoral education, the global culture has begun to shift and to recognize the true, multifaceted value of the PhD degree. This value holds true for other graduate-level degrees as well. The corresponding challenge faced by research-intensive universities is how best to prepare graduate students for a full range of career opportunities.

Western University has stepped up to meet this challenge by developing and implementing Own Your Future – a self-directed and individualized professional development program that complements graduate students’ formal academic preparation, and enables them to identify meaningful and impactful career paths. In the words of Western University President, Dr. Alan Shepard, we are empowering our graduate students "to be agents in their own destiny."

Engaging Graduate Students in the Development of Professional Competencies

In partnership with key units across campus and our graduate community, the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies at Western University leads a shift in the culture and structure of graduate education through the Own Your Future program. Own Your Future is designed around five competency pillars that were identified and determined by broad consultation and an exhaustive review of research. These are (1) Communication and Relationship Building; (2) Leadership; (3) Career Engagement; (4) Thriving; and (5) Teaching and Learning. Each competency pillar is supported by clearly articulated learning outcomes.

Central to the program is the Own Your Future Self-Assessment. This tool engages graduate students in the process of self-reflection to identify areas of strength and areas for growth. A personalized report directs students to learning opportunties designed to build and enhance their skillset. The Own Your Future approach is self-directed; students make decisions about where to invest their time and effort based on their personal and professional goals and desires.

The Own Your Future Self-Assessment also makes explicit the largely invisible language that is necessary to recognize and articulate skills and competencies. Therefore, by participating in Own Your Future, Western's graduate students learn to identify and confidently speak to the skills and experience they would bring to any career opportunity.