Professional Development and Career Planning: Guidance for STEM Careers

Undergraduate students in almost all disciplines experience curricula dominated by technical foundations, but lacking many of the "soft" topics that the students will need in order to be fully prepared to practice professionally after graduation. Professional Development and Career Planning: Guidance for STEM Careers provides the information that will enable readers to develop a more complete education and ready them for the workplace. It helps readers recognize the importance of topics such as mentoring, developing professional attitudes, communication skills, codes of conduct, ethics, becoming knowledgeable about various aspects of professional life, and more. Each chapter of the book provides the necessary definitions, hypothetical but relevant case studies, methods and practices that can be used to identify relevant professional weaknesses, and ways to overcome each of them. This book serves as an ideal reference for any undergraduate student in the STEM field. Helps readers recognize the importance of topics such as mentoring, developing important professional attitudes, and becoming knowledgeable about aspects of professional life that are not an integral part of the technical component of any curriculum. Identifies the attitudes, abilities, and skills that will be needed to optimally meet professional responsibilities. Provides information about the use of alternative methods of thinking to achieve success in problem-solving, with special emphasis on imaginative-based methods of thinking for multi-dimensional problems.