The Commission on Pathways Through Graduate School posted a study that shows while recent graduates are prepared in their disciplines, many lack skills and knowledge in areas like working on teams, entrepreneurship, communication, and project management. The Professional Development Program is designed to address these needs

Our full-time faculty are seasoned professionals in their disciplines as well as experienced teachers and mentors, and they are complemented by part-time faculty who are active practitioners in their fields. Whether students want to start a business, find an internship or hash through career decisions, they will find an open door and a resourceful sounding board in CLE faculty.

The PDP Program offers a multitude of courses each semester that address the needs of the professional audience.

Modules

Explore the available courses included in the CLE Professional Development Program.

All modules

A complete list of course offerings

Current Offerings

Explore PDP offerings for the current semester here. PDP courses begin with the 663.xxx prefix.

FAQs

They are a group of courses for Johns Hopkins students and post-docs who already are enrolled in graduate programs and want to improve their knowledge of business management and entrepreneurial topics, as well as in topics related to classroom teaching and lab set-up.

JHU full-time graduate students and post doctoral fellows from Arts and Sciences, Engineering, School of Medicine, School of Public Health, School of Education, School of Nursing, Carey Business School, and Peabody are eligible to participate.

If you are able to use SIS, please register online. If you cannot register through SIS, please go to your school’s registrar and submit an IDR (Inter-departmental Registration) on paper.

The first four modules were offered in fall 2013, with more added each semester; they will be offered on a rotating schedule. Some 20 different modules have run since the program’s inception.

Each course is a half-semester in length (seven weeks), and meet once a week, for 2.5 hours. This means, some classes begin in the middle of the traditional ASEN semester.

The primary module topics are communications, collaborative problem solving, leadership, management and entrepreneurship, and personal growth. There are a number of different courses related to each of these main topics.

Even though these courses do not count toward a degree, they will appear on your transcript. They will be graded P/F or for a letter grade. A limited number of PDP modules are incorporated into master’s degree programs in the Whiting School and students in those programs will receive a letter grade. WSE master’s students should confirm credit eligibility in advance.

Yes, some classes such as Developing a Business Plan expect/encourage you to use ideas you are working on as part of the content for the class.

“This class covers a very broad range of topics that all intersect with each other and our daily lives both in and outside of the workplace. The professor is very knowledgeable and engaging with many stories that uniquely illustrate his point.

Former Graduate Student on the PDP's Managing People & Resolving Conflicts Course