Collaborate With Us

As a career advisor, faculty member, higher ed administrator, or grad student or postdoc leader who supports graduate students and postdocs, you can use InterSECT job simulations to:

  • enhance peer group interactions and team-based exploration
  • complement career exploration workshops by adding an active learning component
  • deepen conversations during career advising sessions
  • engage alumni as presenters

We’ve created materials to help you adopt this program at your institution. Find content below to:

  • introduce the job sims to graduate students and postdocs; including suggestions for activities
  • introduce job sims to staff who wish to add InterSECT job sims to their services
  • evaluate the experience
  • develop job sims, including a detailed protocol
Introduction to InterSECT

Interested in sharing InterSECT at your institution with staff, faculty, or students? We share introductory text, slides, and sample marketing emails. The emails have been used to advertise info sessions that introduced grad students and postdocs to the InterSECT job sims at UC-San Francisco.

Please feel free to customize the information as needed. If you have questions about implementation, please contact Thi Nguyen at thianguyen29[at]gmail.com.

Click the collaborator packet below to download all of the components listed above, including suggested activities and case studies.

Full Collaborator Packet (PDF)

Develop a Sim

Read through how we created a job simulation. We break down the process and include step-by-step instructions for how to interview the professional and get details for the tasks.

You will be developing a job simulation task based on a career you may know little to nothing about. Use the interview questions provided and rely on the professional’s expertise. Make sure they suggest a task by the end of your interview. This protocol has been used by several graduate students, postdocs, and staff. We hope that it’s easy to follow for you, too!

Job simulation template – a google doc that you can view and copy for your use.

Job sim template with interview questions – a Word do to see the questions in grid view

Packet to Develop a Job Sim (download a word doc)– includes FAQs, sample email language, and guidelines. This is an excerpt of the full collaborator packet.

Sample Evaluation Qs

At Washington University in St. Louis and UC-San Francisco, we assessed the effectiveness of job sims in helping graduate students and postdocs learn about their career field of interest. We also wanted to evaluate whether their interest and confidence in exploring that career field changed after performing the job sim tasks.

We share our evaluation questions here, in case you can find them useful as you start to implement this program at your institution. We have also created an anonymous evaluation that can be taken by any student at any university. If you’d like to use this link, please let us know. We are happy to share the data and can summarize it for you, too. If you’re interested, contact Thi Nguyen at thianguyen29[at]gmail.com.

All collaborator resources can be downloaded and viewed here.

Thank you for your interest in bringing interactive simulation exercises for career transitions to your graduate students and postdocs.

Sims by Collaborators

Boston University

Emory University

Northwestern

Princeton University

University of California Davis

University of California San Francisco

University of Iowa

University of Michigan

University of North Texas

University of Pennsylvania

Virginia Tech

Washington University in St. Louis

Boston University and Duke University collaborated and contributed to the Resource and Skills sections of the Sciences Sims Library.