Individual Development Plan (IDP)

Do you want a tool to structure your career goals?

An individual development plan (IDP) can serve as a roadmap to help you achieve your short- and long-term teaching, service, and scholarly goals. The IDP is a written list of goals mapped to a timeline and includes goal-setting for different areas you want and need to focus on to build your academic career. These goals can include any skill development/training and career planning along with your teaching, service, and scholarly goals. In addition, mentors can be identified to help you with any specific areas of growth.

Short- and long-term goals can be broken down in a number of different ways. One approach is to identify what you want to achieve by the end of your first year as a graduate student, by the end of your graduate training, or by the end of your first year as a faculty member.

Create an Individual Development Plan

• Instructions for Developing an IDP– Developed by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental
  Biology (FASEB)’s Science Policy Committee
• Sample Individual Development Plans – Developed by researchers at Medical College of Wisconsin, University of California, Davis, and Harvard Medical School
• Mentee Professional Development Self-Assessment Tool – Developed by the Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Additional Resources

myIDP

myIDP is a unique, web-based career-planning tool tailored to meet the needs of Ph.D. students and postdocs in the sciences.

myIDP provides: 

• Exercises to help you examine your skills, interests, and values 
• A list of 20 scientific career paths with a prediction of which ones best fit your skills and interests 
• A tool for setting strategic goals for the coming year, with optional reminders to keep you on track 
• Articles and resources to guide you through the process 

There is no charge to use this site and we encourage you to return as often as you wish.    

Imagine PHD

Imagine PHD is a career exploration and planning tool for the humanities and social sciences. 

CFE Mentoring Resources

The CFE curates a collection of mentoring resources for Carolina faculty mentors, mentees, and departments. They also provide helpful training, peer support groups, and consultations.

• Resources for mentees
• Resources for mentors
• Resources for Graduate Student Mentees and Their Faculty Mentors
• Aligning expectations in mentoring relationships
• Graduate Student resource-collection

For questions or concerns, please contact the CFE or request an individual mentoring consultation.