What Is PhD Progression?
PhD Progression is an online training program that offers individual badges to support your career and professional development. Improve your skills and prepare for a successful post-PhD career!
PhD Progression At-A-Glance:
- Review our badge catalogue of 180+ online badges.
- Complete badges at your own pace, whenever you need them.
- Complete a badge in ~30–45 minutes.
- Gain skills in the 7 Core Capacities that all graduate students need to succeed on campus and beyond.
- Review our Pathways, which are pre-bundled groups of badges that have a shared topic or Core Capacity.
- Choose badges that match your desired level of learning: Gain new knowledge (Level 1) or practice new skills (Level 2).
FAQs
How do I choose a badge to complete?
How do I find badges that are right for me?
- Option 1: Search our badge catalogue for specific terms and phrases you’re interested in.
- Option 2: Complete a Pathway, which is a bundled group of badges with a shared theme, topic, or Core Capacity.
Which students can access PhD Progression?
PhD Progression is for all graduate students, regardless of field or graduate degree. (We are rebranding as “Grad Progression” in Spring 2027 to make that clear!)
Why Digital Badges?
Digital badges are gaining popularity with employers and educational institutions. Badges show that you have completed professional development training outside of traditional learning environments. You can share your badges social media platforms like LinkedIn to show potential employers that you have invested time and energy in increasing your marketability. If an employer wants to learn more, they can explore the badge metadata to learn about the specific tasks completed to earn that badge. In addition, they
At Boston University, we launched the PhD Progression pilot program to see how students would respond, and the large majority of participants felt that the time they invested in earning PhD Progression badges was beneficial to their professional development.
PhD Progression badges awarded since 2021
Number of students who have earned badges
More questions? Check out our PhD Progression Guide & FAQs, or email us at gradpd@bu.edu.