Yale Summer Academy

Yale Summer Academy offers short courses on a range of scholarly and professional topics that take advantage of the summer as a good time to pursue professional development. Each course will run for 4 two-hour sessions (or 6 two-hour sessions) on Zoom. Those who participate in 3 of the 4 sessions (or 4 of the 6 sessions) will receive a Certificate of Completion. See below for Summer 2024 offerings. Questions? Contact suzanne.young@yale.edu.

All short courses will run online for summer 2024.

Building Research and Data Science Skills with Yale Library

4 Sessions (2 hours each): June 11, 13, 18, 20 (10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. EST)
Cap: 50; Online course
Run by the Yale Marx Science and Social Science Library

This short course on research strategies explores the most effective ways to organize and pursue research, manage your scholarly identity online, and begin to learn the tools of data science for the humanities and social sciences. The course begins with an overview of literature reviews and researching datasets, and then explores citation tools that help you to track source use in responsible way. The next session delves into developing one’s online scholarly identity, including understanding online scholarly metrics and academic social networking. The second half of the course will cover data science tools for research. You will learn the steps to retrieve, prepare, and visualize data using tools such as OpenRefine and Tableau Public, and how to tell the story of your research using tools such as ArcGIS StoryMaps. The goal is to explore how the foundational work of research, analysis, and communication can be enhanced by a curated set of online tools.

Strategies for Career Success Inside and Outside of the Academy

4 Sessions (2 hours each): July 8, 10, 15, 17 (10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. EST)
Cap: 60; Online course
Run by Suzanne Young (GSAS Dean’s Office), Hyun Ja Shin, and Jacob Gonzalez (Office of Career Strategy)

This short course will help you prepare for a job search both inside and outside of the academy. We will move through the stages of exploration, networking, and job seeking that comprise a successful professional development pathway. This course is open to graduate students at all stages of their professional journey. We will help you use the process of self-discovery to tell your professional story in networking and job search contexts. We will explore how to use current tools, including LinkedIn and ChatGPT, to supercharge your career research and focus your efforts in productive directions. We will also talk about how to negotiate and manage difficult conversations with mentors and others around career paths and professional choices. The focus of this short course will be on developing strategies for career readiness and producing concrete takeaways.

Exploring Artificial Intelligence for Teaching, Research, and Productivity

6 Sessions (2 hours each): July 9, 11, 16, 18, 23, 25 (10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. EST)
Cap: 25; Online course
Run by Connie Steel (Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning)

This short course provides structures to develop professional habits and ethics for navigating the rapidly changing landscape of artificial intelligence in graduate teaching and research. Interrupt your ChatGPT-matic slumber with sessions that include explorations of AI tools in your discipline, sharing findings with peers, and creating a personal plan for keeping up to date on new developments. How can AI enhance your research, provide creative approaches to teaching, and boost your productivity? Participants should expect to engage with artificial intelligence applications both in sessions and on their own throughout the course.

The Summer Writing-in-Residence Dissertation Working Group

Date and time: June 17 to July 26 (daily, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. EST)
Cap: 15; Online course
Run by Yale GSAS and Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning

The Yale Graduate School will select one cohort of 15 students from across the humanistic disciplines to participate in the writing groups. The writing group seeks to develop students’ skills as writers and as managers of long-term academic projects, while, at the same time, counteracting the isolating work practices typical of traditional humanities scholarship. Together with intensive faculty mentorship and professional development activities, the combined elements of the dissertation writing group program will help students build sustainable writing habits and contribute to a cross-disciplinary intellectual community.

This year’s faculty mentor is Sergei Antonov, from the Department of History. He will convene the writing group, which will meet for a six-week period during the summer, from June 17 to July 26, remotely. Students are expected to participate on a daily basis during work hours (9 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) Application materials: 1) Cover letter explaining your progress on the dissertation and reasons for joining the group; 2) a graduate transcript; and 3) a brief note from your dissertation advisor indicating your readiness to join the group. Send applications to Administrative Assistant Bridget Nixon (bridget.nixon@yale.edu) by May 8. This course is full.