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Leveraging the Power of Grad School to Advance a Career of Impact

Author:
Craig Zelizer

July 28, 2020

At PCDN we were planning on launching a group career coaching option to help even more people advance careers of impact.

Then, COVID-19 happened. So here is the deal: We are opening four decades of  expertise and to help you. Once a week. For free.

Join us every week via Zoom for a highly interactive session and come with any questions, your challenges, or favorite tips on building a career of social impact. We will do our best to guide you in this time of crisis.

When: We will be online at Noon Eastern Standard time every Thursday for the foreseeable future as long as there is interest from our community. You only need to register once to participate (see below for a full Questions & Answers on this initiative.)

Focus of the Sessions: Most weeks we will pick a theme based on the feedback from our community, but we will welcome a broad range of questions. For our Session on Thursday August 13th at 12 pm David J. Smith will be our guest on the topic Leveraging the Power of Grad School to Advance a Career of Impact. David (full bio below) has over 30 years’ experience working as a lawyer, mediator, peacebuilder, educator in a wide variety of domestic and international contexts. He has worked with over 500 colleges and universities and given over 600 talks. He has published widely in leading outlets and written/edited a number of books including  Peace Jobs: A Student’s Guide to Starting a Career Working for Peace

This will be a very interactive session where David will discuss the pros/cons of going to graduate school, how to make the best use of one’s time in a degree program to maximize a career of impact and share many insights from his many years of teaching and mentoring professionals in the social change space.

Bio

David J. Smith’s work spans the fields of career education, peacebuilding, humanitarian education, conflict resolution, and civic and global education. He has over 30 years’ experience as an educational consultant, lawyer, mediator, professor, trainer, senior program officer, senior manager, career coach, speaker, and author. David supports educators, youth, and professionals in developing initiatives advancing civic, educational, and peacebuilding awareness. He is a trained facilitator who has assisted organizations in strategic planning. David also works with groups and individuals in need of career coaching, mediation, and conflict engagement assistance. He has worked with over 500 colleges around the U.S. and has given nearly 600 talks on peacebuilding, career awareness, humanitarian education, conflict resolution, and international education.

He is the president and founder of the Forage Center for Peacebuilding and Humanitarian Education, Inc., a 501c3 not-for-profit that offers experiential learning opportunities for students and professionals. He was formerly a senior program officer and manager of national outreach at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has taught at Harford Community College, Goucher College, Towson University, Georgetown University,  Drexel University, and at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. David was a founding member of the Harford County (Maryland) Community Mediation Commission.  While practicing law in Towson, Maryland, he also engaged in family mediation. He served as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar at the University of Tartu (Estonia) teaching peace studies and alternative dispute resolution.

David is a recipient of  the William Kreidler Award for Distinguished Service to the field of Conflict Resolution given by the Association for Conflict Resolution and the inaugural Global Education Award for Outstanding Voluntary Service Leadership given by the World Affairs Council/Washington, DC. David is past chair of the Rockville (Maryland) Human Rights Commission, where he received the Community Mediator of the Year Award. He was a featured presenter at TEDxFulbright “A Curious Picture” in June 2017 where he gave a talk titled “Talking about Peace.”   The Washington Post Magazine featured David in its “Just Asking” feature in April 2018. His consulting clients have included the Fulbright Association, where he led its diversity initiative, and Street Law, Inc., where he spearheaded its community college efforts. David is a member of the PCDN Global’s Career Advisory Panel and serves on the board of directors of the National Capital Area Chapter of the Fulbright Association. He is an official member of  Forbes Coaches Council and a member of the National Career Development Association.

David is the author of Legal Research and Writing (Cengage, 1996), editor of Peacebuilding in Community Colleges: A Teaching Resource (USIP Press, 2013), and author of  Peace Jobs: A Student’s Guide to Starting a Career Working for Peace (Information Age Publishing, 2016). David is co-author of USIP Special Report 246 Graduate Education and Professional Practice in International Peace and Conflict (August 2010). He has published in Career Convergence MagazineChronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, LinkedIn Pulse, Conflict Resolution Quarterly, Community College Journal,  Community College Daily, Journal of Peace Education, Forbes.comHuffington Post, The New York Times, The Korea Herald,  Arizona Daily Sun, The Gulf Today (UAE),  South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and The Baltimore Sun.

He is a graduate of American University (BA, political science & urban affairs), George Mason University (MS, conflict analysis & resolution), and the University of Baltimore (JD). David has completed course work with Coach Training Alliance.

He lives in Rockville, Maryland, with his wife, who teaches nursing at Montgomery College, and daughter, who is in her senior year of college. Their son recently completed service in the Peace Corps in Namibia. David holds dual American and Canadian citizenship.

 

Why is PCDN doing this?  Because we are dedicated to helping changemakers at all stages access the tools, resources and information to advance careers of impact. Plus, PCDN.global was created to help as many people as possible around the globe and we're even more committed to service this trying period.

How do I sign up? Register here . Once your registration has been approved, you will receive information on how to participate.

How do I participate? Each week we will be on Zoom  Participants will receive information via email about how to login. You will either need to download Zoom on your computer, tablet/smartphone (we recommend using the app to be able to have a more engaging experience) or you can call in via phone via the numbers provided.

Is there any cost to participating? No, to help as many people as possible it is free.

Can I participate when I want? Yes, all you need to do is register. Then you can join in whenever you have time. These are designed to be dropped in chats.

How can I ensure my questions are addressed? While we will make an effort to address as many questions as possible, we cannot guarantee we will be able to get to everyone. Questions can be posted at anytime in the Social Change Career Helping Line or free to drop us an email at info(at)pcdn.global

Where else can I go for help? PCDN offers a number of ways we help our community for free including

  • We highly recommend joining our free Social Change Career Helping Line. This is the world's first free, peer and expert sourced space for building careers of impact. Members (to date we have 3600 members from over 140 countries) can get support and share their own insights 24/7.
  • We also produce the Social Change Career Podcast featuring some of the world's leading changemakers & innovators who share their journeys to building a career of impact. We cover diverse sectors from peacebuilding, social entrepreneurship, tech and social change, impact investing, humanitarian relief, startups and more. Each episode includes in-depth actionable advice for changemakers.
  • Subscribe to our newsletters and get the world's best curated content (including jobs, fellowships, funding, events, news & inspiration) connected to the SDGs and all things impact) in your inbox.
  • Read our Career Series. We have hundreds of posts on building a Career of Impact that you can access for free (and we continue to add more content).
  • Check out our Opportunity Board Find jobs, fellowships, internships, funding, trainings, events and more in nearly every corner of the world.

 

What happens if I need more support in my career journey? We do offer very affordable career coaching that includes customized one-on-one coaching to help you get from passion to hired. We are uniquely qualified as we have over four decades of combined experience in the social sector, have conducted groundbreaking published research on building careers of impact, have built NGOs, social enterprises, worked & consulted at leading academic institutions, NGOs and conducted programming, evaluation and impact work in multiple sectors.  We've also hired many people, mentored hundreds of people around the globe, and also had successes and of course some real failures (quitting jobs, working for organizations that run out of funding and more). We have a 20% discount on our career services during the covid-19 epidemic. If you have questions get in touch or setup a free 15 minute exploratory chat.

Will sessions be recorded/viewable later?

We are recording many of the sessions to be viewable later (we will let people know prior to each session if it will be recorded).  If you have a sensitive question that you would like us to raise in the session anonymously drop us an email with your request at info(at)pcdn.global.

What are you doing to help ensure the security/privacy of participants?

To help ensure security we are having people register and provide some basic info prior to the session.  Only those who have registered can participate. If you have a sensitive question that you would like us to raise in the session anonymously drop us an email with your request at info(at)pcdn.global

 

 

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