We can better prepare students for success in graduate school and beyond by making formal instruction in general professional skills a standard part of graduate training programs. Survival Skills for Graduate School and Beyond Beth A. Fischer, Michael J. Zigmond Part of our responsibility toward graduate students is to provide them with a strong background in their field and to teach them how to design and carry out experiments. If, however, we are to ensure their success in graduate school and beyond, this is not enough. Students must also acquire many other “sur- vival skills”—skills such as how to communicate their ideas and results, obtain jobs and funding, and attract students and staff (Bloom, 1992; Bird, 1994; National Academy of Sciences, 1995). In developing mechanisms for provid- ing this training, faculty must make two key assumptions: one concerning the nature of the students’ backgrounds when they enter the program, and the other regarding what awaits them when they leave. If the assumptions now being made are not correct, we may need to consider changing the nature of doctoral training. Who are we training, and where do they go on graduation? A cursory examination of graduate training programs today suggests that doctoral stu- dents in the United States are a very heterogeneous group. Graduate school is no longer the exclusive province of native-born, unmarried, 22-year-old white males; many entering graduate students now are women, members of underrepresented minority groups, or students for whom English is not their native language. In addition, whereas it once may have been reasonable to assume that most doctoral students would secure tenure-stream positions at research universities soon after the completion of their dissertation, this is no longer the case. NEW DIRECTIONS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION, no. 101, Spring 1998 © Jossey-Bass Publishers 29 We thank the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the University of Pittsburgh for their support of our Survival Skills and Ethics Project.