Training Tomorrow's Scientists: Embedding Professional Skills in the Physical Chemistry Curriculum with a Guided Grant and Laboratory Project

A successful scientific career requires competency in not only content knowledge but also professional skills, such as written and oral communication, decision making, problem solving, and planning, organizing, and prioritizing work. These professional skills are prioritized in the 2016 NACE Job Outlook report as the top 10 attributes employers look for in job candidates. To help ensure our graduates are competitive job candidates, we developed a Guided Grant and Laboratory Project (G(2)LP) in the physical chemistry curriculum. This yearlong project guides students through the research process in chemistry, from project identification through the dissemination of results. The G(2)LP requires students to identify a physical chemistry experiment of their choice from the Journal of Chemical Education, request funding for their project through an NSF-style grant proposal, collect and analyze data, and disseminate their results. In this activity, we describe the implementation of the G(2)LP at two institutions and assessment through quantitative and qualitative student feedback. The flexibility of this project allows instructors to modify the G(2)LP to their institutional needs with the potential to expand beyond physical chemistry.