Professional and Graduate Students

Graduate students are students pursuing education beyond a bachelor’s degree, focusing on research or advanced study in a specific field (i.e., masters, doctoral).

Professional students are in specialized schools that prepare a student for a particular field, where entry into that field requires a specific degree (e.g., medicine, law, veterinary, business, pharmacy, dentistry).

Consider the following:

• Flexible counselling hours
  • Consider offering counselling hours that are more reflective of grad students’ schedules (which often includes being on campus on the weekends and in the evenings).
• Spaces dedicated to graduate/professional student counselling services
  • To ensure confidentiality so graduate/professional students are not in the same space as they students they may teach or facilitate labs with, it’s important to consider the space and location that is being used for counselling and support services.
• Comprehensive training of graduate-specific issues
  • Having an on-campus counsellor available exclusively to graduate students who is familiar with the unique challenges graduate students face. Additionally, providing all staff with training on graduate-specific issues as well as basic mental health safety training and mandatory equity, anti-oppression, and anti-stigma training can improve one’s ability to support graduate/professional students.
• Use of e-health technology
  • A 24-hour mobile or chat line would allow students easy access to mental health professionals. Although this cannot directly replace traditional counselling, it is a useful first point of contact that would provide students with alternate methods of seeking assistance. E-mental health solutions also go beyond online counselling and may include the use of client management or student engagement platforms. E-mental health resources in the references list below corresponding to the following citations offer an in-depth look at existing solutions.

The graduate/professional student population is highly diverse in age, culture, background, and experience, and requires a multidimensional approach that’s oriented to academic and cultural supports in addition to psychological and professional services. Graduate/professional students may also be juggling multiple responsibilities including, financial, work, parental, relational, and family demands.

Supervisory relationships are highlighted as being critical to all aspects of the graduate/professional student experience. Quality mentoring includes clear communication, being respectful of students as ‘junior colleagues,’ and recognizing that academic pursuits, while important, are one aspect of life graduate students are trying to juggle. In addition to overseeing their research, faculty members (and particularly supervisors) are expected to be familiar with their institution’s guidelines and procedures, facilitate professional development opportunities, value the students’ decisions, understand the need to balance priorities, provide constructive and timely feedback, and provide ongoing encouragement and support. For more information, check out CICMH’s Graduate Student Mental Health toolkit here.