The Family Resource Center (FRC) is a welcoming play and community space where UChicago families can access resources, information, supportive services, and enrichment programming. Membership is free. Any university-affiliated family is welcome: Students, postdocs, faculty, staff, and alumni.

The multi-age FRC playroom and playground are located in the Woodlawn Social Services Center at 950 East 61st Street. Our current hours are Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. We offer children’s classes, family parties, and a daily themed activity in our art room with stories, crafts, and related games. We have a large playground. Come visit and play!

Stay tuned for a student-parent write-in in Winter 2023, a free babysitting service for dissertating student parents.

For more information, visit us online, keep up with our newsletter, or better yet, drop by and see us in person!

The academic year has just started, but the search for internships and jobs already is well underway for many graduate students and postdocs. Whether you are applying to your first tenure-track job, hunting for the perfect postdoc, or trying to land an internship at a leading company, UChicagoGRAD’s Career Development Team has you covered with a range of helpful workshops.

Career30: These weekly presentations teach you career fundamentals in 30 minutes or less. Check out upcoming sessions on Résumés, Cover Letters, LinkedIn, Networking, Interviewing, and Negotiation.

Academic Job Market Support: Learn up-to-date best practices from UChicagoGRAD’s expert team of PhD and postdoc advisors. Join coming sessions on Negotiating an Academic Job Offer, Demystifying Campus Visits and Job Talks, and To VAP or Not to VAP.

Oral Communications Training: Increase your comfort with interviews and informal networking. Attend an upcoming Storytelling for Behavioral Interviews session or one of the Weekly Technical Interview Workshops.

Graduate students often ask: why should I apply for a fellowship? The fellowships team at UChicagoGRAD is happy to meet with students wondering how a fellowship fits into their academic career. Fellowships can provide funding to pursue academic research or travel abroad for enriching learning experiences. Students also remark that competitive fellowships strengthen CV’s and resumes. But there is more to gain from fellowships than funding and prestige.

Students benefit from the process of applying to fellowships, which require applicants to offer compelling reasons justifying their research to specialists and interdisciplinary audiences alike. Applying to a fellowship encourages students to think through important logistics of their research, such how to select research participants, how many documents can feasibly be reviewed in archival settings, and how to set achievable goals. Some fellowship competitions, such as the Fulbright Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad, provide feedback to applicants, which is an excellent, low-stakes opportunity to discover how others are interpreting your research proposal.

Those who apply to fellowships are equipped to speak to a variety of audiences about their goals and contributions, a skill that will serve students’ academic and professional trajectories in graduate school and beyond. We encourage you to apply!

To learn more about fellowships, schedule an advising appointment to explore opportunities, sign up for an upcoming event, or join our fellowships Canvas site. We offer written feedback on draft application materials for all fellowship opportunities.