The University's graduate qualities promote deep knowledge of students' chosen field or disciplines of study and well-developed skills for critical thinking, problem-solving, communication and teamwork.
They also promote student capabilities for continuous learning, for updating their knowledge and skills in information literacy, and for the flexibility and breadth of perspective to interact productively and creatively across cultural, disciplinary and professional boundaries.
The graduate qualities also equip students with the personal resilience to deal with uncertainty and failure, and the sureness of personal values and clarity of social purpose to lead ethical responses to whatever challenges confront them and their communities.
These qualities provide the foundations for informed, well-judged and positive contributions to society, both in the workplace and the community at large, and they are the foundations for longer-term intellectual and professional leadership.
In combination, these qualities enable the University’s graduates to envision – and lead in bringing about – ways of doing things that are more effective, more humane, more just, more productive and more sustainable.
This constellation of qualities reframes in contemporary terms the purpose of undergraduate education at the University of Sydney while continuing to reflect the University's foundational values.
These graduate qualities and Researcher Graduate Qualities for the PhD are set out below.
| Graduate quality | University definition |
|---|---|
| Depth of disciplinary expertise | Deep disciplinary expertise is the ability to integrate and rigorously apply the knowledge, understanding and skills of a recognised discipline defined by scholarly activity, as well as familiarity with the evolving practice of the discipline. |
| Critical thinking and problem solving | Critical thinking and problem solving are the questioning of ideas, evidence and assumptions in order to propose and evaluate hypotheses or alternative arguments before formulating a conclusion or a solution to an identified problem. |
| Communication (oral and written) | Effective communication, in both oral and written form, is the clear exchange of meaning in a manner that is appropriate to the audience and context. |
| Information and digital literacy | Information and digital literacy is the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, manage, adapt, integrate, create and convey information using appropriate resources, tools and strategies. |
| Inventiveness | Inventiveness is generating novel ideas and solutions. |
| Cultural competence | Cultural competence is the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures. In the Australian context, this includes and celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge systems, and a mature understanding of contemporary issues. |
| Interdisciplinary effectiveness | Interdisciplinary effectiveness is the integration and synthesis of multiple viewpoints and practices, working effectively across disciplinary boundaries. |
| An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity | An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity is understanding the interaction between one’s personal and professional selves in an ethical context. |
| Influence | Influence is engaging others in a process, idea or vision. |
Researcher Graduate Qualities for the PhD were developed through consultation with PhD supervisors and coordinators.
These graduate qualities enrich the Sydney PhD by assisting our students to develop the broader skills and attributes that will allow them to become exceptional researchers.
| PhD graduate quality | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Deep expertise | To possess expert, world-standard knowledge in an area of specialisation, a mastery of relevant research methods and the capability to contribute to scholarship and knowledge discovery |
| Cultural competence | To display high levels of cultural competence and embody best practice with regard to cultural competence in research |
| Interdisciplinary effectiveness | To work effectively in interdisciplinary settings to develop a broader perspective, innovative vision and the capacity to work effectively within national and international research and innovation systems |
| Professional, ethical, personal identity | To exercise integrity, confidence and resilience |
| Influence | To be professionally and socially responsible and make a positive contribution to society, and to recognise and promote the implications of own research in a broader societal context |
| Broader skills | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Critical thinking and problem-solving | To display high-level capabilities in critical thinking and problem-solving and a commitment to lifelong learning and discovery |
| Communication (oral and written) | To have excellent oral and written communication skills relevant to specialist and general audiences |
| Information and digital literacy | To evaluate and utilise contemporary digital tools, resources and technologies |
| Inventiveness | To be innovative and creative in response to novel problems, and to be willing to take risks |
| Engagement | To display high-level capabilities in disseminating research, and build an understanding of one's own research in a broader context by participating in engagement with end-users of research |
| Project planning and delivery | To plan, manage and deliver research projects effectively |
Society has always held varying implicit expectations of what a university graduate should be like.
Most people recognise that education, especially tertiary education, is about more than just disciplinary knowledge. It is about how that knowledge can be applied and used effectively for the betterment of society.
In addition, there are certain expectations from industry and other external accrediting bodies about how graduates use their knowledge by agreed protocols and in collaboration with their colleagues and clients.
The University recognises these imperatives and has taken steps to identify the critical qualities a graduate of the University should have by the time they graduate. These graduate qualities must be integral to the curriculum and interpreted to the specifics of each discipline.
See the more detailed article in Teaching@Sydney.
Most universities in Australia acknowledge that students who enrol in undergraduate degree programs learn more than just raw discipline knowledge and skills.
There are secondary skills, knowledge and behaviours that are acquired through their experiences of studying at university. In many ways, these skills will be the ones most relied upon after graduation as students move out to the wider world of work.
These skills equip graduates to work in teams, to express their ideas and emotions, to be sensitive to the needs and potential contribution of others, to manage their lives well, to be confident to lead others and to use modern technologies effectively.
There is considerable literature available that points to the centrality of these ideas to the success of a university education. Through a thorough process of discussion and analysis, the University has absorbed this research and distilled the qualities it sees as the most critical for its graduates to succeed in a modern world.
These qualities are unique from those chosen by other universities and will ensure that our graduates have a unique and distinctive place in the labour market.
As curriculums are updated and renewed, the University will ensure that the graduate qualities are explicitly referenced in the course learning outcomes, in addition to the learning outcomes of specific and relevant units of study. Each discipline will determine which units of study are relevant to encourage students to display the graduate qualities.
In some courses, the graduate qualities are already embedded in the curriculum to an extent, however, this needs to be made explicit by using the graduate qualities terms themselves.
Students need to be able to engage with the graduate qualities through using these terms and their associated descriptive material, and they can do that through unit of study outlines and the common University rubrics, which should be provided for units of study that are measuring students' attainment of the graduate qualities.
Teachers will also need to embed the graduate qualities in selected assessments, as this will close the learning loop in terms of the relevant learning outcomes.
Clearly, not all the graduate qualities need to be represented in each assessment item or event, and some styles of assessment (such as project work or clinical placement) might be better suited to assessing some of the graduate qualities than others.