Graduate Student Resume Example

A graduate student resume has to do two things at once: show the master's degree as a step up from the bachelor's, and show that the teaching, research and internship hours around it were real work. Employers reading it want to know what you can do in a lab or on a team today, not what you will know when the thesis is bound.

The Sample resume below belongs to a second-year master's student in mechanical engineering in Pittsburgh who is applying for full-time controls and automation roles that start after his May 2027 defense. His thesis appears as a project with a stated result, his teaching assistantship as a job with a headcount, and his summer internship as the industry experience a hiring manager actually scans for first.

If you are applying for an assistantship or a fellowship rather than a job, the graduate school application example covers the research-first version of this page, and the PhD student example shows how a doctoral candidate turns years of research into industry results. The Scholar template gives a thesis and publications room without pushing the page to three sheets.

Updated . The person and employers in this Sample resume are fictional.

Graduate Student sample resume

Devin Okafor

MS Mechanical Engineering Candidate, May 2027 | Controls and Automation

Pittsburgh, PAdevin.okafor@example.com(412) 555-0121

Summary

Master's student in mechanical engineering graduating in May 2027, with a thesis on model-predictive control for robotic pick-and-place arms and a summer internship commissioning conveyor controls at an automation integrator. Teaches two lab sections of Thermodynamics as a graduate teaching assistant and has co-authored one conference paper. Looking for a controls engineer role where simulation work meets a factory floor.

Experience

Graduate Research Assistant, Robotics and Controls Lab, Allegheny Polytechnic University

– Present

Pittsburgh, PA

  • Built a model-predictive controller in MATLAB and Simulink for a six-axis arm that cut average cycle time on a bin-picking benchmark from 4.1 to 3.3 seconds in simulation.
  • Ported the controller to a hardware testbed with a ROS 2 interface and logged 300 physical trials to validate the simulation against measured joint torques.
  • Co-authored a paper accepted to a regional controls conference and presented the poster to about 60 attendees.
  • Mentor two undergraduate senior design students using the lab's arm, reviewing their test plans before each session.
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Thermodynamics, Allegheny Polytechnic University

– Present

Pittsburgh, PA

  • Run two weekly lab sections for 48 undergraduates in total, including the calorimetry and heat-engine experiments and the safety briefing before each.
  • Grade roughly 100 lab reports a month to a rubric written with the course professor, returning them within one week.
  • Rewrote the pre-lab quiz for the vapor-compression experiment after noticing a third of students misreading the pressure-enthalpy chart; the average score rose from 62 to 81 the following term.
Controls Engineering Intern, Steel Valley Automation

–

Pittsburgh, PA

  • Wrote and tested PLC ladder logic in Studio 5000 for three conveyor zones on a packaging line, then supported commissioning on site over two weekends.
  • Built HMI screens in FactoryTalk View for the same line and produced a 14-page operator guide the customer kept after handover.
  • Traced an intermittent sensor fault to a loose shield ground during the factory acceptance test, saving a return visit.

Education

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (expected May 2027)

Allegheny Polytechnic University, Pittsburgh, PA

GPA 3.8. Thesis: Model-predictive control for high-throughput robotic bin picking. Courses: Linear Systems, Nonlinear Control, Robot Kinematics, Optimal Estimation, Mechatronics Design.

Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering

Allegheny Polytechnic University, Pittsburgh, PA

Magna cum laude. Senior design: automated fixture for a local machine shop.

Skills

  • MATLAB and Simulink
  • Python (NumPy, control)
  • ROS 2
  • Allen-Bradley PLCs (Studio 5000)
  • FactoryTalk View HMI
  • SolidWorks
  • Model-predictive control
  • State estimation and Kalman filtering
  • LabVIEW data acquisition
  • Technical writing
  • Lab instruction

Certifications

  • Fundamentals of Engineering (FE), Mechanical, NCEES,

Start yours from this example

Opens this sample in the editor, in one of the templates below. Swap in your details, then tailor it to each posting in about two minutes.

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Templates for the graduate student resume

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How the resume changes with experience

The same graduate student resume, written at three levels: a summary and three bullets for each.

Entry level

Zero to two years, or a first role in the title

First-semester master's student who finished a bachelor's in mechanical engineering in May and has not yet chosen a thesis topic. Applying for a spring research assistantship and a summer internship.

  • Completed a senior design project that delivered a working fixture to a paying client on schedule.
  • Earned the FE certification the month after graduating, before coursework started.
  • Chose the thesis track over the coursework-only option to have a research project to show employers.

Mid level

Three to seven years, owns a process or a workload

Second-year master's student with a thesis in progress, a teaching assistantship and one industry internship behind him, applying for full-time roles that start after a May defense.

  • Carries a research assistantship, two lab sections and a thesis at the same time, with a defense date already set.
  • Internship PLC and HMI work shipped to a customer and ran on the line after the internship ended.
  • Turned down a second summer in the lab for the internship because employers kept asking about plant experience.

Senior

Eight years or more, leads people, budgets or programs

Master's graduate three months into a first full-time controls engineering role at the company where he interned, with a defended thesis and one published paper.

  • Owns commissioning for two production lines at customer sites, including acceptance testing and operator training.
  • Defended the thesis a week before the start date and published the conference paper the same spring.
  • Negotiated a start date after the defense rather than finishing the degree part time, so the master's would be done.

Skills to put on the graduate student resume

Hard skills

Thesis or capstone research with a stated result
It is the biggest project you have led, and a reader needs the outcome in numbers to credit it as experience.
Discipline software (MATLAB, Simulink, SolidWorks, ROS)
Postings list tools by name, and a graduate student is expected to be past the tutorial stage on them.
Industry internship or co-op
It is the one entry that proves you have worked to someone else's deadline rather than your advisor's.
Teaching assistantship
Running a section is supervision, grading and public speaking, and managers notice all three.
Publications and conference presentations
One accepted paper tells an employer you can finish a piece of work and have it checked by strangers.
Programming and data analysis
Nearly every technical master's role expects Python or MATLAB fluency, and your thesis data is the proof.
Professional exams on the path
An FE pass, a CPA section or a Praxis score in the certifications block shows you are already moving toward the license.

Soft skills

Self-direction
A thesis is months of unsupervised work, and a reader wants to know you kept it moving without a daily check-in.
Explaining technical work
Teaching and poster sessions prove you can make a method clear to someone who did not build it.
Prioritizing under competing deadlines
Coursework, grading and research all land in the same week, and employers hire the student who finished all three.
Mentoring
Guiding undergraduates in the lab is the earliest form of leading a team, and it is worth one line.

Mistakes that cost graduate student interviews

  1. Writing an academic CV when a job needs a resume

    Industry readers want one or two pages ordered by relevance, not a complete record. Keep publications to the ones that matter, fold coursework into one line and cut the conferences attended but not presented at. Save the full CV for faculty and fellowship applications.

  2. Listing the thesis as a title only

    A thesis line with no result reads as a plan. Add the method, the tool and the outcome in one sentence, and give the research assistantship bullets with numbers the way you would for a job.

  3. Burying the bachelor's or repeating it

    List both degrees under education with the master's first, and do not repeat the same courses under each. If both are from the same school, as in the Sample, the second entry needs only the degree, the year and one honor.

  4. Treating the teaching assistantship as a footnote

    Name the course, the number of students and what you were responsible for. Grading rubrics, lab safety and office hours are management tasks, and they belong in bullets, not in a parenthesis.

  5. Omitting the graduation and availability dates

    Employers planning a hire want to know when you can start. Put the expected month in the headline and the education entry, and state in the summary whether you are looking for a role after the defense or a part-time one before it.

Questions about the graduate student resume

Should a graduate student resume be one page or two?

One page for internships and most entry-level roles; two pages when you have a thesis, publications, teaching and an internship and all four are relevant to the posting. A second page that is half empty looks worse than a tight single page, so cut coursework before you spill onto it.

Does the master's degree go above the bachelor's?

Yes, most recent first, with the expected graduation month. Put the thesis title and your relevant courses under the master's and keep the bachelor's to the degree, the school, the year and any honors.

How do I list a thesis that is not finished yet?

Write the title under education with the words in progress or the expected defense month, then describe the work so far as a research assistant role under experience, with what you built and what it showed.

Do I include my undergraduate GPA?

Include the graduate GPA if it is 3.5 or higher, since that is what the current program says about you. Add the undergraduate GPA only if it is also strong or the posting asks for it; otherwise, honors such as cum laude carry the same message in one word.

Where do publications and conference posters go?

In a short Publications section after experience, in a standard citation format with your name in bold. If you have only one, a bullet under the research assistantship saying it was accepted and presented does the job without a section of its own.

Should I include coursework on a graduate student resume?

Only courses that match the posting, in one line under the degree. A controls posting cares about Nonlinear Control and Optimal Estimation; it does not care about the technical writing requirement.

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