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Students are drawn to doctorates for both the intellectual journey and the aspirational destination. However, many contemporary doctoral students and graduates are feeling like battlers, in that victory does not assure a career. In this context, the weapons of choice are a clear vision, identity, and strategic choices. The aim of this chapter is to inform students, their supervisors, and university executive leaders how to achieve heightened graduate employability. As such, it has been written for four audiences: (1) PhD students, who want academic careers, and (2) those who want careers beyond universities; (3) PhD supervisors; and (4) university executive leaders. The key takeaways are practical recommendations for each of these four groups. The content is informed by an Australian national research study into postgraduate student experience, which included 319 postgraduate students as research participants. The first chapter author was one of two principal researchers leading the study, and the second chapter author was the project manager and researcher. The authors have added their reflections and personal experiences as supervisor and PhD student respectively.

Problems and issues surrounding the use of discrepancy in identifying learning disability are reviewed. Since 1976, discrepancy has been the primary criterion for defining learning disability in practice. In a psychometric and statistical sense, however, issues about the best means for calculating a discrepancy remain unresolved. Another problem involves divergent findings about how systematically and rigorously the discrepancy criterion has been applied in practice. The problems and issues have resulted in questions about the status of learning disability as an independent category of special education. It is possible, however, to demonstrate that learning disability can be reliably differentiated from other conditions and that discrepancy is a major factor in demonstrating the differences. Consequently, it is concluded that discrepancy is a legitimate theoretical concept and should be considered as a necessary criterion for the identification of learning disability.