Not That Kind of Doctor - Mentorship
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12/14/2022
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In this episode of "Not That Kind of Doctor," Nick and Guy discuss the complexities of choosing a graduate school, especially for first-generation students or those applying from abroad. They explore how to navigate the application process, the importance of funding, and the impact of these decisions on your personal and professional life.
đź“Ś Key Takeaways:
Graduate School Choices: The challenges of selecting the right program, especially when you're unfamiliar with the higher education landscape.
Funding Considerations: Why securing financial support is crucial and how it can shape your graduate school experience.
Life and Family Impact: How the decision to attend graduate school affects not just you but your entire family, and the importance of making it a collective choice.
Visiting Schools: The value of visiting potential programs, talking to current students, and understanding the culture before committing.
Flexibility in Goals: The importance of being open to change as your interests and career goals evolve during graduate school.
Whether you’re considering graduate school or helping someone make this decision, this episode provides practical insights to guide you through the process.
#GraduateSchool #FirstGenStudent #HigherEducation #NotThatKindOfDoctor #AcademicJourney #phdprograms #Eddprograms #highereducation
Have you gone through the process of choosing a graduate school? Share your experiences in the comments below! Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more episodes exploring the academic journey!
Selecting a Graduate Program - Not That Kind of Doctor with Nick Husbye and Guy Trainin
www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor
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- [00:00:00.000](upbeat groovy music)
- [00:00:09.000]Are we ready?
- [00:00:10.110]We are ready. Okay. So, question.
- [00:00:11.670]Yes.
- [00:00:12.503]How do you know when I'm seeking out information from you?
- [00:00:16.410]What are your telltale signs when you see me
- [00:00:18.030]and you're like, "Oh, Nick wants to know something"?
- [00:00:21.540]Eye contact and just the question, I think.
- [00:00:26.010]I do accost you with questions quite a bit initially.
- [00:00:28.770]It's not even like, "Hi, Guy!"
- [00:00:30.120]It's, "How do I do this?"
- [00:00:32.370]Well...
- [00:00:33.203]"How does this structure work?"
- [00:00:35.490]That's what you do, right?
- [00:00:37.740]That's how you communicate.
- [00:00:40.800]I mean, the most important thing is to ask a question!
- [00:00:43.500]I communicate by accosting people with inquiries.
- [00:00:48.870]Questioning is my love language.
- [00:00:51.960]All right! I'll take that. That's what it is.
- [00:00:53.360]If I don't question you, you don't matter to me.
- [00:00:56.220]You are dead to me.
- [00:00:58.154](Guy laughing)
- [00:01:00.000]So how did that work for you as a graduate student?
- [00:01:05.250]I mean, it worked...
- [00:01:06.900]Look, I was really fortunate in terms of stars aligning,
- [00:01:11.550]in terms of mentorship,
- [00:01:12.960]in terms of people who were helping me figure things out.
- [00:01:19.590]Because like we've talked about,
- [00:01:22.410]I was going to grad school
- [00:01:23.640]as a first generation college student.
- [00:01:26.040]I was the first in my family to graduate from undergrad,
- [00:01:29.190]the first to get a master's degree,
- [00:01:30.630]which I actually didn't get.
- [00:01:31.920]Yeah.
- [00:01:32.940]They canceled my capstone class
- [00:01:35.760]the summer before I was gonna go get my PhD.
- [00:01:38.820]So there was that, but I was the first
- [00:01:40.140]to go get this advanced degree.
- [00:01:42.210]So I had no...
- [00:01:46.230]I asked a lot of questions
- [00:01:47.063]'cause I had no problem looking stupid.
- [00:01:49.560]I wasn't worried about that.
- [00:01:50.940]The whole, "Don't ask that question
- [00:01:53.040]'cause I might look stupid," I didn't care.
- [00:01:54.510]I don't know this answer,
- [00:01:56.550]and if I screw up I'm gonna look even more stupid
- [00:01:59.730]than I would if I didn't.
- [00:02:00.960]So I was really lucky to have folks who
- [00:02:08.640]put up with a lot of questions.
- [00:02:11.640]Poor James Damico.
- [00:02:13.350]Poor Karen Wohlwend.
- [00:02:14.550]Poor Larry McAleski.
- [00:02:16.530]I'm sorry if you ever see this.
- [00:02:20.940]Yikes.
- [00:02:21.960]So for me it was a little bit different
- [00:02:24.180]because as I've shared, coming from another country
- [00:02:27.390]and not knowing a lot about graduate school,
- [00:02:30.000]this was all kind of a black box.
- [00:02:33.690]And so I walked in, but I got lucky in many ways.
- [00:02:38.910]I was slotted to work with my dean,
- [00:02:41.850]who was a new dean, on a project.
- [00:02:43.950]So I had access to the dean on a fairly-
- [00:02:47.130]At least once a week.
- [00:02:49.549]And it's a dean of a graduate school,
- [00:02:50.880]so it's not a huge school,
- [00:02:52.590]so I got a lot of interactions early.
- [00:02:55.770]And then my first advisor was actually graduate chair,
- [00:03:00.720]and he was a talker.
- [00:03:01.920]So Don McMillan, thank you.
- [00:03:05.337]All the shout outs in this episode, folks.
- [00:03:07.410]I did not actually need to ask a lot of questions.
- [00:03:10.200]I just got a lot of information fairly quickly
- [00:03:16.013]in ways that allowed me to start figuring things out.
- [00:03:20.730]And one of the times that I understood
- [00:03:23.881]how much I've learned about the inner workings
- [00:03:27.210]of even academia,
- [00:03:28.320]which is an important part of mentorship
- [00:03:30.480]because classes will teach you
- [00:03:32.010]the things you need to know academically,
- [00:03:34.080]but mentorship will teach you all the other things
- [00:03:37.140]you need to figure out.
- [00:03:38.310]Publishing and getting around
- [00:03:41.100]and relationship with faculty and all of these other things
- [00:03:45.300]that are intangibles of sorts.
- [00:03:48.090]And we had an interview for somebody who was coming in
- [00:03:53.070]to get a job.
- [00:03:54.720]I was in my, I think in my last year, my fourth year.
- [00:03:58.170]And so...
- [00:04:02.250]She was in an interview
- [00:04:03.240]and she wanted to talk to some graduate students,
- [00:04:05.370]and I realized, we were talking and she said,
- [00:04:09.217]"How do you know so much about the way that department,
- [00:04:11.910]the college and the department works?"
- [00:04:14.160]And I'm like, "I don't know, it's been shared with me."
- [00:04:18.480]One of the things though, Bob Celty, who was a dean,
- [00:04:22.020]was a great mentor, and also challenging at times,
- [00:04:27.360]but he was great because he was with complete transparency.
- [00:04:31.500]So we would hear about everything,
- [00:04:33.330]including his wife was sick at the time,
- [00:04:35.550]that would come to an email to everybody
- [00:04:38.160]and there would be a five page email
- [00:04:40.410]that detailed everything happening in the college,
- [00:04:42.990]personal, public, plans for the fu-
- [00:04:45.840]Everything was in the same email.
- [00:04:47.550]So you got a lot of information you can start sorting out.
- [00:04:50.670]Now, in my first year, that was a little bit scary
- [00:04:52.890]because I had to read this very long email
- [00:04:55.470]and figure out where do I need to be and when,
- [00:04:57.630]because I'm also working with the dean on a project.
- [00:05:00.690]So I gotta read this long thing and figure out,
- [00:05:02.977]"Oh, on Wednesday we have a meeting.
- [00:05:05.220]That Tuesday thing, that's for senior faculty.
- [00:05:07.560]I am not included in that meeting."
- [00:05:09.600]There were moments where it was uncomfortable
- [00:05:11.850]and I had friends to go back- Where do I need to be?
- [00:05:13.265]Yes. And this was before
- [00:05:14.370]the calendar invite, right?
- [00:05:15.510]Yeah, long before the calendar invite.
- [00:05:17.970]So yes, I had to figure out a lot, but that was great.
- [00:05:22.110]So when we think about mentorship,
- [00:05:24.480]I always think about formal and informal,
- [00:05:26.850]because often, definitely in graduate school,
- [00:05:29.490]but often even when you get your first job,
- [00:05:31.830]you get formal mentoring.
- [00:05:33.630]There's somebody who hopefully you
- [00:05:37.350]are at least part of selecting
- [00:05:41.130]that will help you figure things out.
- [00:05:43.980]And then you have a whole group of people potentially
- [00:05:47.400]that can be mentors that emerge at critical points
- [00:05:51.180]or the people you consult with,
- [00:05:52.980]but are not formally designated to be that.
- [00:05:55.620]It's people whose advice you seek at critical junctures
- [00:06:00.060]or as an ongoing conversation,
- [00:06:02.153]so you expand kind of your network
- [00:06:06.360]of people who can inform you about different things.
- [00:06:11.850]Obviously you got lucky, but if you were advising
- [00:06:15.780]somebody who's thinking about graduate school,
- [00:06:18.180]how would you advise them to start seeking a mentor?
- [00:06:22.710]I think the first thing to be thinking about
- [00:06:27.000]is at what levels do you need mentorship, right?
- [00:06:32.070]As a graduate student,
- [00:06:34.080]James Damico is kind of my structural mentor.
- [00:06:36.540]What is this program going to look like?
- [00:06:38.580]What are the checkpoints?
- [00:06:40.710]How do I move through them?
- [00:06:42.630]What am I expected to do to complete this degree?
- [00:06:45.720]If I don't have funding, what do I do?
- [00:06:48.390]All of that kind of stuff.
- [00:06:49.290]And he was very much kind of
- [00:06:52.470]the mentor helping me think through classes
- [00:06:56.520]and comps in those gatekeeper kinds of things.
- [00:06:59.190]And then Karen Wohlwend was this kind of brilliant.
- [00:07:03.840]She's not kind of, she's just brilliant, no hedging.
- [00:07:06.990]Mentor around technical work.
- [00:07:09.570]What does the work of being a professor
- [00:07:13.290]or being an academic actually look like?
- [00:07:15.450]How do you do a manuscript review for a journal?
- [00:07:20.670]What does that look like?
- [00:07:21.840]What's actually productive?
- [00:07:23.340]And I remember her sitting down with me
- [00:07:26.550]to do a journal review, we co-reviewed this manuscript,
- [00:07:33.210]and I still think about that moment.
- [00:07:36.120]That's still how I begin to structure
- [00:07:40.560]my manuscript reviews, right?
- [00:07:43.320]When I was going on the job market,
- [00:07:45.801]I just remember her going,
- [00:07:48.397]"You will not eat a salad at dinner.
- [00:07:51.600]You will not eat a salad.
- [00:07:53.100]Pick something small because you're only gonna get in
- [00:07:55.770]small bites in between questions."
- [00:07:58.740]So that kind of technical mentoring was so important.
- [00:08:02.610]And then like Larry McAleski was
- [00:08:08.730]so important in terms of carving out your niche,
- [00:08:15.000]even when that is...
- [00:08:17.880]He was always very pragmatic to me,
- [00:08:20.340]thinking about, "Okay, we're in academia,
- [00:08:22.710]here's all of this,
- [00:08:23.730]but what does this look like on the ground?
- [00:08:25.980]How do you carve out that space?
- [00:08:28.410]So what? Who cares?"
- [00:08:30.900]Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
- [00:08:33.210]Not to get caught up so much in
- [00:08:36.758]the pomp and circumstances of academia.
- [00:08:39.300]So I think in terms of
- [00:08:43.860]when you're thinking about mentorship,
- [00:08:48.180]where is it that you wanna grow, right?
- [00:08:50.940]Where is it that, and you don't know what you don't know,
- [00:08:54.810]but you probably have inklings
- [00:08:56.850]of what you don't know, right?
- [00:08:58.320]And who is gonna be able to help you to do that work.
- [00:09:02.580]And it's really important, I mean, going back to my point,
- [00:09:06.270]I was lucky because I got a lot of information
- [00:09:09.390]just almost by osmosis and just being there
- [00:09:12.780]and willing to spend the time.
- [00:09:14.790]So one of the things I was willing to do
- [00:09:16.950]is I was willing to go into Don McMillan's office
- [00:09:20.010]and sit there for 45 minutes just listening,
- [00:09:23.850]have a small question that I came with
- [00:09:25.920]and just listening to everything else that comes up
- [00:09:29.370]and just kind of simmering in it
- [00:09:33.030]and learning about the way academia worked
- [00:09:35.070]because it mostly worked through that office
- [00:09:37.080]and the dean's office.
- [00:09:37.980]So I was at the two junctures,
- [00:09:39.690]at least in a graduate school of education,
- [00:09:41.370]the graduate chair and the dean is where things happen.
- [00:09:44.880]And so I got to see a lot of things firsthand,
- [00:09:50.130]but the ability to ask questions I think is critical.
- [00:09:53.040]And having, as a mentor,
- [00:09:54.600]somebody you feel comfortable asking questions,
- [00:09:57.360]that you are feeling like they're willing to take the time
- [00:10:01.350]and spend half an hour with you, or maybe more,
- [00:10:03.840]not just in the formal occasions,
- [00:10:05.520]but actually in all of these informal occasions
- [00:10:08.910]to bring you in and to explain how this works
- [00:10:11.880]and what you need to do.
- [00:10:13.860]Recently I've been working on a hiring committee
- [00:10:17.040]and there's a graduate student on the hiring committee,
- [00:10:19.230]which is by the way, highly recommended
- [00:10:20.940]if you get to do that.
- [00:10:21.991]And she came to me and said,
- [00:10:26.617]"I'm on this committee, there's this volume of material,
- [00:10:29.280]I'm a second year doctoral student, what do I look at?"
- [00:10:31.920]And so we sat together for about 15 minutes.
- [00:10:34.980]That's sometimes all it takes.
- [00:10:36.180]And I said, "Here are some things you can do
- [00:10:37.770]as a graduate student.
- [00:10:39.120]In looking at these files, obviously you can't look at it
- [00:10:42.030]as a faculty with 20 years experience,
- [00:10:44.640]that's not what we expect from you,
- [00:10:46.080]but there are certain insights
- [00:10:47.640]that you can have as a graduate student
- [00:10:49.500]that none of us can have,
- [00:10:50.640]because it's been a while for all of us."
- [00:10:52.650]And so those conversations,
- [00:10:55.560]taking the time to have that short or long conversation
- [00:10:58.440]is really, really important.
- [00:11:00.090]And if you choose a mentor
- [00:11:02.220]that you start feeling uncomfortable about asking questions,
- [00:11:04.830]that's probably, I would argue, the wrong mentor.
- [00:11:07.590]And you need to think about,
- [00:11:09.187]"Who in my circle is somebody that I feel comfortable
- [00:11:15.090]having these conversations with?"
- [00:11:16.740]And start making this adjustment.
- [00:11:19.620]Because it's not functional
- [00:11:21.750]to not be able to ask these questions
- [00:11:23.730]because then you're under prepared
- [00:11:24.870]for everything that comes next.
- [00:11:26.520]Well, and I think too, this notion of...
- [00:11:29.850]Thinking back to my undergraduate experiences
- [00:11:32.490]working with Elizabeth Heilman
- [00:11:34.800]and Pat Edwards when I was at Michigan State,
- [00:11:37.470]one of the things that really became apparent to me
- [00:11:42.840]is what is...
- [00:11:47.370]Mentorship...
- [00:11:49.200]I always wanna avoid talking about comfort in mentorship,
- [00:11:51.810]because there should be some level of discomfort.
- [00:11:54.000]There should be some level of not being comfortable,
- [00:11:58.530]because you are kind of leveraging that relationship
- [00:12:03.000]to make you a better version of yourself,
- [00:12:06.270]to do better versions of your previous and past work.
- [00:12:11.460]And one of the things that those two really taught me
- [00:12:18.240]was how to manage my mentorship.
- [00:12:24.030]Manage like do not be afraid to ask for what I need.
- [00:12:29.892]And whether or not they responded to that
- [00:12:33.840]in ways that were adequate or not
- [00:12:37.320]were indicators of whether or not that mentorship
- [00:12:39.900]should continue or not.
- [00:12:41.730]But that was a really different
- [00:12:44.250]kind of power relationship for me.
- [00:12:46.020]I remember how shocking that was.
- [00:12:49.170]And I think I would've-
- [00:12:50.746]What do you mean what do you mean by shocking?
- [00:12:52.470]Well, because when you tend to think of like...
- [00:12:56.190]When you tend to think of your advisor
- [00:12:58.140]or there's always, we have to recognize the power
- [00:13:00.990]relationships there, right? Absolutely.
- [00:13:02.280]Like, "That is the person."
- [00:13:05.850]But for both of them,
- [00:13:08.310]and at such a critical juncture in my educational career,
- [00:13:14.040]literally sitting down and saying,
- [00:13:15.997]"Okay, so this is what I'm envisioning,
- [00:13:18.120]what are you envisioning?"
- [00:13:20.550]And I think if it would've been just one,
- [00:13:22.050]that would've been like, "Oh, it's an anomaly,"
- [00:13:23.790]but it happened at the same time.
- [00:13:25.590]And both of them had a very similar approach to mentorship,
- [00:13:28.410]but were very people unto themselves, right?
- [00:13:31.140]Yeah, yeah.
- [00:13:31.973]And that really positioned me to think through
- [00:13:37.140]how to manage and show up
- [00:13:43.470]to ask for what I needed in mentorships
- [00:13:48.690]in ways that I might not have otherwise, right?
- [00:13:55.890]Yes, I don't know what I don't know,
- [00:13:59.250]but I can describe the area
- [00:14:02.130]around that hole in my knowledge, that gap in my knowledge.
- [00:14:06.540]And they're normally able to like figure out,
- [00:14:09.517]"Oh, that's what that is," right?
- [00:14:13.530]And so that was really foundational for me
- [00:14:17.730]to be able to show up and ask those questions
- [00:14:22.590]and kind of manage to an extent,
- [00:14:29.520]be in control of my own mentorship, not just, "Mentor me!"
- [00:14:34.440]Yes. "Love me!"
- [00:14:36.330]Well, that's a different issue altogether.
- [00:14:38.303]That is a different issue altogether.
- [00:14:41.130]Therapist.
- [00:14:41.963]So your mentor does not have to love you.
- [00:14:43.920]They don't! But they do have to
- [00:14:46.320]answer your questions.
- [00:14:47.370]They have to love though the idea of who you will become.
- [00:14:52.410]Yes.
- [00:14:53.730]And if they don't love the idea of who you will become,
- [00:14:56.550]I would argue you need to find a different mentor.
- [00:14:59.190]No, I completely agree.
- [00:15:00.750]So if you're starting to
- [00:15:01.680]feel that drift, yes. This is my angry face.
- [00:15:03.900]If you start feeling that drift
- [00:15:05.490]where somebody's trying to take you somewhere
- [00:15:07.530]that you really don't want to go,
- [00:15:09.810]that's the time to have some serious conversations.
- [00:15:13.290]GTFO.
- [00:15:15.840]No, don't ask me to describe it.
- [00:15:17.340]Okay. If you know, you know.
- [00:15:18.774](Guy laughing)
- [00:15:21.060]I do not know,
- [00:15:22.020]so I will wonder about this the rest of the day.
- [00:15:24.492]But-
- [00:15:26.460]Tell Guy what it is in the comments.
- [00:15:29.130]All right!
- [00:15:31.620]I will look for that.
- [00:15:33.030]So there's this idea of mentorship
- [00:15:37.380]and you need to come into the mentorship,
- [00:15:39.420]this is what I'm hearing,
- [00:15:41.070]asking the questions and really creating that structure.
- [00:15:45.030]Because otherwise a mentor will take you
- [00:15:48.030]in the direction they're thinking about.
- [00:15:49.620]They will have a vision for you,
- [00:15:51.750]but that might not fit for you.
- [00:15:53.310]And what you need to explore is that dance of
- [00:15:56.460]there is a power imbalance, but you have an agenda.
- [00:15:59.910]And what I kept saying,
- [00:16:01.200]especially as graduate chair in our department,
- [00:16:04.080]to graduate students who are unsure about their mentors,
- [00:16:07.770]their formal mentors, and they came to ask about,
- [00:16:10.747]"Should I stay? Should I change?"
- [00:16:13.230]My usual refrain is, it is your degree,
- [00:16:16.650]or if you are a young faculty member,
- [00:16:19.650]it is your tenure process.
- [00:16:21.360]And if that relationship is not working,
- [00:16:23.820]you should get a relationship that is working
- [00:16:26.040]because that person who's mentoring you
- [00:16:27.810]already has the degree or already has tenure
- [00:16:30.660]and has been promoted.
- [00:16:31.950]So they're where they need to be.
- [00:16:33.480]You need to get where you need to be.
- [00:16:35.003]If that mentorship is not working,
- [00:16:38.400]and obviously that's not an easy decision
- [00:16:40.500]and not a decision you make on a dime
- [00:16:42.120]and you don't change mentors five, seven times,
- [00:16:44.370]but if that relationship over time
- [00:16:46.530]is not proving productive, you really do need to change it.
- [00:16:50.190]Because you will not be successful
- [00:16:52.080]if it's somebody you don't feel comfortable
- [00:16:53.640]having conversations with,
- [00:16:55.080]they're not answering the questions you have
- [00:16:57.090]in ways that help you, then it's just not gonna work.
- [00:17:01.740]I mean, it is very complicated at that moment
- [00:17:04.770]because there's emotions and there's the power imbalance.
- [00:17:07.620]So saying to somebody who has more power than you
- [00:17:09.540]and has a decision and will affect whatever happens to you
- [00:17:14.220]is always hard,
- [00:17:16.800]but if you need the change, you need the change.
- [00:17:19.770]Right, I mean, 'cause ultimately
- [00:17:22.620]a graduate program is like
- [00:17:28.799]a promise to your future self.
- [00:17:30.000]It's who you want to become.
- [00:17:32.880]And mentorship is really about people supporting that vision
- [00:17:37.590]and moving you toward that goal.
- [00:17:39.840]So if there's a disconnect in terms of
- [00:17:42.930]the person you want to become
- [00:17:44.910]through your engagement in this PhD program,
- [00:17:47.059]EDD program, master's program, whatever it is,
- [00:17:51.000]that's a core problem, right?
- [00:17:54.000]So when you are thinking about,
- [00:17:57.147]and I think we talked about this in a previous podcast,
- [00:17:59.460]when you're thinking about where you're applying,
- [00:18:01.890]reaching out to people and saying,
- [00:18:06.187]"What is your mentorship style?
- [00:18:07.830]This is what I want to do.
- [00:18:09.180]How will you help me work towards this?
- [00:18:13.170]How will you help me get to that place?"
- [00:18:15.960]Because ultimately that's your goal, right?
- [00:18:19.620]And a good test of that would be
- [00:18:22.380]if you're applying for an institution
- [00:18:24.120]and you're thinking of somebody as a mentor,
- [00:18:27.270]to have a conversation, an email conversation is one,
- [00:18:30.450]a physical conversation,
- [00:18:31.710]whether it is through electronic means or in person,
- [00:18:34.650]is even more powerful.
- [00:18:37.530]And it'll immediately tell you,
- [00:18:39.120]if somebody says, "No, I don't have time for you,"
- [00:18:41.550]it doesn't mean they will not be a good mentor,
- [00:18:43.740]but it's at least a sign of,
- [00:18:46.200]I don't know if this is the right person for you,
- [00:18:48.690]because right now they don't have time.
- [00:18:51.420]Now, I know people feel very differently about their time.
- [00:18:54.360]I can see that face, but-
- [00:18:56.430]No, do you know what this face is?
- [00:18:58.350]This face is, "The next two weeks-"
- [00:19:00.480]We're filming this two weeks before Thanksgiving.
- [00:19:03.210]Yes, it depends on when.
- [00:19:05.640]Literally my calendar is just block
- [00:19:07.320]after block after block.
- [00:19:08.340]And so I have sent out that email this week.
- [00:19:10.560]Like, "I don't have time now."
- [00:19:12.607]"But..." "But..."
- [00:19:13.800]Yes, "I will be happy to talk to you-"
- [00:19:15.727]"I've already drafted and saved an email
- [00:19:18.750]that we'll send to you on December 2nd
- [00:19:20.173]and we can talk then, but I need to get through."
- [00:19:23.280]I mean, do not expect people
- [00:19:24.680]to be able to talk to you on a dime.
- [00:19:26.280]Like, you email me today, I'm super happy,
- [00:19:29.970]but it might take two or three weeks
- [00:19:31.530]until we have free time.
- [00:19:33.570]But I will have to say, I have a number of graduate students
- [00:19:36.840]right now in our programs that are close to finishing
- [00:19:39.360]where the relationship started with a coffee,
- [00:19:44.010]even if they drove down from South Dakota,
- [00:19:46.290]a coffee where they came to town, they saw town,
- [00:19:49.560]they talked to me, they talked to a few other people
- [00:19:51.990]and they found their place here.
- [00:19:53.550]But those were really, really productive.
- [00:19:55.800]By the way, it's a great way to recruit too.
- [00:19:57.780]But you get a sense...
- [00:20:00.870]Always recruiting.
- [00:20:01.703]Always recruiting. ABR.
- [00:20:03.450]Yes. Always be recruiting.
- [00:20:04.283]I'm full of the acronyms today.
- [00:20:05.850]Yes, and so from my perspective, at least,
- [00:20:11.580]you want to have that conversation.
- [00:20:13.230]You want to feel that somebody is really interested in you.
- [00:20:15.840]They have a vision that you can share,
- [00:20:17.730]even if it's very, very, very entry vision.
- [00:20:20.940]Because often when I talk to
- [00:20:22.770]potential doctoral students especially,
- [00:20:26.490]they have a vision that's very limited.
- [00:20:28.290]Because if nobody in your family
- [00:20:31.140]has ever done anything like that,
- [00:20:33.030]and even again, as my case,
- [00:20:34.680]both my parents have graduate degrees,
- [00:20:38.040]my dad was a researcher, I knew nothing.
- [00:20:40.260]I needed to be walked through the process.
- [00:20:42.360]What are the expectations?
- [00:20:44.070]What can it look like?
- [00:20:46.110]What am I able to do?
- [00:20:47.580]Because when I came, I thought,
- [00:20:48.997]"I'm coming for a master's.
- [00:20:50.280]I'm coming for one year,
- [00:20:51.240]and then I'm going back into teaching."
- [00:20:53.310]And it did not turn out that way.
- [00:20:55.283]I mean, I am teaching, but at the university level.
- [00:20:59.790]So these things are not necessarily what you walk in in.
- [00:21:04.050]So often I will have that conversation
- [00:21:07.290]and just suggest a few things.
- [00:21:08.760]A few ideas to think about.
- [00:21:11.040]Not necessarily, "You have to do this,"
- [00:21:13.620]but, "Here's some things I know that happen to
- [00:21:18.420]people who walk into graduate programs."
- [00:21:21.390]Because the doctoral program takes four to five years
- [00:21:24.270]for most people, sometimes even more,
- [00:21:27.390]you change throughout that process,
- [00:21:29.310]so you will not be the same person as you entered.
- [00:21:31.650]And that mentorship is also imagining potential futures
- [00:21:37.020]and preparing for some of those potential futures
- [00:21:39.690]that you slowly co-create and eventually get to a point
- [00:21:43.410]where there's a mutual understanding of,
- [00:21:45.217]"These are the things we're preparing you
- [00:21:46.950]and that we think would be good for you,"
- [00:21:49.080]and obviously you as a mentee are fully in and say,
- [00:21:54.277]"This is what I want."
- [00:21:55.830]And so that's really where that conversation
- [00:22:01.110]keeps going back to, is can we start at different points
- [00:22:05.400]and start seeing what are the paths
- [00:22:07.500]and what are the doors that open because of graduate school,
- [00:22:10.200]and mentorship is there
- [00:22:11.340]because otherwise half of these things
- [00:22:13.410]you don't know anymore.
- [00:22:15.630]And I think it's important to, like I said before,
- [00:22:19.050]think through not just a single mentor,
- [00:22:21.870]but multiple perspectives around mentorship, right?
- [00:22:25.890]Like I had the structural, I had the technical,
- [00:22:27.930]and then I had kind of a pragmatic everyday kind of stuff.
- [00:22:32.910]So it's very rare that you'll find
- [00:22:36.360]someone who can do all of that in one package, right?
- [00:22:41.670]Yeah. I think it's highly unlikely.
- [00:22:46.200]And I think also you don't want that in many ways.
- [00:22:49.763]I think you want multiple people.
- [00:22:51.690]Mentorship is not a super Target,
- [00:22:53.310]where you can pick up your food and your bins
- [00:22:59.280]and then all this other extraneous stuff
- [00:23:01.350]because that's what you do when you Target, right?
- [00:23:03.810]It's more like Main Street
- [00:23:05.610]where you've got specific shops for specific stuff,
- [00:23:08.550]and that's okay.
- [00:23:10.230]Yeah, and for me, for example, later in my career,
- [00:23:12.990]so as a young faculty member,
- [00:23:14.430]I had formal mentorship here at UNL,
- [00:23:16.740]and then informal mentorship
- [00:23:18.990]where I would check in with people.
- [00:23:21.330]But on top of that, at one point or another,
- [00:23:25.050]Freddie Hebert connected with me and Kathy Wilson
- [00:23:28.260]and we did some work together,
- [00:23:29.490]and that was really mentorship.
- [00:23:31.410]She's, for example, the first person
- [00:23:33.660]who really showed me how to craft a manuscript.
- [00:23:36.300]So that happened after graduate school.
- [00:23:38.730]After I was here,
- [00:23:39.990]somebody finally showed me some moves in writing.
- [00:23:42.990]Then I'm like, "Why didn't anybody
- [00:23:45.540]tell me about this before?"
- [00:23:47.820]Partially because Lee Swanson,
- [00:23:50.790]who was my dissertation advisor,
- [00:23:55.320]we wrote a few things together,
- [00:23:56.820]but his writing was very technical.
- [00:23:59.970]He did a lot of basic science.
- [00:24:01.440]We wrote together, it's great, I love Lee,
- [00:24:04.440]but it was not very transparent.
- [00:24:06.600]I think we both struggled through it.
- [00:24:09.390]But you succeeded!
- [00:24:10.290]We both succeed.
- [00:24:11.520]He succeeded beyond anything
- [00:24:15.750]that I would probably ever do.
- [00:24:18.990]So that's productive.
- [00:24:20.700]But I collected, and throughout my life
- [00:24:23.910]I've collected mentors.
- [00:24:25.410]And what you have to remember, that every time you enter
- [00:24:28.290]that relationship as a mentee, there's a power imbalance.
- [00:24:31.860]You cannot expect, you are not at the same level.
- [00:24:35.697]And that's fine,
- [00:24:36.690]that's why you are entering that relationship.
- [00:24:38.490]That person is helping apprentice you
- [00:24:41.550]into a certain segment of what you wanna become.
- [00:24:44.550]And that is productive for a while.
- [00:24:47.310]And some relationships last, and some relationships stop.
- [00:24:50.700]And that's fine.
- [00:24:51.540]Also if you get, and I'm thinking about myself here,
- [00:24:56.250]most of the people that mentored me early on, for example,
- [00:24:59.520]have retired a long time ago.
- [00:25:01.530]So it can't be an ongoing relationship.
- [00:25:05.220]Or it just changes, like, "How do you retire?
- [00:25:07.650]What does life look like after retirement?"
- [00:25:09.720]Mentorship doesn't just stop, right?
- [00:25:11.790]It just...
- [00:25:12.623]Yes, it keeps evolving. Perhaps the structure
- [00:25:15.000]changes, right?
- [00:25:18.420]So if we're thinking about,
- [00:25:19.410]this kind of makes me think about the role of
- [00:25:22.230]having informal mentors, right?
- [00:25:24.690]We've been talking a lot about advisors
- [00:25:27.060]and really kind of official mentorship positions,
- [00:25:30.780]but it's equally as important to have
- [00:25:34.890]kind of these informal mentorship relationships.
- [00:25:39.660]And so as you're thinking about your own career,
- [00:25:44.940]how have you built up some of those informal mentorship
- [00:25:51.000]kind of situations for yourself?
- [00:25:52.860]And your example about writing a manuscript
- [00:25:55.980]was perfect, right?
- [00:25:57.090]This is something that you didn't learn
- [00:25:59.490]in your grad program.
- [00:26:01.830]Freddie stepped in and kind of gave you
- [00:26:06.180]some insights around that,
- [00:26:07.290]whether that was what her target was or not.
- [00:26:12.960]I can't say what she was thinking at the time.
- [00:26:15.540]It's hard to know what Freddie is thinking
- [00:26:16.980]at any point in time, but!
- [00:26:19.083]But, I would argue having watched her
- [00:26:21.360]over the last probably 15, 16 years,
- [00:26:25.680]I would argue that's what she does,
- [00:26:27.330]is she finds younger faculty, wherever they may be,
- [00:26:30.360]that she thinks have potential
- [00:26:32.850]and can do some interesting work
- [00:26:34.500]and encourages them and gives them some support
- [00:26:37.080]and opportunity sometimes.
- [00:26:38.880]And so there are people like that,
- [00:26:41.790]who really think about mentorship
- [00:26:45.060]as a major part of their contribution to the profession.
- [00:26:48.390]And I think when I think about my own mentorship
- [00:26:53.040]towards others, I think about it as my legacy.
- [00:26:57.780]Because programs that we build will come and go
- [00:27:01.320]and structures and ideas that you have
- [00:27:05.220]or grants come and go, everything comes and goes,
- [00:27:08.040]but if you mentor people
- [00:27:10.320]that go into the profession and keep working,
- [00:27:12.750]then you've got a number of people
- [00:27:14.640]that you've contributed to that keep doing the work
- [00:27:18.540]in different institutions.
- [00:27:20.760]And by the way, I'm not just talking about academia.
- [00:27:23.070]Even if they go and they manage a community college
- [00:27:26.760]or they keep teaching 8th grade English, it does not matter.
- [00:27:31.770]There's a piece of what we've developed together, really,
- [00:27:36.060]what you've taught,
- [00:27:36.893]but really what we've developed together that keeps going.
- [00:27:39.030]And that's for me the the enduring legacy.
- [00:27:42.780]And so that helps me let go of things that stop, right?
- [00:27:47.940]That you build and you put your everything into,
- [00:27:51.690]but mentorship is one of those things.
- [00:27:53.460]And I keep in touch with most of my mentees,
- [00:27:57.051]even after graduate school.
- [00:27:58.620]This is why he sends 2,000 emails a week.
- [00:28:01.408](Guy laughing)
- [00:28:03.330]But we keep in touch, we keep meeting,
- [00:28:05.280]and that's an opportunity to grow.
- [00:28:07.200]Also, I'll be honest, partially it is,
- [00:28:09.600]especially because those who are become faculty members
- [00:28:13.080]sometimes end up in institutions
- [00:28:14.580]that don't have formal mentorship
- [00:28:16.620]or even informal mentorship.
- [00:28:18.810]And so they're a little bit lost
- [00:28:21.210]and you still want everybody to be successful
- [00:28:23.160]even though it's not the job anymore,
- [00:28:25.890]but it is because, again, going back to legacy,
- [00:28:29.070]if somebody can be successful, get to tenure,
- [00:28:31.440]and keep producing interesting work,
- [00:28:34.680]then we've all won I think.
- [00:28:38.160]I'll sign onto that.
- [00:28:40.350]But back to how do you get informal mentors,
- [00:28:43.020]some people will approach you.
- [00:28:45.540]Inside your institutions, get to know people.
- [00:28:47.490]I just land, I always did this,
- [00:28:49.860]I landed in people's offices.
- [00:28:51.300]If there was somebody that I saw somewhere
- [00:28:53.250]and was interesting, sometimes I would send in an email,
- [00:28:56.910]but if they were in their office,
- [00:28:58.110]I would just knock on the door
- [00:28:59.400]and go and have a conversation.
- [00:29:01.140]And sometimes it developed into something
- [00:29:03.000]and sometimes it was just a conversation.
- [00:29:05.340]And so I learned to be social and to really rely on that-
- [00:29:10.830]Wait.
- [00:29:11.760]I learned to be social.
- [00:29:12.839]There was a time where you weren't social?
- [00:29:14.250]Yes, very much so.
- [00:29:15.660]Is there a video? I'm actually-
- [00:29:17.795]Yes, probably.
- [00:29:20.573]Who has this, 'cause I need to find it?
- [00:29:23.118]So just full disclosure, I'm actually fairly shy.
- [00:29:29.520]We've had this conversation before.
- [00:29:30.980]I am fairly shy. I know, and I still think
- [00:29:32.100]you're lying to me.
- [00:29:34.260]These conversations are hard.
- [00:29:35.940]Another place to have a lot of good conversations
- [00:29:38.910]and potentially pick mentors is when you go to conferences,
- [00:29:41.940]but that means you gotta go and be social.
- [00:29:44.190]Go to dinners.
- [00:29:45.090]You don't need those big meetings.
- [00:29:47.670]The big receptions are often not a very good place
- [00:29:51.720]because it's noisy.
- [00:29:52.830]Especially for me, the combination of evening,
- [00:29:56.160]potentially one drink, and the noise level
- [00:29:59.130]in one of these ballrooms
- [00:30:00.600]does not really create a good conversation of any kind
- [00:30:04.560]except about the weather or something like that,
- [00:30:06.840]or the pate or whatever's going on there.
- [00:30:09.570]The pate.
- [00:30:10.522]Pate,
- [00:30:11.550]I don't know what they...
- [00:30:12.600]What do they serve?
- [00:30:14.070]I try to stay away.
- [00:30:15.090]I don't know, I've never been to one that has pate though.
- [00:30:16.950]I wanna go to that SIG.
- [00:30:18.570]All right.
- [00:30:19.950]They've got money. But go to, for example,
- [00:30:22.110]ARA, the example of the smaller groups.
- [00:30:24.390]So the SIGs, the places where you're gonna find
- [00:30:28.080]15 to 20 people, those are the places you wanna be
- [00:30:31.200]because then you can have conversations
- [00:30:32.850]and once in a while there might be a relationship
- [00:30:35.580]that can develop a little bit further.
- [00:30:38.130]The other side of this, and I do wanna say this
- [00:30:40.710]because that's important to say,
- [00:30:41.820]on the formal side, many universities,
- [00:30:43.920]many more universities, ours definitely
- [00:30:46.200]have formal mentorship structures beyond your advisor.
- [00:30:50.850]So we have a program where you can have a mentor
- [00:30:53.700]from another university, and that is really powerful
- [00:30:58.140]because you're networking,
- [00:30:59.310]because you're getting totally different input
- [00:31:01.140]than the thing you can get just from the people you know
- [00:31:03.750]right around here,
- [00:31:04.890]and that's a whole new level of mentorship.
- [00:31:08.490]And if there is an opportunity like that in an institution,
- [00:31:11.490]you should always grab it
- [00:31:13.380]because it's supported, it's formalized,
- [00:31:16.800]so there are points of contact,
- [00:31:18.480]then especially if you are more shy,
- [00:31:21.150]that's an opportunity to have that relationship.
- [00:31:23.880]And that was my discovery after I graduated,
- [00:31:27.720]is I need to do a much better job finding people
- [00:31:33.240]and having these conversations.
- [00:31:34.830]And I've developed those skills.
- [00:31:36.150]And especially if English is not your first language,
- [00:31:38.220]that's always a little bit harder.
- [00:31:40.740]I think it's easier now, but it's still,
- [00:31:43.500]there are still difficult moments in that space.
- [00:31:48.300]Did I ever tell you about my conference game?
- [00:31:50.190]Or I shouldn't say my conference game?
- [00:31:51.630]I didn't own it.
- [00:31:52.980]Yeah? But it was a conference game
- [00:31:54.390]that we played, my academic siblings and I
- [00:31:56.520]played in grad school,
- [00:31:57.780]where when we would go to a conference,
- [00:32:02.790]we had to talk to three new people.
- [00:32:05.370]Oh, wow.
- [00:32:06.690]For at least 10 minutes.
- [00:32:11.040]And there was no prize,
- [00:32:12.480]but there was something about being the first one done,
- [00:32:15.210]which was never me.
- [00:32:17.940]Ever. I never won that symbolic prize.
- [00:32:21.990]But it forced me, who is a bit more of an introvert.
- [00:32:28.620]I was built for this pandemic.
- [00:32:30.600]I was built to stay home
- [00:32:34.350]and live unto my own little world.
- [00:32:37.500]But it really forced me to go out there and be like,
- [00:32:40.027]"Hey, who are you? What do you do?
- [00:32:44.040]Let's talk."
- [00:32:45.810]And actually some really interesting mentorship
- [00:32:49.140]came out of those conversations,
- [00:32:51.360]because I met not only other faculty,
- [00:32:54.900]but other grad students
- [00:32:56.940]who were being trained differently than I was.
- [00:33:01.530]And so we were able to compare notes,
- [00:33:03.210]and that in and of itself became kind of like this,
- [00:33:07.967]I don't know if it was necessarily mentorship,
- [00:33:09.600]but there was definitely a lot of learning
- [00:33:11.310]about how to be in this academic space.
- [00:33:15.750]Whereas there were other more formal mentorships
- [00:33:18.510]that came out of those conversations as well
- [00:33:21.660]around just how to do this work.
- [00:33:26.430]Yeah, and for me as a mentor now,
- [00:33:30.150]there's specific work I do at conferences,
- [00:33:32.970]and that is I meet with any of my students
- [00:33:35.880]or anybody actually from our program
- [00:33:37.650]that's at the conference,
- [00:33:39.330]or at least keep an invitation open.
- [00:33:41.910]Either breakfast or a coffee
- [00:33:43.470]or something at least once a day just to debrief
- [00:33:46.050]about what did you find and give recommendations
- [00:33:49.950]and opportunities.
- [00:33:51.300]And often what happens in that space is people come by
- [00:33:54.840]that know me or know somebody else there,
- [00:33:57.210]and so there's introductions all around that again,
- [00:33:59.880]creates that familiarity effect.
- [00:34:02.730]Where the first time you see that person,
- [00:34:04.800]you just kind of wave and they see your face.
- [00:34:06.810]By the third time, there's a conversation
- [00:34:10.260]and there's potentially an opportunity
- [00:34:12.480]or they tell you about their presentation and you hop by,
- [00:34:16.200]and suddenly it's a second time they've seen you
- [00:34:18.390]and you have a conversation right after the presentation.
- [00:34:20.310]I mean, there's lots of ways to construct that.
- [00:34:22.410]And so from a mentorship perspective, if you are the mentor,
- [00:34:25.170]there are lots of opportunities in that space
- [00:34:28.710]to support students and to give them that jumping off point,
- [00:34:31.470]whether it's...
- [00:34:33.060]The three person game,
- [00:34:34.020]I like that competition. Yeah, it was fun.
- [00:34:36.900]Also, so Karen was also really good at
- [00:34:39.600]introducing grad students to, "Okay, Jennifer Rozel."
- [00:34:46.080]Or Jim Ger.
- [00:34:51.630]Toning down of the research superstars.
- [00:34:57.720]Newsflash, they're just like you.
- [00:35:00.960]So toning that down and being able to have conversations
- [00:35:05.190]and be like, "Hey Jennifer, how are you?
- [00:35:09.240]How is England?"
- [00:35:11.010]And being able to have those conversations
- [00:35:12.870]and the insights into, what does her career look like now?
- [00:35:16.770]What should I be looking toward in the future?
- [00:35:19.110]Et cetera, et cetera.
- [00:35:19.943]So thinking about mentorship
- [00:35:24.180]is also helping students create these social networks,
- [00:35:27.540]your grad students create these social networks,
- [00:35:28.860]I think it's really important,
- [00:35:30.120]and I really benefited from that as a doc student.
- [00:35:35.460]All right, so today we talked about mentorship.
- [00:35:37.860]We talked about mentorship.
- [00:35:39.270]So two pieces of advice for mentorship.
- [00:35:42.330]For? Graduate students.
- [00:35:43.560]For graduate students. Okay.
- [00:35:44.940]So...
- [00:35:50.580]Be clear about what you need.
- [00:35:52.950]And by that I mean sometimes you're not gonna know
- [00:35:55.680]exactly what you need,
- [00:35:56.513]but you're gonna know the space around it.
- [00:35:57.840]You're gonna know the edges of what you know.
- [00:36:00.300]And a good mentor should be able to help you
- [00:36:02.760]fill in that hole and think about
- [00:36:04.830]how to actually address that hole.
- [00:36:06.780]Also, don't be afraid to ask for that mentorship.
- [00:36:14.250]Ask for specific things.
- [00:36:18.840]And a good mentor will help you through those things,
- [00:36:24.420]help you determine whether or not they're as important.
- [00:36:26.760]Certain things that I thought was super important
- [00:36:28.440]weren't actually that important,
- [00:36:31.350]but they'll guide you into other things
- [00:36:33.660]that are more important.
- [00:36:34.493]What are your two?
- [00:36:35.370]My two are, first of all, you don't need just one mentor,
- [00:36:39.810]you need a few mentors.
- [00:36:41.880]One may be formal,
- [00:36:43.050]but you need to seek those informal opportunities
- [00:36:45.480]and grow that network of mentors
- [00:36:47.640]that can teach you different things.
- [00:36:49.440]And the second thing is, if it really isn't working,
- [00:36:53.400]you should probably start looking at other options
- [00:36:56.820]to make sure that you are getting what you need.
- [00:36:58.653]Then you can be successful.
- [00:37:00.420]Ooh, can I add a 0.5?
- [00:37:01.645]Yes, 0.5. 2.5. 2.5 tips.
- [00:37:04.350]So to piggyback off that last one,
- [00:37:06.900]be okay with some level of discomfort.
- [00:37:08.850]Yeah.
- [00:37:10.230]Growth is hard.
- [00:37:11.550]Learning is tricky.
- [00:37:12.900]It's not easy.
- [00:37:13.800]If it's easy, we're not doing it right.
- [00:37:17.100]Yeah. Absolutely.
- [00:37:18.480]There's always tension, I agree.
- [00:37:20.430]So and being okay with that tension
- [00:37:24.600]around what's being asked of you
- [00:37:26.460]and understanding that your mentor's gonna be
- [00:37:29.790]asking things of you wherein you might fail.
- [00:37:34.080]Absolutely. But that's kind of built in.
- [00:37:36.686]That's learning, right? That's learning
- [00:37:38.907]and that's how you discover where your strengths are
- [00:37:41.371]and what are the things you need to grow in
- [00:37:43.740]and what direction do you wanna take.
- [00:37:46.140]And your mentor also doesn't know
- [00:37:48.540]exactly where your strengths are.
- [00:37:50.100]There's no magic way to look at a person and say,
- [00:37:52.267]"Oh, I know exactly what you need."
- [00:37:55.170]Because we really don't, especially early on.
- [00:37:57.480]Alexa can't do that yet?
- [00:37:58.560]There's no app for that yet?
- [00:38:00.390]There should...
- [00:38:01.223]$1 million idea, design an app that does just that.
- [00:38:05.460]Find Your Strengths 2.0!
- [00:38:07.210]Isn't that a book? That's a book.
- [00:38:08.758]I feel like that's a book.
- [00:38:09.750]Probably.
- [00:38:11.040]There's so many strength finders.
- [00:38:13.680]I don't think it helps you in graduate school.
- [00:38:15.870]Yeah, I think I got that book on a second date once,
- [00:38:18.420]and I'm trying to figure out why
- [00:38:20.760]now that I'm thinking about it, but yes!
- [00:38:22.350]Okay. Mentorship.
- [00:38:23.280]That's neither here nor there.
- [00:38:24.240]Mentorship, we've talked informal, we've talked formal.
- [00:38:28.560]Find them, they're important.
- [00:38:29.928]All right.
- [00:38:31.112](upbeat groovy music)
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