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Advice for Grad School from AboutToBeDr

chemistry

This post is from an awesome amazing graduate student woman of color. She is successfully navigating graduate school, and is almost done with her thesis.  I asked her to share her wisdom for future, new, and current graduate students. Remember, you can follow this blog by clicking the +Follow button. You can also lead this blog by posting comments and your own posts, like this one. Enjoy!

Entering my first year of graduate school I knew that it was going to be different from my undergraduate experience, but I really had no idea what I was getting into.  There isn’t a “Graduate School 101” course to take to learn the ins and outs of this academic journey.  Here are 10 tips and wisdom that I have acquired going through my Ph.D. program.

  1. Forget about imposter syndrome.  This is better known as the “I am stupid and I do not deserve to be here” feeling. Many underrepresented minorities and women especially experience this feeling throughout their graduate school career.  Your admittance into the program was not by mistake.  You have earned where you are and though there are times where you will feel like you do not belong, just know that you do.
  2. Pick a supportive advisor. Picking an advisor is one of the most important decisions you will ever make in graduate school.  It really is a “match-making” experience.  They have expectations of you and you have expectation of them.  This person should care about your overall career goals and help you along the way to achieve them.  For example, my advisor understands my need for structured independence.  He empowers me to take control of my project and teaches the other graduate students  and me to be confident in our work.  I honestly believe I hit the jackpot in finding my advisor because we work well and understand each other. The relationship between advisor and advisee evolves along the way in graduate school.  So choose with your gut and if you feel like something is off with a particular person trust it.
  3. Surround yourself with mentor(s) from different fields of study. Your advisor can be your mentor, but should not be your only mentor.  I personally have about three mentors who help me with various situations.  For science and career advice I usually contact my undergraduate advisor.  For navigating life as a female of color, I have a former sociology professor I have known since I was 18.  You get the idea.  Each mentor knows different part of my life and they help me navigate my present dilemma or triumphs.
  4. Do well in your classes. Just because you have your Bachelors in whatever field you are going to graduate school for does not mean you are an expert.  Study!  Graduate school teaches you to think more in-depth about a subject.  It is an overall training to become a critical thinker.  College was about scratching the surface of your desired subject and graduate school will be a full immersion process.
  5. Be humble and open to new experiences. You will learn how to think and approach situations differently.  Learning is a collaborative process and with this collaboration, respect for others is essential.  In summary, do not be a “know-it-all” and shut people out.
  6. Take care of yourself. Take a break everyday to do something you love other than your studies.  Sometimes stepping away from something for even an hour can give you a new set of eyes the next time around.
  7. Every opportunity is a networking opportunity.  Talk to a faculty member or a student you do not know at a seminar or a department gathering.  Go to conferences and make it a goal to introduce yourself to someone prominent in your field.  You never know if that conversation would turn into an opportunity for future employment or collaboration.
  8. Be involved on your campus and/or in your department. Taking a leadership role in your department or on campus can be beneficial in your own social life personally and for your career.  Personally, if you are organizing gatherings for graduate students you will interact with people who are going through the same process as you.  This can be rather comforting and supportive during rough times.  Career-wise if you are organizing something like a departmental seminar series with other students you will interact with people in various fields and this could lead to future opportunities.
  9. Swallow your pride and ask for help.  I say this because I use to be the person that would try to learn at other people’s pace.  When I did not understand the material right away, I would be too embarrassed to ask questions and I would not learn it.  This was detrimental to my learning process and resulted in failing my first class in graduate school.  Ask as many questions as you can and do not be afraid to have meetings with professors outside of class to go over material.  Study groups with other students in your class are also very helpful.  Make a habit of swallowing your pride and admitting when you do not understand something.
  10. You are not alone. Graduate school is an emotional rollercoaster and more of an endurance race than anything.  The people before you and certainly after you will experience the same ups and downs.  Have a positive outlet or someone who will share in your achievements and your failures.

What do you think? Have other advise? Post or comment.

Category:

Career, GradSchool, Mentoring, Networking, New Job, Self-Promotion, StereotypeThreat, TimeManagement, WomenRock

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Applying for Postdocs

Although the Fall is traditional application season, applying for postdocs can occur at any time. Unlike other jobs in academia that have start dates that coincide with semesters, postdoc start dates start when the money and the person coincide. You still have to apply for postdocs.

In my experience from the application side and the hiring side, are that hiring postdocs are extremely flexible and somewhat informal. When I was looking for a postdoc, my husband already had a postdoc offer at FancyIvyLeagueUniversity. We didn’t want to be apart, and were both graduating with our Ph.D.s at the same time. So, I had a targeted place to go for my postdoc. I saw a FancyBigShotProfessor from FancyIvyLeagueUniversity at a conference, and I went up to him and told him that I needed a postdoc at his university. He invited me to give a talk at his group meeting. FancyIvyLeagueUniversity was across the country from UniversityofState where I was getting my Ph.D., so I bought a plane ticket and went up and down the coast giving the talk at a number of places set up by graduate student friends. By the time I gave the talk at FILU, I was very prepared. FancyBigShotProfessor invited two other FancyBigShotProfessors to my talk, and they offered me a position doing a joint project with them. I feel like this was all very fortuitous and lucky. Or was it shameless self-promotion and crazy networking at a conference?

From the other side, as a professor hiring postdoc, I am trying to figure out what I think about when hiring. First, I very carefully read the letters from the recommenders. I often even call the recommenders on the phone and ask very specific questions about what I need from a postdoc at that time. Next, if the application looks good, and the letters and recommenders gave me what I need to know, I will bring the person for an interview. In the interview, the person will give  talk on their research. Can he/she communicate science to a general audience? He/she will meet with me and other faculty members in the group close to my own research. Most importantly, the candidate will meet and possible have a meal with the members of the lab. This is a crucial part of the interview. I need to know if this person will get along with other people in the lab. Can he/she be a mentor to the younger members of the lab?

So, the basic application for a postdoc can be anything from virtually nothing, as in my case when I applied, to a true full-fledged application process, like how I hire postdocs. The full-fledged application involves your complete CV, a cover letter (can be an email), and 2-3 letters of recommendation from people who know your research well from your Ph.D. Some people just ask for the recommenders’ information, so the PI can call or ask for the letters via email.

Do you have advise or information on your postdoc application experience? If so, post, or write a comment!

Category:

Applying, Career, Networking, New Job, Self-Promotion, Two-BodyProblem

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Application Season

Well, it’s Fall again. It’s getting cooler, time to start new classes, and the time of year for academic applications of varying kinds. As you may be aware, academia’s clock is typically a 9 month affair. All transitions start with Fall-time applications: high school → college, college → graduate school, postdoc → faculty. The ability to put together your application, get an interview, and make it to the next level is essential to a successful academic career. Being that it is the application time of year, I thought we could have some posts on how to apply. That being said, I need your help! I cannot remember what it was like to be a high school student applying to college. I vaguely remember applying to graduate school. I remember through cloudy lenses what it was like to apply for tenure track jobs, but I only applied once to one kind of place, and there are so many options. So, send a post or a comment!

Category:

Career, Networking, New Job

One WomanOfScience’s Story

Although I hope that multiple WomenOfScience will write up about how they decided to have kids, and how they managed after actually having them, I will start off with my own story. I had my first as a postdoc and my second as an Assistant Professor just before submitting my tenure packet. I will discuss the decision to have the first one, which is the big leap of faith in yourself and your career.

Deciding when: For me, and my HusbandOfScience, there were two big pieces to deciding when to have kids. First, was personal: we had both gone through health scares that turned out to be better than we feared, but got us to thinking. If this chronic heath problem or possible reproductive issue was a major problem, than waiting to have kids could be, at best, a huge burden, and at worst, impossible. We became very motivated to have kids at a young age. The second consideration was when, within our career trajectories, could we have kids so that it would be least disruptive to us. We decided that, for us, it would be easiest after we were in our postdocs and had things “working.” For us that meant that we each had new work in publication format. We knew how to get the data and write it up working with our new advisors. For us, that seemed to be a good time. In a sense, the ball was rolling, so it was easier to keep it rolling.

Life with belly: Most of my pregnancy was fine. At some point I felt huge, and was huge as evidenced by the number of people who asked if I was having twins (no). At the very end, within the last 1-2 months of my pregnancy, my belly became an obstruction to my work. I was literally sterically hindered from accessing regions of my experiment, and had to call it quits on a number of specific tasks. I was a frustrated at the time, because I didn’t realize how short a time 1-2 months is in the trajectory of your career path. Yes, I could not bend over that thing to adjust that knob, but I could take data, I could analyze data, I could write papers. Many parts of my job were fine. In fact, I felt pressure to get many loose ends tied up before the big day. I was actually especially productive. Looking back, I realize that this period, which was frustrating at the time because I needed help on certain tasks, was not slow in any way. Another unique thing that happened while I was pregnant was that I went on the job market. If anyone suspected my condition during the interview, they did not mention it. I think that it is more likely that many scientists are too oblivious to notice the way people look. They either saw me as fat or didn’t notice at all. When I had offers, I was pleasantly surprised that several chairs were happy that I was having kids. My field is full of mostly men who are breeders, and they used the same criteria for me as for men with kids, which is having kids would make me more stable, less likely to pick up and take a different job. I realize that this might be atypical, but gives me hope that the world is changing.

Life with baby: When my baby came, everything was healthy and normal. I was in a lot of pain with mild postpartum depression, like many other women. At first, I felt like I didn’t want to be apart from my baby. But, within a month of being tied to the baby and the house, I was ready to get the hell out of there. After 4 weeks, I went back one day. That day was amazing! I could check my email, have adult, science conversations, and felt more normal and myself. After 5 weeks, I went back 2 days. After 6 weeks, I was back 4 days a week. I kept that schedule for several months, working extra on the other days so that I could feel that I was getting enough done while still taking a day to be with baby. After 3 months, I went back 5 days per week. Again, all these times were not, necessarily low productivity. I learned how to be efficient with the short time I had. This schedule was facilitated by having a nearby grandma, but many daycares will let you do this type of easing into care, too. Another specific issue that men never have to deal with is pumping. I breastfed and pumped after returning to work. I was lucky that another WomanGraduateStudent in the lab had her baby about 6 months before I had mine, and had blazed the trail on how we would pump. There was a small, windowless equipment room that we would use. Although it had important equipment for the lab, we would ask to use it for 15-20 minutes when we needed to pump. We would lock the door and put up a sign. Although this was less than ideal, I did not have an office to myself to pump. I also did not want to pump in the bathroom (yuck!) or in my advisor’s office (awkward!). Again, this relatively short time in your life is annoying, but brief. After 6 months, I stopped pumping and got a lot of my life back in the lab.

Pre-tenure with baby: I went to my tenure-track job with an 11-month old baby. I never knew anything different because I always had a child while in my job. We had good infant / pre-school care that was open almost everyday (even many university holidays) and opened from 7:30am until 5:30pm. We had to leave at 5pm everyday to pick-up baby, but that was fine. Maybe a bit early compared to my colleagues, but we also go in several hours earlier than them. I continued to be very efficient, but the new job had about a million more aspects than the old job. I tried to make sure that I was spending the time I needed on certain aspects. I set a timer to write for an hour before taking a break. Another really great aspect about having a kid was that a bunch of other professors had babies around the same age and were at the same daycare. That made an automatic group of academics who I had many things in common with. I used daycare to network for science.

Adding a second: Being the breeder type, we knew we wanted more than one, but when to have the second? Again, we waited until the ball was rolling in our new jobs. This was the best time for us. We had new people working well in our new research labs. Shocking – it was so much harder the second time. We didn’t get pregnant right away. It was harder. We were more stressed. We were older. We had less time to try. We were always traveling when the time was right. And then, when I did get pregnant, I had a miscarriage. It wasn’t devastating, just scary at the time. As a logical sort of person, I understand the statistics of miscarriage, and that it meant the fetus was not viable (an attitude my Ob/Gyn was pleasantly surprised at). So, we waited a little longer and tried again with success. Having a second baby was easier. Being a faculty member in academic science is very flexible. I had my own office to bring in baby or to pump. People were supportive and both my HusbandOfScience and I got semester-long leaves.

So, that is my story. Do you have a story of figuring out when and how to fit kids into your academic career? If so, guest post, or write a comment!

Category:

Career, Kids, Networking, Tenure, TimeManagement, WomenRock

Guest Post: Changing 20%

A couple weeks ago, I had a post that was related to teaching about how to better your teaching slowly, but making 20% Changes. From that post, I received this inspiring guest post on the topic of changing 20% from a PreTenure WomanOfScience, which I am posting here. She correctly realized that the 20% ChangeModel does not need to be limited to teaching or even to your career. I hope you enjoy it and remind you again that you can follow this blog by pressing the Follow Button, but you can also lead this blog, by guest posting or commenting. Consider doing both as we expand this blog over the next few years and hopefully open up a real dialogue to help women’s success in academic science. Here is the post:

The recent post on changing 20% in teaching inspired a sort of new year’s resolution list for me. The theme of the list is to change 20% in tasks in my work and life. Different from the usual new year’s resolutions that always seem to require drastic, or 100% changes, I am only aiming for small changes.

I am posting this because I feel that this is an entirely novel approach to self-improvement. It’s novel, because small changes are more doable. In some ways I suspect that we add extra pressure to ourselves to be perfect. The process of getting there can be overwhelming and stifling. I am convinced that this 20% change approach is not that different from laying out specific aims for the over-arching goal in a proposal.

Changing 20% in teaching:

  1. Use the half hour before each lecture as office hour.
  2. Use the last five minutes of each lecture as an open floor Q&A.

I teach a small class this semester, the students who take it are extremely motivated, because the class (new but super awesome) is not yet part of their graduation requirement. Even so, the first time I taught it, no one came to my office hour. Rather, I find them hanging out in the classroom for the half hour before class. So this year I will split my office hour into two half hour sections, held in the same classroom as the lecture. There is minimal effort required for either the students or me. We all have to go to class, and I have to hold office hours. I also find that not all students have the guts to ask questions after class. I speculate that designating 5 minutes of lecture time for open floor Q&A will force the students to verbalize questions that they might have. Both of my 20% changes probably only works for a small class, but that is okay.
Changing 20% in networking:

  1. Talk to 20% more people at a conference.
  2. Practice listening skills when talking to colleagues on campus.

This is a change that I have started to implement. Taking is incredibly difficult to me. It’s worse than squeezing that last dollop of toothpaste. (Awkward pause.) But, like most scientists, I’m obsessed about my project. So my change will focus on the science aspect. Instead of waiting passively for people to come to my poster at this conference, I identified and specifically invited those who will have important feedback to my work (not yet published). Everyone I reached out to came and I got a lot out of it. There was only one person who did not come by, but the invitation may have been better registered had it been a few beers earlier. The invitation process was pretty rocky for the most part: it’s odd to demand people’s time without giving a good reason. What seemed to work well, in particular for those who don’t know me, is to identify strange observations that they might care about in a quick sentence. Tying into project interest, my next goal is to practice listening skills when talking to colleagues on campus. Scientists are very specific and meticulous, if there is something they want to tell me, I want to stop being anxious and actually hear it.

Other: There are other tasks that no one will care about other than myself, such as folding 20% of my socks.

This post is obviously different, it’s more of a planned test run, rather than learned wisdom. The message that I want to send is not only that this blog impacts the reader (at least me), but also to verbalize that the pressure of being perfect or else is very annoying. Changing 20% at a time is much better!

Thanks so much for this post. I found it super inspirational. Hopefully, you will write again in a couple months to update your progress on this change model.

Do you have a story or anecdote you would like to share to help others? If so, please do guest post or comment.

Category:

Career, Networking, New Job, Self-Promotion, Teaching, TimeManagement, WomenRock

Networking On Campus

Networking should not just be done off campus, at conferences and other professional gatherings. Your on-campus network is just as important (maybe more so) than your off campus. Most of us are tenure track at research or small schools where your department, college, dean, and provost will have a say on if you get to stay after your tenure decision. Make sure these people know who you are and have a positive opinion of you before your tenure case comes before them. Below are a few ways you can do them. Again, you can go the in your face, PublicityWhore route, or you can be subtle or discreet. Just don’t be too subtle that they don’t notice you.

Get a group. I don’t mean a scientific group, I mean an EveryOtherThursday Group. This is a group of like-minded women to whom you can talk openly and honestly about the challenges of this job and who will give you feedback and advise.  We have several of these on campus. My group has a number of very senior women, mid-career women, and junior women. Your group doesn’t have to be just women, but there are definitely issues that women face that men are oblivious to (too many to list here, and we will get to them – eventually). The group should be supportive and problem-solving – not just a bitch-session group, although that is useful too. The senior women in my group have helped immensely with navigating my early career, academic politics of the university, and they were supportive of my tenure case at the college-wide level in a number of ways.

Go to lunch. Invite random people to lunch routinely from within your department and outside. This is another part of that bonding over science and personal information to form friendships. This is called “being collegial,” and it makes you look like part of the team. If people in your department go running, biking, hiking, or to the gym together, join in with that. Be part of the team. Do not exclude yourself.

Go to lunch with senior faculty. The year before my tenure packet went in, I had a series of lunches with influential senior men in my department. Your know who they are. If you don’t – pay attention in faculty meetings: which members of the department do people always listen to or credit with ideas? Those are the people who are respected. If people roll their eyes when someone senior is talking, don’t go to them. When I invited them to lunch, I specifically told them that I wanted to talk about my tenure case with them, to make sure I was on the right track and would be fine. At lunch, I laid out the path to tenure as I saw it. I had 6-9 months left until my packet went in, I had this many papers out, this many in the pipeline to publication. I was working with this many students, postdocs, undergrads. I did not bring up negatives, but only positives. My goal: get these men on my side. They are the movers of the department, the wise elders that people listen to. I didn’t want there to be any surprises at tenure time, and I wanted any one of them to be able to present my case as if they knew it by heart.

Be seen at conferences. This is not about off-campus mentoring, so why am I brining up conferences? Well, when you go to a conference, you will likely have other people from your department, college, university at the same conference. Be visible to your institutional colleagues. Make sure they see you are giving a talk or a poster. Make sure they see you out and about at the meeting talking and networking. Much like going to lunch, this is also part of being collegial. I have seen someone not get tenure because someone in his department said, “I never saw him at that conference, so I assume he was just in his hotel room.” Of course that is irrational and stupid reason to destroy someone’s career, but it happens. Make sure it doesn’t happen to YOU.

Respond to emails. This is hard because we all get bogged down with stuff and can’t always respond right away, but when your on-campus collegaues send an email – respond!

Do your part. When working with others on non-service tasks, do a good job. For instance, if a big multi-PI grant is being assembled, and they assign you a task, do it well and in a timely manner. Yes, your chances of getting it may be slim, and it it may seem like a waste of time, but you need to be part of the team. If you are doing service, there are some times when you should work really hard and do a great job and other times when you should half-ass it. Of course, do your work that you are assigned, but don’t spend too much of your precious time. Example1: you are working on the admissions committee reviewing files. Do have all your files read and commented on by the deadline. Don’t spend 6 hours on 3 files – spend 20 minutes on each, giving your impressions. There will be a discussion, and you will have time to go back and re-evluate if your quick scan was too cursory. Example2: You are serving on a student’s qualifying committee with 2 senior people from other departments. Do respond to emails and be at the committee meeting for the student on time. Don’t be so hard to track down that the senior person heading the committee has to ask your senior colleagues if you are traveling. That makes you look bad both out of department and within.

Write lots of grants. At my university, every time I write a grant, my chair signs off and my dean signs off. That means that my dean sees my name about 5-10 times per year in the context of research and grant writing. This is a positive. My name is associated with grants and money and research – all positive. In this environment of no money, you shouldn’t ned much motivation to write lots of grants, but this added self-promotion may help you get a few more out and across people’s desks.

Are there other specific suggestions for networking on campus? It is a long-term thing, so start early – you can’t save it all for the last minute. Please guest post or comment!

Category:

Career, Networking, New Job, Self-Promotion, Service, Tenure, TimeManagement, WomenRock

Networking

One really important part of coming up for tenure, and actually every part of your job as an academic, even after tenure, is networking. I personally enjoy networking and chatting with people in my field. Good science ideas come out of it, and most of the people are actually fun to talk to. Plus, it helps remove feelings of isolation that can often come on in this job – especially if you are “the only one” in your subfield in your department of university. Talking with experts in your field to get them excited about your work is very satisfying. Bonus: what if that person is on a grant panel or one of your letter writers? Getting them excited about you and your work predisposes them favorably to you. I will have two posts on networking: (1) Networking off campus (like at a conference) and (2) Networking on campus.

Networking off campus. I am sitting at a small research conference in the middle of nowhere, so this is on my mind now. I am actually employing these skills in many of my conversations right now!

Sometimes it can be scary, but stay positive. If you are giving a talk or just chatting and someone who is very negative to you, try to stay positive. Ask them more questions about their opinion and tell them that your goal is to do great science and their opinion is important. This often diffuses the person because they realize that you value their opinion. If they are really negative, ask them to become your ally. I say, “We have some new stuff we are going to submit, would you mind reading it for us?” This often works and makes them a colleague instead of a competitor. Many times, if he/she is an honorable person who is just a good scientist/hard-ass, they will help you. And, if they get called to review the paper, they will not review it because they have already commented and had input, so reviewing would be a conflict of interest. If you worry they might still review it, thank them in the acknowledgements and make sure the editor knows that they had input on it, and they won’t be asked.  If they are really a meanypants, they might refuse to help you. If they do this in front of other people, they will get a bad reputation as a jerk, so most people who care about being liked won’t do this.

Show off unpublished work. This is also scary, and I know you can be afraid of being scooped, but sometimes you have to risk it. When you show off work at a meeting in a talk or poster, there is the added bonus of marking your territory on a problem. You also need to put yourself out there with the right group. This is especially important if you are changing fields. For instance, if you are switching from Astrobiology to Physical Chemistry, you cannot only talk to Astrobiologists. You must talk to Physical Chemists and get their opinions on your work. This is the group that will judge you, so they need to get to know you. It is easier for them to do that in person at a conference than when they review your proposal or write you a letter for tenure. Show them your work, discuss your ideas, and ask them for guidance in coming up with your problems. It may hurt at the time, but better in person than at a panel on in your tenure packet where you cannot defend yourself and refine your ideas.

Self-promote. Did you get a new grant funded? Let people know. You don’t have to be a PublicityWhore like me and announce it during your talk. You can do it discretely. For instance, in your poster or in your talk, write NEW! next to the funding agency name and the grant number. Is your student graduating? Let people know he/she is looking for a position – again loudly by announcing it or discretely, by putting up the words only. Make sure people are aware that you are doing your job and doing it well – science and the other stuff.

Don’t neglect students. Although you do want fancy BigShots to notice you and talk to you about your work, don’t forget to talk to students. One reason is that you could recruit a good graduate student or postdoc to your lab through these interactions. But second, it is a nice thing to do, and they might go home and talk about you to their BigShot PI and say good things. Good things are good. Also, give back and mentor a little. Some students have terrible advisors and need help and mentoring – offer it. You never know when it will pay off. (tomorrow or 10 years from now).  PayItForward. Some of the people that were most influential to me were random nice people at conferences who were more senior. They treated me with respect and dignity, even though I was a grad student (a female one at that!). I still remember them, and their treatment meant a lot to me. I try to treat graduate students and postdocs that way, too. The old adage is true: Treat others as you would like to be treated.

Chat with friends. Having conversations about non-science things is good, too because it takes people past the colleague arena into the friend arena. Forming bonds by sharing personal information can allow people to see more sides to you besides your awesome science. They can see you are a real person who has feelings. I don’t think it can hurt.

Facebook with style. You should decide: who will you be friends with on Facebook? Is it only going to be real friends and family, and you wouldn’t want your colleagues to see you? If so, make sure it is private and people cannot friend you. I use Facebook to network and promote myself. I friend people in my field, and try to initiate science questions or even the social science of science questions.

Other specific ideas and advice for effective networking? Guest post or comment.

Category:

Career, Networking, Self-Promotion, Tenure, WomenRock

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