Objectives:
- To lower barriers for help seeking by ensuring students know the course staff, their advisor(s) and senior researchers in their labs to ensure they feel comfortable enough reaching out when they need help.
- To demystify the hidden curriculum of the Ph.D. by encouraging students to explicitly solicit feedback from their advisors and learn from more senior students’ experiences in the program.
Attend a course staff office hours
You’re required to attend the office hours of one member of the course staff at least once throughout the semester. The purpose of these meetings is for us to get to know all of you. As such, you don’t need to have a specific question in mind (but if you do, that’s always welcome). If you can’t make any of the office hours, please reach out to one of us to schedule a time!
Solicit feedback from your advisor(s)
Learning how to evaluate your progress in the Ph.D. is a crucial component of your development as a researcher. Like many of the other skills we’ve discussed so far in the class (e.g. reading research papers, doing a literature search, soliciting research feedback from your collaborators, etc.), this is a skill that is learned through deliberate practice.
In this assignment, we provide you with a template to use in soliciting feedback from your advisor. We ask you that you share this document with them ahead of time, and then meet with them 1-on-1 to fill it out together. We encourage you to solicit feedback in a format similar to this every couple of weeks so you can ensure you’re putting your efforts where they matter most. Note that not all of the below items are relevant to you, so please answer as appropriate.
Before you begin your evaluation, we would like to dispel a few myths you may have:
- It is as much your advisors’ responsibility to provide you feedback as it is your responsibility to solicit feedback. As such, it is important you get in the habit of explicitly soliciting for the feedback you need to improve. This is also your chance to learn how your advisor(s) see Ph.D. student development.
- If your advisor(s) bring(s) up areas of growth, it does NOT mean you’re doing poorly. You’re in the beginning of your Ph.D. journey, so it is expected you have a lot to learn.
- Do not push this off until you feel certain your advisor(s) is/are happy with your progress. Many of us students have tendencies to “read tea leaves” (i.e. guess from facial expressions, messages, etc.) when trying to determine if our advisor(s) are happy with us, instead of asking explicitly. You may find that even at times you aren’t certain your advisor(s) is/are happy with you, they actually are.
Instructions: For each of the categories below, ask your advisor:
- What are my strengths?
- What are my areas of growth?
Since you’re a Ph.D. student just starting on their journey, there may be many areas of growth for you. This is, again, not an issue, but a natural product of where you are in the process. It is helpful, however, to agree with your advisor(s) on which of the above areas of growth are the highest priority for the next few weeks. This will help ensure you’re not spreading yourself too thin. As such, after discussing your strengths and areas of growth in every category below, ask your advisor(s) the following questions:
- Which of the areas of growth above should I focus on most in the next few weeks?
- What are concrete ways to improve in the above areas of growth?
- hen would it be helpful to check in again and re-evaluate how I’m doing?
Lastly, don’t forget to thank your advisor(s) for their feedback and investment in your growth!
In addition to submitting your evaluation form, please answer the following questions about your experience:
- Have you previously asked your advisor for feedback for these general research skills, as opposed to project-specific guidance?
- What was your experience like doing this assignment?
- What have you learned from this experience?
Teamwork and interdependence
Examples of skills:
- Asking for and receiving feedback
- Commitment to supporting/working with lab members
- Setting expectations for internal and external collaborations (authorship, work flow, roles etc.)
- Avoiding and resolving potential conflicts during collaborations
- Working effectively with more senior folks or folks more experience/skilled in some area you’re working in
Presentation and communication of research
Examples of skills:
- Communicating research updates during 10min, 20min, 30 min meetings
- Effectively asking for technical feedback during research meetings
- Listening to technical talks and asking questions during/after
- Effectively communicating your own research to different audiences (in your lab, in your field, general audiences)
- Writing and speaking in a mathematically/technically precise fashion
- Communicating your research as an elevator pitch
Progress toward independent research, initiative, and creativity
Examples of skills:
- Designing small/large experiments to test hypotheses
- Ability to come up with research ideas on all scales – thinking of directions for weekly progress or longer-term research projects
- Pivoting from negative/unexpected results, forming hypotheses from the results, debugging, adapting research goal
- Evaluating the novelty of a technical contribution in relation to a body of literature
- Formalizing vague questions into concrete solvable problem statements
Task progress and completion
Examples of skills:
- Time management; balancing coursework, classes, etc; asking for help when needed
- Setting achievable short and long-term goals/deadlines in advance
- Checking in/reporting progress toward established deadlines
Research skills
Examples of skills:
- Learning background/foundational knowledge
- Reading and evaluating literature
- Mentoring more junior researchers/students
- Networking
- Giving presentations at other labs/seminars/conferences
- Assisting and writing grant proposals
- Participation in department or national meetings, teaching/mentoring, leadership skills
Guidence from senior Ph.D. candidates
You’re required to meet with a more senior Ph.D. student (G3+) from your lab at least once this semester. Please prioritize folks from your lab who work on an area similar to what you’re working on. If you are the only person in your lab (or have other problems scheduling a time), no problem – just let us know in advance. The purpose of this meeting is for you to get in the habit of soliciting advice and insights from someone who was recently in a similar position. Below is a list of questions for you to ask, in addition to any other questions you may have:
- Qualifying Exam
- What were the expectations for their qualifying exam (both in terms of university requirements and advisor expectations)?
- How did they choose their committee?
- How did they prepare?
- What did they take away from the experience?
- TF Requirements
- How did they choose a course?
- What were their TFing expectations for the course?
- What did they find rewarding/challenging?
- Conference attendance/networking
- When do people in their lab typically attend conferences/workshops? (Is it only when they have something accepted? Do they get sent for other reasons?)
- What is it like to attend a conference? What do they do? How do they network?
- Research/advisor relationships
- How has their relationship with their advisor evolved?
- How do they find interesting research problems?
- How have their responsibilities evolved?
- Have they done an internship? If so, when did they do it? Why/what did they get out of it?
- Have you collaborated with anyone? How did this collaboration come about? How did you manage the collaboration?
- Mentorship
- Have they mentored more junior students? If so, when did they start doing it?
- How did they find students to mentor/how did it come about?
- What made them want to start?
- What did they get out of it? What did they find challenging? What did they find rewarding?
Go to an InTouch social
InTouch is a peer-to-peer support network for graduate students. Its goal is to create a student culture at SEAS that prioritizes student well-being by addressing the imposter phenomenon, stress, and isolation that students commonly experience over the course of their program.
InTouch socials happen every two weeks at the SEC – announcements for them appear on the gradsdirect mailing-list and on their calendar. Answer the following questions:
- Introduce yourself to the InTouch peer mentors there running the social.
- When did you go? Which InTouch peer organizer did you talk to?
- What/who is InTouch for? What did you get out of the social (other than free food)?