As a child, I remember asking my mother repeatedly – When will I be an adult? I was so much looking forward to crossing a threshold and being the one who could know the things and do the things and be in charge. Honestly, I’m still waiting for the lights and ceremony to induct me into the adult world. (It doesn’t work that way, I know.)

Being a parent especially taught me that the reason I’m in charge is because someone has to be. I do so even when I don’t know enough or have it all figured out.

As a doctoral student, you are going to have to step up and step out. Propose an idea. Speak up in class. Create a journal club. Write a grant. Disagree with your chair. Do it even if you haven’t read every paper on the subject 5 times. There isn’t going to be a tap on the shoulder that says you are ready. It’s not just about faking it until you make it. I bet you know more than you think. And honestly, there is a lot more “winging it” going on all around you than you realize.

Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to do the things, step by step, is an unwritten requirement of getting a doctoral degree. It is also what the world needs.

Happy back to school everyone!

Imagine walking up to a group of researchers at a conference opening gathering. They are older than you, wearing fabulous clothes, standing in a closed circle, with glasses of wine in hand, connected in amusement. You know one of them, but not the others, and judging by their physical poses of confidence, they might just be scientific rock stars. If you are like me, unless someone catches my eye or smiles, I am likely to shift course. (If you are not like me and you know how to get right in there and join the fun – go for it!). For the rest of us – what to do?

One option is to formalize your networking. This can help lift you above the nervous middle school vibe that can contaminate anyone’s mojo.

Formalize by doing your homework, preparing, and setting up connections ahead of time.

1. Be interested in the work. Focusing on the research, instead of leading with small talk or charisma, is a simple way to spark connection with fellow academics.
2. Prepare, by discovering researchers doing interesting work and reading their websites and recent publications (or at least abstracts). Do this before reaching out or attending a conference, of course.
3. Leapfrog. Ask your advisor (or other colleague) to suggest individuals who you may share research interests with. (And then ask that person, and so on).
4. Reach out, by email initially, to set up an informational interview by phone, or lunch at a conference.
5. Invite your advisor or colleagues to meet you at a specific time/place at a conference or other gathering rather than just showing up.

As you gain connections with individuals in your field, and gain confidence and an understanding of academic culture, networking becomes more natural and fun.

Learn how to use citation management software. Do so when you are writing a class paper or as you are writing your dissertation proposal. These are programs such as EndNote, RefMan, Zotero, and others that are specialized databases that serve to organize your digital library and also work together with writing programs (e.g. MS Word) to format your references to fit a particular journal’s requirements. Pick one used by your advisor, fellow students, or the one supported by your university. Some cost money and some are free. They are web-enabled and allow collaborative use. I have had great luck with the program called Zotero. (They are non-profit and do not know that I am mentioning their product here). See if your university library offers a course to get you started.

Allow yourself a big smile the first time you are searching in google scholar or pubmed and with one click bring both the citation and pdf into your own digital library.

Sigh gently when you digitally insert the correct citation into your excellent prose.

Laugh out loud when your entire bibliography is built with one click.

(Bang your head against the wall when you realize that your collaborative grant document has been corrupted because of competes between track changes and your citation management software. But then realize that fixing it still saves time because inserting hundreds of citations and correctly formatting the bibliography just isn’t how you want to spend your weekend). 

You may not have noticed (ha!), but graduate school places a lot of competing demands on your time. The bad news is that the more you progress, and the better you do, the more you will be asked to do. But the good news is that you are largely in charge of what opportunities you pursue, and over what time frame.

Consider these time management philosophies:

First decide how much you will work. If you don’t protect your time off, you won’t have any, and you have to do this first. You deserve time off. (You require time off.)

Honor and plan your commitments to yourself just like would a colleague. Mark on your calendar when you will work on something and then follow through. This includes saying no to competing appointments that may present. Build trust with yourself by your consistency in this.

Also make appointments for time off, and honor these appointments.

Be very clear on items that require your 100% versus those that will truly be OK with your 80%. A dissertation idea requires all you’ve got. Studying for a test might not. It’s OK not to give 100% to all items at all times.

Know when to say no, and do so.

Beware email. Responding to email all day may not be furthering your work, or the work you really need to focus on. Consider email management strategies, which might include having a set time every day for email response, always emptying your inbox, only ever opening an email once and then acting (rather than coming back to it multiple times), and others. A few hours spent researching email management might have big pay-offs.

Notice, and manage, emotion that might be in reality taking up a lot of time. Are you stressing that you don’t know how to proceed? Do you think you aren’t up to the task? Are you irritated at colleagues or manuscript reviewers? Are you bored? Is there a personal matter that you really need to take care of? The goal is not to prevent the emotion from cropping up, but in recognizing and dealing with it pro-actively rather than letting it constantly storm across your fabulous mind, preventing it from focusing on the work at hand.

Work with your inherent mental reward system by finishing work. Every finish will itself give you a little mental hit. Wrapping something up can be really difficult. So notice your finish. And then do it again, and again, and again.

With gratitude to D.S.

OK, kids, we really are living in the age of information, and this is an absolutely fabulous thing for science! Virtually at your fingertips are datasets, publications, informed opinion-pieces, reams of information collected by smart devices, videos of experts sharing their wisdom, and more. It’s a smorgasbord of inputs that can really give a leg-up to your contribution to making the world a better place, and you must avail yourself of this wealth to some degree.

But you have to be careful not to drown. There is so much, so accessible. Attempting to keep up with it all can be overwhelming, and in the end, non-productive. You’ve got to surf on top of the information, dipping in when purposeful. It is absolutely essential that you have an active plan to curate the information onslaught.

Make use of technical tools. Be attuned to automated literature searches, effective use of social media, and improving your literature searching skills. This is a changing world and you are ready to participate. Determine your own style, to include whether you prefer to go to the information, or have information come to you. Be real about whether you are keeping up, or piling up (for later perusal), and alter your methods until they are truly working.

Seek people to help. Your advisor may recommend an advocacy organization that puts out helpful content or a media aggregator to skim. A colleague may share information on pre-publication repositories. But don’t forget the people who are trained to navigate this world – librarians. Indeed, there are individuals who have spent years knowing how to find and sift information and they likely will provide individualized consultation to you, free of charge. And remember that you don’t have to know it all, yourself. You are participating in a community of science where the knowledge is held in aggregate.

Participate in the age of information, by aligning and curating the stream that you swim in, until it maximizes your ability to make the world a better place.

You might have visions of being that scientist that goes down in the history books – the one with the spectacular insight that changes the world. Don’t let go of that drive. It will give you the courage to go big, to innovate, in ways that bring you joy and make the world a better place.

But know that most of your time will be spent building upon the work of others. Science progresses by a slow collective push of incremental knowledge, building upwards. Don’t despair that each drop is small. Settle into becoming part of the river. Learn what has come before, by reading in your focused area and also in the foundational and tangential areas that influence your niche. Practice the art of finding the next incremental step where your skills and the practicalities of a research question can fill in a gap to provide a platform for the next work. Get your work out there rather than letting it sit inside your mind or in a dusty drawer, by publishing it, so that others can build upon your excellent progress. Look for the people and agencies who are putting up the sign-posts of what might come next to make the world a better place. They might be writing strategic plans or offering funding: great ideas for your consideration.

Look for all of the ways that others are lifting you up to create the next step, and be the lift for others.

I love the word “ease”. Let’s call it “easy without the judgement”. Let this word conjure up going with the flow, leaning into the support of the universe, and an inner state of calm that allows for productivity and excellence without the buckle down, the grit, or the fight. Consider that ease might be possible, as a doctoral student, and beyond. How, you say? Start by paying attention to your habits. Notice your body’s knowledge of when stress is around the corner, and consider pausing there, or altering your course. Develop a warning bell for when you begin to resist, and then gently consider the reason. Minimize drama, whether inside or outside yourself. Consider that the benefits of allowing ease might, in the end, help you to make the world a better place. I would love to have you join me on my own journey to cultivate ease in the world of academia. (Gasp!).

Whoa is it important to know how and when to say “yes” versus saying “no” to a scientific opportunity.

Saying “no” is not only OK, but is a requirement of being a successful academic. (The better you do, the more you will be asked to do, and I am quite certain that your body, if not your mind, requires care and feeding). Saying “no” appropriately and professionally benefits from practice. It’s not too early to practice while a graduate student.

Once you’ve said “yes”, you are committed. So slow down there kids before you say “yes” or “no”!

Say “yes” if you have the enthusiasm, time, and skills to follow through on your promise. Backing out or failing to deliver are bummers, for you and the other. Look at your calendar and see if you can schedule the work this week or the next. If it’s looking difficult, be honest about whether your schedule truly opens up after that, and whether this timing fits the project need. Say “yes” if the work fits into your on-going interests and areas of expertise, helps you with a new skill set you have been meaning to work on, or assists toward your graduation requirements, dissertation project, post-graduation position, a publication or grant, or other goals you have. Say “yes” if you enjoy working with this person/people and enjoy this type of activity.

Beware the “hallway ask”, when someone asks you verbally for assistance during an unscheduled encounter. Ask for additional information to be sent to you by email, if appropriate. This allows you the time to consider more carefully. In my experience the asker may not always follow up with this, indicating that their ask was not robust to the passage of time, but was more of a whim in the moment.

There are times when a “no” is not appropriate, such as if the ask is really a part of your paid position, or obligation to graduate, or is written into a funded grant. Other times you must consider how the ask fits into the academic hierarchy, and that that there may be relationship cost to saying “no”, and this must be weighed in.

Seek input from your advisor.

If you do say “no”, do so as promptly as you can, so that the asker can move on. An email is usually appropriate. Start with a thank-you for the opportunity. A lengthy explanation of your decline is not needed. If you have anything helpful to share, such as a pertinent publication or suggestion of someone else to help, certainly share this freely.

Manage your time and your reputation by practicing the art of under-promising and over-delivering. People do science. People make science fun. So love the peoples! (And love yourself).

Traditional scientific writing uses passive voice. Passive voice persists because it sounds objective and scientific, and because change can be threatening. “The cells were treated with . . . .”; “The subjects were followed until December 31 . . . .”. It’s stuffy, and at times difficult to read, and it purposefully distances the reader from the people who did the work.

It’s time to break the fourth wall of science. Be bold. Write in a way that is direct, clear, and transparent, acknowledging that people do science. Write in first person.
It may feel awkward at first, especially if you have been taught to write in passive voice. You might risk butting up a bit against your instructors’ direction. (And of course if this is the case, it is up to you whether to follow directions for a grade, or to take the opportunity to practice strong first-person writing). Luckily, you are living in a time when journals and grant reviewers are largely accepting of first-person writing.

You must first notice if and when you are writing in passive voice. And then flip the sentences around. It’s easy. Say what you did. You may have worked alone, and then your sentences will start with “I”. More often you will be working with others. “We enrolled . . . .”, “We performed a logistic regression . . . .”. “We measured . . . .”. Aim for direct, action-oriented writing that breathes clarity into your publications and the world.

Decisions can be fraught. There is a pressure to pick the best research project – the option that is most inspiring, with the most potential – the one that perfectly fits your burning interest. I encourage you, in making this choice, to consider the flow of the universe around you. At any given time there is a research question that will be supported by circumstances. This could take the form of kind, talented collaborators who are enthusiastic and able, financial resources within easier reach, a dataset that is a ready match for the question, or an approach that aligns solidly with your strengths. Consider this path. Consider it even if it means setting aside your pet question for a time. There is so much research to be done to make the world a better place. By selecting a supported path, the work will get done with more ease. Call it grasping the low-hanging fruit or call it being practical, but completed work has impact, unlike the shiny idea inside your mind that hasn’t come to fruition yet. Ultimately you need both the inspiration and the finished projects. Maximize your contribution by not being too proud to accept support and take a simpler path to get something done.