Rejection from Grad School: How Not to Suck at Grad School

How Not to Suck at Grad School: Rejection from Grad School

by Sierra Pecsi

You put the work in to fill out all the forms, met program requirements, ensured references were done on time, had a strong statement letter and still, you were rejected from graduate school and it sucks. This sense of inadequacy and uncertainty is understandable, but not uncommon. I have encountered plenty of students in my past work as a career counsellor that experienced those similar feelings after not getting into law, medicine, and grad school. Of course, I also have had my own share of rejection from psychology graduate programs. That being said, I hope to share what I think may be useful advice for anyone not sure what to do next or how to handle rejection. This applies to all graduate programs, research-based or not.

The feeling of rejection can make you question your abilities, career goals, and force you to obsess about your weaknesses. It will make you wonder why you applied to grad school or whether you should have done something different. Even so, your application may have been quite strong, but with so few spaces in many graduate programs it often comes down to the smallest details that determine whether you’ve made the first round or not. I understand this information won’t change the outcomes, but I hope it offers a new perspective on rejection.

You might be thinking why did I apply at all? This is an opportunity to reflect on whether grad school is right for you. Most students that I encountered applied because they thought it could help their career or because they did not know what else to do after graduation. This is part of a bigger issue, but don’t be afraid to ask yourself why do I want to go to grad school? Do I want to try again? What is my backup plan? What do I want to do instead? If these are some of your questions, I encourage you to reach out to your university’s career planning services for support; they often serve alumni as well. There is nothing wrong with uncertainty. When we are stuck it allows us to refocus our attention to explore what is really important to us and what we are interested in.

You might also be thinking, “what if I apply again next year and still don’t get in?” That is always a possibility. However, re-applying to the same program is proof you are seriously committed. It shows the selection committee that you take action and follow through on your goals, an important quality for completing a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation. It might also help to know that groups of applicants change each year. Some years there may be a lot of strong applicants vying for the same supervisors, other years there may not be. You never know who else will apply. You do not have to be the best applicant of all time, but you just might be for that application year. Therefore, instead of thinking, “What if I don’t get in again?” think about what you can offer this time around or the advantages you have by applying again.

How to Ask for Feedback

              Once you’ve understood rejection, it is important to discuss how to handle rejection. How to cope with failure on a professional level can go a long way in your career. It is far too easy to send off a poorly thought-out email to any administrator, or faculty member, the moment the rejection email comes through. Inquiring about why you were not accepted or how many people were admitted can be viewed as inappropriate, not to mention they may not have the authority or information you crave. This is especially true for any potential supervisor you selected on your application. If you were in contact with a potential supervisor, they may be able to help, and decorum will go a long way in how much someone may be willing to assist you. Therefore, I strongly encourage applicants to wait several days before inquiring for information to gather your thoughts and avoid potential missteps. Below are some points to consider should you want to ask for feedback:

·       Contact the right person. Review the program’s contact policy regarding who to communicate all application questions to. Often there is a specific email or point of contact that is the gatekeeper of such requests. If you cannot find the information, then contact a general inbox to kindly request that your inquiry be forwarded to the appropriate person.

·       Be kind and respectful in your email communications

·       Include a reminder of who you are, what program you applied to, and when (some graduate programs having rolling admissions)

·       Be clear about the purpose of your inquiry at the beginning of the email

·       Tactfully state the feedback or information you would like and how this will help your goals

·       Keep it short and end on a positive note

·       Express gratitude for their time or support

·       Importantly, understand you may not receive the information or closure you deserve

Asking for feedback can be incredibly uncomfortable. Rather than thinking about what went wrong, I like to think of it as a chance to see what changes can be made to future applications- if you were going down that path. Responses are likely to be pleasant and helpful. Still, always keep in mind feedback is a privilege, not a right. When you view criticism or rejection as opportunities, you expose yourself to growth.

 What do to next

Feedback is just the first of many steps you can take. Below are additional suggestions if you are considering applying to grad school again or want to pursue research further. This is not an exhaustive list and will not guarantee acceptance. These are steps I have found helpful for myself and from experience speaking with other grad students, professionals, and supervisors.

·       Build your research skills or work in a professional setting. Remember experience does not equate to volunteering or free work. Ensure you will get something in return whether it be a reference, or your name on a poster abstract, publication, etc. 

·       Aim to work closely with potential supervisors either directly or part of a research lab. This will allow you to see if your supervisor is a good fit. They, too, need to know how you work in order to later support your admission to the program.

·       Produce research or written content (e.g., posters, abstracts, manuscripts) that will add to your resume, grad school application, or funding application.

·       Demonstrate strong writing ability by contributing to a blog post or editing manuscripts.

·       Aim to present a poster at a conference (especially local conferences). Many university programs or departments host conferences run by students, and literature reviews are often welcome.  

·       Grow your network. Meet or link with graduate students in programs of your choice to learn about their path to graduate school. I found grad students to be incredibly helpful in the process.  

·       Consider to applying for funding. This is a big job however, being apart of a research lab with access to grad students and a research supervisor can help you with the application process. Not only will this add value to your grad school application but will also teach you how to write succinctly.

 It is now time to think about your next moves. With more time to polish your skills and build your resume, you are on a stronger path of development whether it be in graduate school or applying to a job. You can take as much or as little from this but at least the application is already done.

Surviving Your Doctoral Defense: How Not to Suck in Graduate School

SRShaw

The defense of the doctoral dissertation, also known as the viva, is the final stage of the doctoral program. There are a variety of styles, traditions, processes, and methods of the dissertation defense process. These vary across nations, universities, and fields of study. However, there are a set of common approaches that students can apply to reduce the potentially paralyzing anxiety and stress surrounding the doctoral dissertation defense.

As is usual on this blog, the suggestions reflect my experiences and are not intended to be a substitute for real expertise in the matter. But after serving as a supervisor for six successful doctoral theses and a member of the defense committee for 49 doctoral theses, there are some behaviours of candidates that differentiate high-quality versus low-quality dissertation defenses.

Prior to Defense

Wait until the dissertation is ready. There are many candidates who have artificial deadlines and timelines due to job commitments, financial considerations, or other requirements that the defense take place by a certain date. Rushing to meet a specific defense date increases the likelihood that the dissertation is rushed. Take the time to make sure that all appropriate supervisors, peers, and other trusted reviewers have the time to read the document carefully. This is a situation where it is critically important to ensure that the document is sound and well-developed before moving on to the defense.

Presentation rules apply. The general rule of presentation is to know the information so well that you could carry out your entire defense if your computer locks up, the projector fails, or there is some other technological problem.

Select external examiners. Nearly all universities require that an expert from outside of the university reviews the document. This can be a challenge. I usually recommend the following steps be taken. Early in the literature review process, students are asked to take note of leading scholars specific to the field. Students are encouraged to email those scholars with questions and inquiries about current and soon to be published research. Those scholars who respond productively and seem somewhat reasonable can be put on the list of potential external examiners. There have been cases of unfair external reviewers giving poor evaluations because of disagreements concerning theoretical orientation or other problematic evaluation approaches. In selecting external reviewers, cultural traditions are also important. For example, there been cases of reviewers from the United Kingdom who have expectations of extraordinarily long dissertations, who have rejected North American dissertations for being too short and lacking detail. There are no guarantees, but it helps to have external reviewers who do not have an agenda or are from an academic culture are far different from the candidate.

Practice the presentation. Most dissertation defenses begin with a short presentation by the candidate. A 15 to 20-minute presentation is an extraordinarily difficult timeframe to present multiple years worth of work. This is the part of the doctoral defense in which candidates have the most control. This needs to be practised repeatedly with significant feedback. In some places, the time limitation is strictly enforced, so be sure to time all of your practice activities.

Attend several dissertation defenses. It is valuable to understand the process and dynamics by observing them firsthand. You can also find styles and approaches that candidates use that are worth emulating.

Preview with your supervisor. Asked the supervisor to share potential questions and assist in developing reasonable responses.

Choose your guests mindfully. Dissertation defenses are typically publicly open. There are some departments on lab cultures where 20 to 30 peers attend for support and others were only the candidate and the committee are in attendance. I am surprised how often parents and significant others attend the defenses. That would never work for me. Although it is difficult to go against these cultural trends, you can invite who you need for support, but not distraction.

Sleep. The doctoral dissertation defense is an extremely stressful experience, but get some sleep.

During the Defense

Enjoy the Experience. Attitudes towards the dissertation defense vary across universities, but often the experience is more of a coronation or celebration rather than a rigorous evaluation with a high risk of failure. Your supervisor would not allow you to defend the dissertation and was the project and your presentation was in good shape. You are ready and you have been preparing for this for years. Honestly, there is something that inspires confidence in a candidate who smiles and appears as comfortable as possible.

Stamina is a key. Dissertation defenses can last from 90 minutes up to three hours. Understand and prepare for your local norms. Many people will want to sit while answering questions. Have water available. It is also good to have a piece of fruit or something else to eat to prevent any blood sugar crashes. Maintaining concentration and focus throughout is a major factor.

Understand the questions. Listen carefully to the questions being asked. Most committee members are not nearly as expert as the candidate who has spent years researching the specific topic. Questions from the defense committee usually consist of: some form of a question asking why a different study was not done; specific details to the point of minutia on methodology and analysis; there will be questions about larger theory, context; and which studies you choose to reference; and there may be committee members who make long statements intended to show off for their peers. And most of the time someone will ask if you could change one aspect of your project, what would you change? My experience is that it is rare to have a committee member be hostile or extremely adversarial, but it does happen sometimes. The key to all these issues is composure. Listen carefully, take a deep breath, ask the committee member to repeat the question if necessary, and take some time to formulate your answer.

Do not BS. Some of the questions being asked are not relevant to the document at hand and generally far afield. If you do not know the answer at all, say that you do not know. Attempting a long and convoluted BS answer does not leave a favourable impression.

Depth and breadth. The secret is to have a depth and breadth of knowledge that you can marshal to answer the questions. Given that you have lived with this material for some time, this should not be too challenging. Knowing the major scholars and year of publication can be helpful in demonstrating your detailed knowledge. Understanding how your research could be applied, used for future investigations, influence theory, or otherwise placed in the larger context are also critical.

Managing impressions. It is rarely a problem if a candidate does not know an answer to a specific question or two. Overall impression counts. I have been surprised that how incredibly poised nearly all candidates are at their defense. Even students I have known to be very nervous, seem confident and poised when it comes to their dissertation defense. Confidence and poise will go a long way.

Develop a strategy if you get lost. Losing composure or getting lost under a barrage of questions for an hour and a half or longer is common. The candidate has a lot of control in setting the pace and tone of how questions can be answered. A frequently used an effective approach is to have a set script when you are stumped by a question. A decent script is to say, “That is a really useful question, I have not given that much thought before, so give me a moment to put my answer together.” If you have the script prepared in advance, then you can say it and typically buy a little bit of time to develop and articulate an answer. Likewise, it is always possible that you realize that you have no idea how to answer the question and it is best to say, “I do not know the answer to that.”

Bringing back around. Given that you only have a 15 to 20-minute initial presentation, it is unlikely that all your information will be covered during that introduction. Have several extra slides prepared with additional figures or data. If a question is relevant, then you can go to the appropriate extra slide and spend a lot more time on some of the information that you do not have time for an initial presentation, and this approach also signals that you are well prepared to answer questions.

Have a copy of your full dissertation document with you. You never know when a question or may get very specific. For example, “On page 172, paragraph three, line 4 you made this statement. Is that inconsistent with your similar statement on page 87, paragraph one, line 5?” You will need to be able to move quickly to compare detailed text. Whether this is done in paper or print depends on your comfort level.

Post Defense

Be happy. I am really surprised how rarely I see a successful candidate look happy. The predominant expression is relief and fatigue. I have seen quite a few tears of release or disbelief. This seems like a good time to be happy. Enjoy your hard-earned success.

Schedule a meeting with your supervisor. Almost certainly someone on the committee will find typos, requirement for clarification, or maybe even additional need for changes in the dissertation document. Schedule that meeting quickly so that your supervisor can guide any changes, revisions, and edits that need to be made.

Thank your committee.  Be sure to thank everyone on the committee, even those who were difficult during the defense process, after the process over. It is also good to take note of the first person to refer to you as Doctor.

Contact and thank everyone involved in your project. This could be anyone from technicians, support staff, administrative staff, undergraduates, and others. Acknowledging all the people essential to your success is a responsible thing to do. Many people who provided important services to your project may not know that the project was a success until you contact them. Say thank you.

Contact and thank personal friends and family. Sharing your success is an important part of the process. A lot of people have made sacrifices that have led to your accomplishment. They have certainly provided support and have been there for you in difficult times.

Do not be weird. I really wanted to write and gloat to my 11th grade physics teacher who told me I was “too lazy and stupid to consider college. And if I did manage to get into college would certainly fail.” I wrote the letter, but did not mail it.

Closing

The doctoral defense is a ritual that can be mysterious and scary. With the use of your supervisor, peers and others, learn as much about the process as possible to demystify the activity. Understand the specific procedures that are written in your faculty or University guidelines. Observe how other people manage this. There is nothing wrong with having a series of meetings with peers at similar stages in your degree program to share and brainstorm ideas.

If you are at this stage in your degree program, congratulations. Listen to your supervisor, take deep breaths, and you have got this. It will be a short period of time until you hear the words, “Congratulations, Doctor.”

Getting the Most Out of Conferences: How Not to Suck in Graduate School

SR Shaw

Professional conferences are strange activities. We travel long distances and at great expense (sometimes personal expense) to participate in what is often a glorified middle school science fair. Sometimes we are nervous about putting up our posters, playing Vanna White as we try to draw attention to our work while conference goers walk by, afraid to make eye contact. Other times we are semi-terrified to have the opportunity to engage in public speaking to an army of critical or supportive colleagues. We often go to listen to super impressive rock star colleagues hold court in a two-star hotel ballroom and then later at happy hour. It is nice to catch up with friends and colleagues. For the most part, professional conferences are a good opportunity to escape from the day- to-day work and have a nice time. Conferences are also essential career opportunities.

As a disclaimer, I do not tend to like conferences much anymore. I am quite introverted and often need to retreat to my hotel room to rest and recover at some point in the middle of the day. At about midway through the second day of the conference, I am ready to go home. I do not find most of the breakout talks interesting and the keynotes are about 90% entertainment and 10% information. At this point in my career, I do not have to go conferences and only go if there is a specific purpose for my attendance. Often, I go because someone is paying me to do a talk or I am doing a favour for a friend. Other times, I attend to have dinner with a friend or engage in a happy hour working session with a colleague (I outlined 3 books with a colleague on napkins at a happy hour). And sometimes I go simply to support my students. I would say that I am now a reluctant attendee of conferences.

Graduate students and new scholars in the developing stages of their careers often must go to a few major conferences to make professional connections, to develop a positive reputation, and to disseminate research findings. Conferences are required and exciting for graduate students and early career researchers. No matter your career stage, level of misanthropy, or the norms of your profession; there are ways to make the most out of your professional experiences at conferences.

Agenda

Develop an agenda with at least five specific and actionable goals for your conference experience. The conference needs to forward your professional agenda or else there is no reason for attending. There are many specific goals that you can address: promote your research, sell books, have dinner with a former colleague, acquire partners and collaborators for the next grant project, establish yourself as a leader in the profession, to meet and speak with a leader in the field, or whatever. It really does not matter what your goals are. But setting an agenda creates a mindful approach to what you are doing at a conference and provides a structure for how you spend your time and energy. This does not mean that you should avoid spontaneous activities, opportunities to grab a coffee with a potential collaborator, or just having fun with colleagues; but a mindful agenda with specific and written goals helps make conferences useful professional activities.

Schedule

Most people make a personal conference schedule. The schedule should reflect your agenda. The hard part about conferences as they are not typically eight-hour days, but typically 12 to 14-hour days. In addition, be sure to make some allowance for any time changes. For example, I tend not to schedule a late night on the first day of a conference when I travel to the West Coast. Generally, you fill your calendar with your talks and meetings first; talks and poster sessions that you want to attend to see colleagues or support students; make breakfast, lunch, happy hour, dinner plans well in advance with people that you want to spend time with (do not forget to make reservations if necessary); some talks that you may be interested in hearing; meetings; and plans for rest, recovery, and naps.

Wedge In

Conferences are amazing opportunities to establish your name as a leader in your field. The Woody Allen phrase that 90% of life is just showing up truly applies to professional conferences. There are many important business meetings that take place at conferences, which are open to all conference goers. In many cases, these business meetings are actively seeking participants. For example, often journals have editorial board meetings at conferences and frequently these board meetings are open to the general membership. Show up, express interest, be productive, and instantly you are considered a research leader. Interest groups and policy-making groups are often similar. Graduate students are rarely dismissed as mere beginners, but are embraced as future leaders. It is inappropriate to crash these meetings that are closed to the general membership, but few are. This is a golden opportunity to wedge in and take a leadership position by simply showing up.

You can also establish yourself on a small scale by asking questions at research presentations. I tend not to ask questions of the presenter during the question time. I do not want to fluster an inexperienced presenter nor do I wish to directly challenge a senior researcher. I am just not a fan of trying to establish myself by pointing out a flaw in the research of a colleague in a public setting — I know some people live for this, but it just does not work for me. My preference is to wait until the talk is over and the presenter is packing up and asked them productive questions while walking out of the room together. This creates an informality, opportunity to exchange business cards, and have a chance for a productive give-and-take discussion. If it works well, ask the presenter out for a coffee. This is a way to wedge in to the discussion of top research.

Follow-Up

Conferences are like most meetings: about 30 % of the value of a conference is in the preparation and 50% is in the follow-up. Collecting business cards and having informal chats or drinks with colleagues is not especially useful unless it leads to something long-lasting. It is appropriate and necessary to follow-up by sending a simple email, ensuring that you send appropriate copies of papers to people who requested them, and otherwise continue to engage long after everyone flies home.

Summary

Conferences are strange professional and scientific gatherings. They are often confusing and intimidating for graduate students and early career researchers, but are often an expectation in the profession. It is easiest, most productive, and safest to have a clear and purposeful approach to your conference activities.

Also see:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/academic-conferencing-dummies#survey-answer

https://nataliematosin.com/2015/09/09/resource-networking/

Developing Extra Skills: The Meta-Skills of How Not to Suck in Grad School

SR Shaw

Graduate school is a force that sucks all your time and the very life force from your body. Each discipline has its own demands, whether they are classwork, clinical work, labs, teaching and grading, fieldwork, writing, or some combination thereof; and then there is the reading (oh, good Lord, the reading). I went from nine hours of sleep per night, heavy drinking, much socializing, with a job, and with a lot of hobbies as an undergraduate to a monk-like existence of little more than grad school and four hours of sleep per night. Not particularly healthy, but there it is. These are not even the frustrating and demoralizing parts of graduate school. To me, the worst part is that I was magically expected to have a set of skills that I did not learn as an undergraduate and was never sufficiently taught as a graduate student. As a professor, I see that the difference between okay students and outstanding students is their pursuit of extra skills, the meta-skills of being an effective graduate student. Although the specific skills vary across disciplines, every graduate student has extra skills to be learned. Rather than being accidental and due to some random experiences, the pursuit of extra skills is best met with mindful and strategic effort.

Nearly every graduate student has had the experience of meeting with their supervisor or PI and hearing, “I thought you know how to do this.” Good supervisors tend to say, “Okay, let me teach you.” Poor supervisors tend to say, “That is disappointing. I need to find someone who knows how to do this.” This missing skill could be anything from a statistical procedure, assessment technique, lab procedure, ethics proposal formatting, giving feedback, writing skills, oral presentation, or some other specific skill. Usually we acquire the skills in such an ad hoc manner that we usually do not appreciate the skill development until we look back and simply label this as “experience.”

The most difficult part of any problem-solving process is identifying the problem. For new graduate students the hard part is that you do not know what you do not know. Rarely will a PI have a task analysis prepared consisting of the skills necessary to be successful in that lab. Although some professional programs have a list of competencies that need to be developed for professional success, those are typically incomplete. It is always worth checking with your PI, postdoc, or senior graduate student as to whether it is worth the effort to learn a specific extra skill; but the initiative will always be on you. That said here is the process and some common extra skills that are worth learning.

There is a good rule from Stephen Covey’s popular book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that some time needs to be invested in sharpening the saw. This is a form of professional development, skill acquisition, and self-improvement. Sharpening the saw does not only happen after graduation, but is part of graduate school as well. The general rule is to dedicate 10% of your work time to developing the extra skills that sharpen the saw. Therefore, figure a minimum of four hours per week planned and protected. I am not saying that this is easy — in fact, it is difficult and exhausting. But the ability to protect and use these four hours per week in a strategic approach to developing the meta-skills of graduate school will pay off.

Collective peer improvement sessions are fantastic ways to pool resources and priorities. Many students generate and hold journal club meetings, which are a form of developing extra skills. However, journal club meetings could just as easily be repurposed as coding lessons, organization, writing workshops, lab procedure tutorials, and so on. Working as a team can share the burden and validate the value of the extra skill being learned.

Most extra skill development will be via reading. There is already so much to read that it is overwhelming. Where do you start? I am of the mindset that breadth of skills and knowledge is extraordinarily important, and only a few subsets of knowledge need to be known at extreme depth. For most areas of study, I recommend three domains of extra reading: methods, philosophical underpinnings, and history of your field of study. In nearly every field, a deep dive into the specifics and even minutia of methodology can present golden opportunities. At the very least, methods are a tool box; and the more tools that you have the more questions you can answer. Philosophical underpinnings of any field can result in some pretty dry reading. But understand the philosophy of science for the general context in which your field is situated can help to provide the big picture of your research. Finally, the history of your field is important to provide a temporal context and because many of us experience the ontology recapitulates phylogeny issue. Often, new graduate students think that they have come up with a brilliant novel research question when in fact, that question was already asked and answered over 30 years ago. You will read the basics in your field through classroom work and suggested papers from your PI. But to be effective, you must go beyond. Focus on methods, philosophical underpinnings, and history are great places to start your literature search and extra readings.

Although the other extra skills vary across disciplines, here are some suggestions that have been helpful for me:

·       Finances and Bookkeeping. I am fortunate to have learned these skills as part of a part-time restaurant job I had as an undergraduate and during my first year of graduate school (I also learned to cook at this job). In my career, I have been a lead psychologist in a hospital setting where I was responsible for a budget. The success of grant writing is largely due to the ability to justify budgets. Universities always audit any component of the work that involves money or purchase goods. My elementary bookkeeping skills have served me well.

·       Programming and Software Development. Basic coding and programming skills are requirements for many fields of study. These needs will always be changing and evolving. Typically, once you understand the logic of language acquisition, it is easier to learn new skills along the way. I am now in the middle of learning the basics of R for statistical analysis. It reminds me of the old school approaches as we used in the late 1980s era SAS and LISREL, but far more flexible. That I have basic coding skills is quite likely making learning a new method easier than it would otherwise have been.

·       Social Media. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and others are second-languages for the current generation of graduate students. However, the ability to use these approaches (and website design and development) for branding, crowd sourcing information, finding and acquiring funding, inter-university collaboration, and international research sharing is a specific and mindful skill that is worth developing.

·       Organization and Planning. Carefully organizing limited time is not something that people are born with. It is worth learning the techniques for study skills, time management, self-care, and structured learning. There is no need to waste time reinventing the wheel, there are excellent approaches and techniques available. It is a good investment of time to develop a highly organized and strategic approach to work.

·       Teaching and Supervising. Learning how to provide feedback and communicate complex information takes a lot of practice and experience. If you ask most senior professors how they developed the skills (if they have the skills), then they probably do not have a good answer for you. They will likely say that they learned on the streets or through trial and error. This is not necessary. There are many courses, tutorials, podcasts, and readings that support high-quality teaching and supervision. It is worth developing these skills even early in a graduate career.

·       Networking. Go meet people, you nerds. It is much easier to be social at conferences and other professional events than purely social events because you all have one thing in common – your field of study. For most senior scholars, at least one-third of their published papers (likely more) are due to a collaboration or inspiration of someone you have met at a conference or interacted with online. I have a colleague whose entire career success is because he is excellent at conferences. Everyone knows this gregarious professional. Any time there is an invited paper for a special issue, need for a chapter in a book, need for collaborator on a grant, or someone need support for co-authorship on an article; they remember this guy they met at a conference and invite him. Meet people, find common ground, support those people, and follow-up. Overall, it is somewhat surprising that so many experienced researchers have poor networking skills.

·       Blogging. This seems simple, but blogging is an opportunity to write in an experimental fashion without judgment. This is an opportunity to communicate personal, professional, or scientific information in a simple manner. Blogging can range from a sophisticated outreach and knowledge translation activity to personal rants. Whatever works for you is fine. This is an opportunity to develop and practice a professional writing style that is clear, accessible, and makes you mindful as to the tone of your writing.

There are certainly many extra meta-skills that will further your graduate and professional career (e.g., laboratory techniques, cleaning and sterilizing, electronics, computer design, construction, welding). Quite a few of those skills are discipline specific. Do not wait for random experiences to inform the meta-skills that you develop as a graduate student. Dedicate at least four hours per week, work with your peers, read extra papers strategically, and develop useful skills.

Getting the Writing Mojo Back: How Not to Suck in Graduate School

SR Shaw

Being an academic or grad student is a good life. We research, teach, mentor, engage the public, edit, promote, organize, administer, discover, counsel, and a host of other roles and functions. Ultimately, academics write. Writing is how our ideas have the furthest possible reach. Writing is how our ideas become fully formed and permanent. Writing is also how we are evaluated and is the currency by which we acquire things (e.g., grants, tenure, promotion, reputation). Moreover, most academics have solid writing habits that work well for them. But there are times...

Non-writing sneaks up on you. I am generally a 1,000 word per day person five days per week. Yet… you do a favor for a colleague, a student is having a personal crisis, you accept a travel commitment, you are on a search committee, the dean asks you to serve on another committee, 212 emails per day (yes, this is my median received email count in the winter and fall semesters), program director reports are due, teaching activities pile up, relationships with clinical supervisors in the community need to be nurtured, accreditation self-studies are due, need to take the dog to the vet, some students bring a complaint to you that requires a complex adjudication, you need to read theses, the dean wants to you to speak to a parent group, editing and review responsibilities pile up, and before you know it you have gone 6 weeks and written 140 words total. And you have fallen into the habit of non-writing. Then there are the consequences for not writing. Co-authors are not happy, deadlines are missed, student co-authors miss opportunities, small grant call for proposals are ignored, and there is a potential ugly hole in your CV. A primal scream ensues — followed closely by frustration and despair. A writer who does not write is courting insanity. A researcher who does not write is a technician and a tinkerer.

I would really like to have a full-on meltdown and declare commitment bankruptcy. Then start from scratch, only better. But overwhelming frustration is simply the nature of the job. Even the best planner gets overwhelmed. So, time to re-build the writing habit.

Stop digging. No matter how awesome a new opportunity might be, say no. Or better yet, say I cannot start on this project until X date. No more new crap. Delegate. Disappoint your boss. Frustrate your students. Say no to an editor. You cannot add to the mess.

What can be put off or cancelled? Professionals keep their commitments. But if any deadline can be extended or projects delegated, then do it. You are trying to make writing time now. 

Inertia is now the enemy. When you are on a typical schedule, writing 1000 words per day is so easy that you cannot imagine that you will ever stop this level of production. But now, opening a word processing file is aversive and you cannot imagine committing any thought to a file. Do not worry too much about word count. It is like a marathon runner recovering from an injury. You do not step back from the injury and expect to be able to prepare for a marathon. Write a few words that can be completed without pain or frustration. Then the next day, write a few more. The goal is to simply improve productivity every single day. Although it will not be easy, you can regain your form quickly.

Examine your schedule for scraps of time. Even in a full schedule there are 15 minutes here and an hour there that can be filled with writing. Keep your writing project open on your desk top. When you have a few minutes, write a few words. Twenty words, 50 words, 100 words. They add up.   

For my schedule, from May 1 to August 31 is the productivity zone. Over 80% of my writing productivity takes place over these four months. I really do not want to spend this prime productivity period working on getting my writing Mojo back. I have about two weeks to rebuild the habit and be completely ready to hit the ground running on May 1. The plan is to dig out completely from the massive number of tasks and get the writing momentum moving in a positive direction. As an aside, Mojo is defined as a magic power. When things are going well, it seems like a magic power. Yet, writing Mojo is not magic, but the result of discipline and habit building — those are the magic ingredients.

I need to get back up to speed in not only the volume and speed of productivity, but also in the complexity of the writing. I typically ramp up with increasing complexity of projects. The first stage is to write a blog post, which I try to produce monthly. These blog post are intended to be helpful, but often are self-indulgent and the level of prose is not especially complex. The next level is writing manuscript reviews. These reviews require critical thinking and teaching. However, it is easier to respond to someone else’s ideas then to create one’s own ideas. The third level is for short and important projects that require discipline and will be read by others, but are not especially innovative or groundbreaking. Examples of level three projects are test reviews, book reviews, newsletter articles, website content, and the like. These forms of writing are fine and important, but they are for show. Level four writing is for the dough. These are grant proposals, books, and articles for refereed scholarly journals. This is where it is necessary to integrate scholarship, data and analysis, innovative thinking, and word count into a coherent expression of a contribution to advance your profession. The complexity of thinking and execution of writing are at the absolute highest levels. Getting on that level is challenging to attain and even harder to maintain. I have fallen, but am building my way back up. Here is the blog post. I wrote a manuscript review this morning. Today, tomorrow, and Wednesday I am writing two test reviews; while tapering down the large administrative load. Getting at the highest level of thinking and speed of productivity does not happen by accident or all at once. Have a plan and go to grab your writing Mojo back.

Establishing a Lab Culture: How Not to Suck in Graduate School

Establishing a lab culture: How not to suck in graduate school

SR Shaw

The fall term brings new graduate students, visiting scholars, post-docs, and undergraduate research volunteers into research labs. Integrating new people into the lab and re-incorporating returning students and collaborators creates new issues. It is important to establish a culture quickly, so that the work can be done efficiently, cooperatively, and even joyfully. Sometimes, as an older scholar I make the mistake of assuming that returning members of lab remember the key features of the lab culture and that new members will somehow magically absorb the values that I wish the lab to possess. My twitter account and this blog are ways for me to put the values of the lab and our work in writing, so that there is an archive of ideas and tone. But in the hustle of day-to-day work, values and culture can be forgotten or lost due to busyness. And some labs find themselves adrift and moving in a direction that the director did not intend.

There is nothing that replaces the modeling of these values by the principal investigator. They must be lived or members of the lab will not buy-in and accept these cultural touchstones. In addition, these values must be emphasized explicitly, evaluated, rewarded, and established. Building a culture is a long-term process. However, a quick overview of the established credo of the lab can be a starting place and set expectations and aspirations for all lab work. Below are the 10 components that are the most heavily valued in my lab. I will be sending these to my students over the next week so we know where to begin our work this fall.

The 10 core values of the Connections Lab at McGill University:

Strive to become a professional, but do not forget to be a human
Work every single day to become a useful professional. That is, conscientious, independent, skilled, knowledgeable, ethical, and courageous; but realize that you will fall short some days. Always focus on being better tomorrow than you were today. You will never have a problem with me if you do something every day to improve.

You will need to trust that I define my success by your success.
My job is to prepare students as professionals. I know what it takes to be a successful school psychologist and the more successful you are, the more successful I am. I welcome challenges from you. A very reasonable question that you should ask me frequently is, “how will this task help me to achieve my professional goals?”

Wellness: yours and your team's.
Consider your mental and physical well-being a central part of your graduate education and work in this lab. Feel comfortable discussing issues and concerns that you may have. Your long-term development as a person and as a professional require attention to your physical and emotional well-being. At the first sign of any issues, let me know and we will develop a plan. In addition, look after your peers. We are a team and need to take care of each other. Although it may be obvious; harassment, sabotage, creating a hostile environment, or any other behaviours detrimental to the wellness of the team, our clients, or individuals will result in removal from the lab.

Write it down or it did not happen.
Writing is an essential component of graduate school. Any thoughts, ideas, findings, notions, and other contributions are only real if they are written. This is the most effective way to communicate and to create a trail of your thinking that will have an important influence on research and clinical practice. Writing is also a mechanism of accountability, minimizing misunderstandings, and improving communication.

We all do better when we all do better.
There is inevitable competition for authorship, grants, fellowships, and time and attention of senior members. However, this lab is a team. The success of any one of us reflects on all. Share credit, be generous with authorship, listen to the ideas of others, be genuinely happy for the success of your peers, and assist the work of others. When this becomes a habit, everyone benefits.

Do more: everything takes three times longer than you expect.
Doing more than the bare minimum is an essential part of professionalism. In addition, it is nearly impossible to plan your time and work accurately. No matter how much time you devote and plan to a specific task, you need to multiply the number of hours by three. Just achieving minimum expectations will require much more time and energy than you expect.

Attention to detail.
I completely dismiss the concept that “idea people” are important and effective parts of the lab. Ideas are only important if they are paired with an intense work habit, focus on implementation, and single-minded attention to detail. The focus on detail will certainly annoy most of the lab members at some point. Attention to detail is the difference between a vague idea that is floating in the ether and high-quality research and clinical practice.

Ethical behaviour.
Too often, students and professionals gloss over ethical behaviour because they believe that they are a good person who would not ever do anything evil or wrong. Ethical violations are not usually due to bad actors. Ethical violations are usually committed by good people who are tired, emotionally overwhelmed, stressed, overloaded with work, up against timelines, or ignorant of the exact ethical standards and procedures to be followed. Ethical guidelines need to be memorized, automatized, and second nature. They will be challenged when life becomes chaotic.

Invest in preparation.
Writing activity is the tip of the iceberg. For every hour of writing there is at least two hours of planning and four hours of reading (not to mention: seemingly endless hours of data collection and analysis). Be prepared for every meeting by having questions or information to present. Investment in preparation allows you to be a better worker, have more clear thinking, reduce stress, and leads to improved overall productivity and success.

Develop productive habits.
Inspiration comes and goes, but habit remains. To be an effective worker in this research lab, your aspirational goal should be to read 100 pages per day and write 1000 words per day. This will take time, practice, and training. Whatever habits you develop, focus on being the most productive person you can be. Positive habits create professionalism.

Developing a culture is far more than 10 simple and vague ideas. This only becomes a culture when these 10 points are modeled and lived. However, starting by communicating goals and expectations is a good way to begin the term.