Student Column: How to Build a Good Relationship With Professors and Colleagues in Grad School
On top of everything that is going on in graduate school, building and maintaining a good relationship with scholars in your field is crucial for you to achieve your academic goals. Good mentorship from an academic advisor and strong emotional support from colleagues can not only provide intellectual stimulation, but can ease your stress and make you more focused and motivated in pursuing your graduate study.
This month's student column is devoted to discussing an important topic, "How to Build a Good Relationship with Professors and Colleagues in Graduate School," with scholars from different regions of the world. The two ICA student representatives themselves have had experiences and considerations in this respect, both in graduate school and beyond: Sojung Claire Kim, who conducted the interviews for this newsletter article, says: "Being a graduate student can sometimes be daunting. That is why students need to have good people around and learn from them." During her graduate studies, Kim herself has benefited tremendously from having a role model to whom she can relate and from maintaining a strong support system with her colleagues. For Diana Nastasia, her Ph.D. advisor Dr. Lana Rakow (U of North Dakota) has not only been a professor but also a mentor, a collaborator on research, teaching, and service projects, and a model of dedication and professionalism.
Here is some more useful advice from current and past graduate students who agreed to share their views on the topic:
Manisha Pathak-Shelat (Ph.D. Student, U of Wisconsin-Madison) points out the importance of time management, preparation, and a sense of compassion for professors:
"I recognize how busy a professor's life can be in a U.S. research university, especially when it comes to organization and time management. This does not mean that I keep away from interaction (quite the contrary), but if you see professors as busy people with spouses, kids, parents, pets, leaking roofs, and lives outside of academia, you can be more sensitive in your interactions. I do my best to maximize time efficiency and never approach professors with a sense of entitlement. It also helps to give professors a sense of your background, academic and cultural differences in your country and the US, and request them to clearly spell their expectations from you as a grad student."
Pathak-Shelat shares a few techniques that have helped her ensure good interaction with professors:
John Christensen (Postdoctoral Fellow, U of Pennsylvania) also shares his experience about relationship building in an academic setting:
"I learned a lot about what makes a good (and bad) student-advisor relationship by talking with other people in my program about their experiences. I also chatted with some of my advisor's former students at conferences like ICA, which was particularly helpful. One important thing I learned was that, even though I was technically the one being advised, it was ultimately up to me to develop and maintain a healthy relationship with my advisor. I came to realize that, just like me, she was overcommitted, stressed out, and juggling a dozen or so professional and personal responsibilities in a given day. Instead of taking a passive approach, I made sure she always had clear understanding of what was on the horizon and how she could help. Being proactive, direct, and honest is the way to go."
Jacob Groshek (Assistant Professor, Erasmus U - Rotterdam) discusses diverse academic cultures and collegial relationship building strategies:
"As a graduate student, I quickly learned that I was an apprentice and an assistant in a research program. This situation dictated much of the student-professor as well as student-student interactions there, from social and informal to professional and work-related. In the department where I work as an assistant professor now, our Ph.D. students are considered equal colleagues, and have very similar expectations for teaching and research. Though there are some steps that encourage interaction amongst the doctoral students, they work independently and share their experiences and opinions as full participants in and out of faculty meetings.
Simply, the point is that academic cultures (international or not) can be quite unique nd it is important for students to understand their role and what is expected of them, and not only on a procedural basis. Social interactions and relations go a long way toward cultivating collegiality, and this seems especially true in highly international and multicultural programs, where some additional patience and added explicitness can be real benefits. In short, my experience suggests that students should seek to minimize ambiguity in order to realize the full range of their opportunities."
Erik Bucy (Associate Professor, Indiana U) further offers step-by-step advice on how to succeed in academic interactions with professors.
"Inherent in the role of being a student is the requirement to take classes, but it's what you do outside of class that determines how broad, and meaningful, your education can become. Immerse yourself in the literature beyond the class readings and find those areas of inquiry and missing knowledge that call out for further research-- then pursue them in the context of your class projects. Professors are always thrilled to come across motivated students who want to adapt and extend their final projects. This sort of extra effort not only builds academic capital but also lays the groundwork for a conference submission and eventual publication. Conference visibility then makes you visible to the field, and publication makes you visible to the world.
"Another key to early success is following up when you receive a positive comment on a seminar paper or offer to collaborate. When a faculty member offers a dataset for reanalysis (or original analysis) or suggests a collaboration on a new study based on your review of the literature, be prepared to seize the opportunity and act on it. I did-- and benefited from it enormously." "Finally, do not view this process too instrumentally. The ideal collaboration is really an intellectual dialog and meeting of the minds, where you not only seek answers to unanswered questions but also learn about the process of research and how an established scholar thinks."
Simply put, Bucy says, "The graduate student-professor relationship can potentially be one of the most productive and rewarding of all academic associations-- if approached in the right manner."