Mentoring
Innovation in research requires many different types of learning: learning information critical to success in a specific field, learning about working on a team, and, most importantly, learning how to learn. A mentor promotes innovation and facilitates learning by providing an open, creative, inspiring, and intellectually challenging environment. Strong mentoring helps students become self-sufficient while utilizing and developing knowledge and skills. The mentoring relationship is unique because it is inherently framed in the context of the goals, traits, and personalities of mentor and mentee. Both mentor and mentee must continuously adapt to best address their joint objectives. Entering into a mentoring relationship is a crucial and distinct responsibility aimed at furthering scientific advancement through future generations. I believe that mentoring rests on three primary ideas.
Mentors promote active engagement while increasing subject-specific knowledge and encouraging scientific inquiry.
In a professional capacity mentoring is about science. Mentors provide new investigators with an opportunity to gain experiential subject knowledge. For quantitative research, which often hinges on small technical details, it is important to remain aware of the motivations and implications of the research on a grander scale. I routinely ask mentees to explain small theoretical facts and their relevance to our scientific objectives. These discussions ensure that the mentee knows specific information, builds critical thinking skills, and understands both high-level and low-level aspects of the project. As important as specific knowledge is for scientific endeavors, even more important is the ability and confidence to use this knowledge to ask questions, unravel mysteries, and seek innovative solutions to broad scale problems. Experienced researchers know that scientific inquiry will lead to more questions. Mentees must learn to embrace this, which requires confidence in the face of uncertainty.
Mentees become self-sufficient by learning how to independently assess, tackle, and solve problems in science.
An active effort to increase subject-specific knowledge should leave mentees with more questions than they started with. Learning to assess, tackle, and solve these problems requires engagement and enthusiasm despite short-term failure. Effective mentors provide safe environments where obstacles are viewed as a valuable and essential part of the scientific process rather than as failures. As mentees learn that failure is not final, they become confident in their ability to continue to pursue scientific knowledge, using creative and innovative solutions. True scientific research will hit roadblocks. The goal of mentoring is to convince mentees that those moments are where the real science takes place. Mentees who learn to push past such roadblocks are well on their way to self-sufficient and successful careers in science.
Communication is crucial to creating a mutually beneficial, productive, and honest mentoring environment.
I have been fortunate to have had mentors, in official and unofficial capacities, with whom I have had very open and supportive relationships. This non-judgmental line of communication directly contributed to my success and is something I strongly believe in bringing into my own mentoring practice. I always have an informal first meeting with a mentee to get to know them as both a person and as a scientist; at this initial meeting, we fill out a mentoring compact that addresses the mentee’s background and goals. This allows us to work together to identify and establish an appropriate project, which helps avoid future disinterest or misunderstanding. I meet and speak regularly with mentees throughout the entirety of any specific project, particularly at the beginning of the process. This consistent communication ensures that we identify gaps in a mentee’s understanding as they arise, while simultaneously ensuring that they are tackling problems without getting discouraged. I learn as much from my mentees as they learn from me. I truly enjoy witnessing my mentees’ transition from new investigators to scientific colleagues as they grow more confident and independent.
While my official responsibility to a mentee is determined by the length of our project, I view mentoring as a lifelong commitment. Mentors guide mentees through the pitfalls and rewards of scientific inquiry and help them become contributing members of the scientific community. Mentoring is molding the minds, habits, and beliefs of the next generation; it should be entered into intentionally and with great care.