Blog – Dr. Benjamin

Translating A Graduate Degree

On July 9, 2019

How do I convince a hiring manager that I have “the right stuff”?

All communication is context dependent. For example, what does it mean if I have “caught the golden snitch”? Well, maybe I just scored my house 150 points and brought a rousing match of Quidditch to a close. Maybe the blonde haired person leaking information has just been soused out. Or maybe you look at me and wonder why I would even type something like that.

The same applies for communicating the skills and expertise that we have developed in graduate school. If I tell another polymer chemist that the Mn calculated from the NMR end-group analysis agrees well with the one determined from the SEC data, they may nod and go on with their day. My lawyer wife will ask me to stop talking mid-sentence because I am making no sense to her. But it isn’t just technical jargon and know-how that gets lost in translation when we talk about our PhD’s to people in different contexts.

Look at a job ad. Even a job ad for a position that requires the technical skills your degree gives you. What do you find? Are there bullet points about teamwork? Managing others and ensuring continual growth? One of the biggest challenges grad degree holders have is not just translating their technical knowledge, but learning how to articulate the skills they developed in an academic setting to a non-academic one. Here are some examples of how you might translate some of those skills.

“Incorporating collaborator edits” becomes “Addressing client/stake-holder concerns”
“Supervising undergraduate student research projects” becomes “Managing and promoting skills development in junior team members”
“authored literature review” becomes “Conducted exhaustive market research, identifying trends and competitive gaps”
Your group meeting presentations? That was you leading technical discussion to address potential roadblocks and develop actionable solutions.
All that instrument time you logged? “Leveraged state-of-the-art technology to accurately measure and control project development and identify new leads.”

Identify the keywords you use in your graduate degree, then find their equivalent in the position you are applying for. When you become able to articulate what you did to an audience that wants to know if you have the skills and characteristics they are looking for, you start to speak their language. Look at job ads, talk to people in the industry you want to be in. Learn to speak in the terms they use, and how to translate your graduate degree. That is one of the most important steps in getting your resume read, and someone asking for an interview with you.

Managing Your Energy

By Benjamin

On July 7, 2019

In Personal Growth

One of the most common challenges I hear about from graduate students is establishing effective time management. There is a certain finesse required to move from a months-long plan to a daily one. And in a discipline like research, where things don’t always go as planned, daily or weekly schedules can be upset from any number of setbacks. So what is one to do? How should we plan our days to make effective use our time?

What I have learned to do is manage my energy, not my time. I have the same amount of time in each day, 24 hours. I do not always have the same amount of energy. Each minute lasts as long as the one before, but my energy changes throughout the day. While tasks may take time, it is our energy that we expend to accomplish tasks. Managing your energy, allows you to better plan your day and accomplish your goals. Here is my approach to managing my energy.

Learn to understand what your natural daily rhythm is. When are you most productive? When do you need to shut off? I find the first five hours of my day are the most productive. I know I have the most energy to tackle a task in that window. I also know that I need some help to get through my 1 – 2 pm slump, a nice cup of tea usually helps.

Plan your tasks according to their energy needs. Do you need to accomplish something very important today? Plan to do it when you have the most energy. Do you have some small, but essential computer work? Plan it into your low-energy times so you can enjoy some coffee while plugging away at the keyboard. By aligning the energy needs of a task with your natural energy rhythm you are ensuring that you can devote the appropriate resources to them.

Know what restores your energy. Tea and short walks. Those are the things I use to get some energy back, and to take a quick break, before I tackle something I need to accomplish. By identifying what activity helps you keep or restore your energy, you can use it as an effective break to maintain achieving your daily goals.

What does your long-term energy rhythm look like? Can you sustain six eight-hour days of work? Do you need an extra long-weekend every so often? Knowing this helps us to avoid burnout, one of the biggest challenges of working on projects that take months or years to complete. By taking care of our long-term energy needs, we can maintain our natural daily rhythm to continue steady progress.

Hopefully this can give everyone some insight into being more effective throughout our days and making the most of the energy (and time) that we have. Try planning your day around your energy and see if you get more accomplished. These are certainly not the only ways to manage energy and I would love to know if you have any strategies that you use!

Things I’ve Learned Through Mentoring

By Benjamin

On July 7, 2019

In Personal Growth

Anybody who spends enough time in a chemistry lab makes the curious transition from mostly being mentored, to being a mentor. For me that transition began in my teaching labs, instructing 3rd year undergraduate students how to actually do the things they learned about in a lecture hall. As my confidence and competence grew in my own research I gradually began mentoring the more junior members of our group. Now in my role as a postdoctoral researcher, mentoring is a key part of my job. I thought I would share with everyone some of the key lessons that I have learned through being a mentor.

Reflect – I see mentoring as helping someone learn as opposed to teaching someone lessons. Sometimes we come away from our experiences with only the conclusion, and forget about our methods. They tend to be messy, unplanned and ad hoc. Reflecting on my learning path allows me to give better direction and reminds me to be patient.
Set shared expectations – Sharing expectations of each other is important in any relationship. In a relationship where learning and growing is the goal, understanding what targets both parties have is paramount to your ability as a mentor to provide actionable advice and valuable experience. If you are trying to teach something your student is not trying to learn, both of you can become frustrated.
Be regularly available – As I said above, learning is messy, unplanned and ad hoc, because of this being a mentor requires that you can provide timely and regular assistance to your student. We rarely know when the best time we can provide feedback is, and being accessible means that direction can be provided before correction is required.
Remember you are learning too – Mentoring requires humility. Relationships should always benefit both parties. You, as a mentor, are learning through the process of mentoring. Accept feedback from your student, learn how to teach different kinds of learners, and how to listen and understand before giving advice. Do not forget that getting the most out of a mentor-student relationship requires internal motivation.
Have fun – This is something I say regularly to the people I mentor, and I truly mean it. Building relationships with people is one of the most fulfilling activities in life. Fun doesn’t necessitate a lack of seriousness or formality, it means to bring joy and a smile to what you do. Find the joy in working with someone, of seeing them grow and overcome mistakes. Learn to laugh at your own mistakes (you will make them). Having fun means that we connect in a deeper way and can share joy with one another.

Mentoring other people has made me grow so much in my career. It is one of the most demanding and rewarding things I do. Demanding because it requires me to take seriously the advice I give and patiently listen to someone, even when I feel I know better. Mentoring is rewarding because it validates my learning and helps me build the community that I want to see in my work environment. I know that I am still learning and growing, but every new person I can mentor, is a new opportunity to learn something new. Thank you for reading, and I would love to hear what you feel are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a mentor.

Benjamin