About two and a half years ago I wrote a blog post about
advising
grad students.
At long
last, here is Part II in my (very slow) advising series. It addresses the
question, "What do you tell your Junior Colleagues?"
Let me begin with a disclaimer: I can't guarantee anyone success. When I
talk to my junior colleagues, whether at Harvard or elsewhere, I tell them
things I really believe, but (unfortunately) I don't make the rules, I don't
make decisions, and what I believe may or may not be right for any
particular person or institution.
So, this is my
opinion on what I think one should tell Junior
colleagues.
But hey, this is my blog, and everything in it is just my opinion.
Let me just start out by putting it bluntly: being a professor is a bit of
a crazy profession. It's one that has worked for me and offers many features
(perhaps the topic of a later blog), but it's not the kind of job any sane
person would make up. You get into this job because you're used to being
really good at everything you do. Unfortunately, there are way too many
things for a professor to do that you can continue to do all of them at the
same quality level that makes you comfortable This is perhaps the greatest
challenge that we have to face -- be willing to do things at less than peak
performance. I repeat, "You must be willing to do some things at less than
your peak performance." This seems totally counterintuitive in a highly
competitive job, where you feel that everything you do is highly scrutinized,
but if you try to excel in everything simultaneously, you will drive yourself
totally crazy.
So, what is an over-achiever to do?
Pick and choose carefully. The key here is that you can't do everything
well all the time. Instead, you pick what you are going to do well at any
point in time. As an academic, I like to think in terms of semesters. At
the beginning of each semester, you have to decide which are the things for
which you need to produce A work and for which can you slide through with
B work. Each semester, the lists change slightly so that at some point, every
functional area gets some A work and some B work and every semester gets
some A work and some B work.
Let's make this more concrete.
Let's say that you've just started your first faculty position and you want
to make a good impression -- how do you get started? My advice typically
goes something like this. No one expects you to crank out much research
your first year. If you have some straggling papers from your dissertation
or post-doc, that's fantastic -- get those out. But, your real focus in
year one is to get your teaching under control and get your research agenda
planned. Note that planning a research agenda is different from doing
research, but we'll get to that in a minute.
If you are in a kind department, then you can assume that you'll be teaching
the same courses for several years. That means that if you invest time this
year in developing your courses the way you want to teach them (i.e., you make
teaching an "A" priority), then you can leverage that investment over the
next several years (expending "B" effort, while ideally obtaining "A" results).
So, while many will tell you that any time you invest
in teaching is wasted, I disagree. Good teachers get good students. And
good students will help you do your research. That said, invest time wisely.
Time spent automating grading is time well spent. Time spent developing
four thousand step animations is not. (And trust me, it is very easy to fall
into this trap. I've done it.)
I could go on for quite some time about what is and is not a good
use of your time with respect to teaching, but that's
another topic.
For some detail, I recommend my colleague Harry
Lewis's
article on the topic or my more recent experience elsewhere in this blog.
And then remember that what works for me may not work for you.
The key ideas are:
- Figure out what works for you.
- Invest time in things that are reusable.
- Remember, the quality of your teaching is best measured by how much
the students learn, not how entertained they are or how much they think
you or your slides rock.
- True learning takes place when students do things and get feedback --
anything you can do to improve the quality of feedback students get on
work increases the chances that students are actually learning something.
Sadly, most students never look at anything other than the final grade on
massive assignments. I spend hours grading final papers and both writing
and typing up detailed comments. Few students actually read these comments,
so perhaps it's not a good use of my time. However, I still do it, hoping
that perhaps one of them will actually learn something.
OK, so picking up the main thread here -- invest time in your courses in
year one so that in the next two to three years, you can teach the same
courses with minimal effort. You hire good teaching assistants, you pull
out your notes (and perhaps assignments) from the previous year and you
spend almost no time preparing. Sure, in those future years, you're giving
a B effort in teaching, but because of the prep you did in year one, you
ought to be able to invest B effort and get A- or B+ results.
The second part of year one is planning your research program. That probably
means figuring out what you want to do and then writing the proposals to get
funding for those projects. This is the time to renew acquaintances with all
your friends who are now working in places that fund academic research. See
if you can get some supporters lined up for corporate grants -- these are
small grants, but require significantly less effort than your classic NSF
grant. You'll want to submit one or two of those as well (and I mean one or
two, not six or eight), but your main goal is to have a plan for the research
you want to do and convince people to give you money to do it. If you have
your ideas well in place by the end of the first semester, that puts you in
good shape to identify the grad students you want to admit.
Getting a handle on what projects/research you want to undertake also sets
you up in semester two and over the summer to write high quality grant proposals.
This is the time to squelch your inner procrastinator. Get your proposals
written early enough to get feedback. Ask your senior colleagues for critical
review -- if you are in a good department, they want you to succeed and will
help you submit the best proposal you can. It's also worth teaming up with
another colleague or two for some bigger proposals
if (and this
is a big if) the work necessary on the larger project is compatible with that
research agenda you spent so much time crafting. Don't lose sight of that.
So, if all goes well, by the end of year one, you will have lots of reusable materials
for your teaching, a research agenda on which you can begin to execute, a couple of
proposals in the pipeline, and some incoming grad students whose interests
are well-aligned with your research agenda. Begin year two.
Year two is all about getting your research firing on all cylinders.
Over the last several years I have become a strong believer in knowing what
paper you are writing when you begin a project. If it's real research, then
you had better not know the results, but you had better have some hypotheses.
Write those down. Really. Honest, write the opening paragraph that motivates
what you are doing and why. If you can't write it now, why are you doing the
research you're doing? Sure, you don't know how it will turn out, but if you
don't have an hypothesis, you don't really know why you're doing what you're
doing.
Concurrently with getting that research started, you're also starting to
be a graduate advisor. That is a
whole other topic, but in the context of
this discussion, the message is you have to realize that this is another
one of those activities that you need to learn to do. And every student
needs a different advisor -- you might be able to play that role for multiple
students, but if you walk in believing that you can advise every student
identically, you will not be a successful advisor. You need to have some
basic advising methodology and a philosophy, but you need to get to know
your students, understand their strengths and weaknesses and figure out
how to most effectively advise each student. This will take time.
After year two, you should be a on a role of focusing mostly on your research
and students, and then periodically having to step back and brush up your
teaching (i.e., make it an A task for a semester or two), whether to update
a course, update your teaching methodology, teach a new one, develop a new
course, translate your course to the web, etc. However, if you use that time
effectively, then you can still make research an A priority for many of
your semesters. Do not confuse grant writing with research -- grant writing is
a necessity (at least in my field). If you are successful, you can secure
several year's funding with a semester or two of concentrated effort and then
forget about funding for awhile. However, you have to keep track of where you
are in the funding cycle and know when it's time to elevate grant writing
to an A activity, so you don't suffer from a gap in funding. Personally,
this is a huge challenge for me as I'd much rather do research than write
grant proposals (I'm kind of guessing I'm not alone here). As a result, I
can end up leaving grant writing a low priority for too long -- don't let
this happen to you.
Now, some of you are getting ready to scream at me and say, "What about all
that other stuff? What about program committees and NSF panels and guest
lectures and attending conferences and departmental committees, and undergrad
advising and all those other things that our institutions expect us to do????"
If your colleagues aren't already ready to fire me for saying that you can sometimes
relegate teaching to a B activity, I'm sure some will cringe at the next section.
High order bit: you do not have to do as much of this stuff as you think you do.
There, I said it. Seriously, the closest I've ever come to "yelling" at my
Junior colleagues (you know who you are) is when I see they have signed up to
do six program committees in one year. Yes, program committees are useful.
Yes, they keep you up to date on what people are doing. Yes, they get you
known. But six? No! It's not a good use of time.
My advice is no more than two program committees each
year. One of
those can be a real conference and one can be a workshop. Yup, no more than two.
And you don't have to do two every year, but repeat after me, "No more than two."
There, wasn't that easy?
Now, how do you pick the two? You want to work your
way up to getting on the program committee of
the big conference
in your area.
It needn't happen in years one or two, but by year N-1 (where N is
the year you are up for tenure), you want to serve. In the meantime, build up
your PC credentials by serving on the slightly less prestigious venues. Pick
workshops that are very closely aligned with your current research agenda.
It's fine to approach current chairs and let them know that you'd like to
serve on a future committee -- they will pass it along to the next chairs (of
course, if you already know who the next chairs are and they've not yet
put together a committee, you can approach them). You can also ask your
senior colleagues/mentors to help you get on the big program committees.
However, your best approach is to accept a limited number of invitations
and do an outstanding job. Get your reviews in on time, engage in thoughtful
discussions, be positive, etc. Trust me, you'll have more invitations than
you'll know what to do with. But now you know what to do, say, "I'm really
sorry, but I'm completely booked up this year on program committees -- please
let next year's chairs know that I'd be interested though."
Note: I do not always heed my own advice, and I almost always regret it.
OK, that's program committees, what about NSF panels? I find that serving on
those is extremely helpful right before I am about to submit a proposal, because
they remind me how panels work and what's important in a proposal. So, you
should do a few of these, but not a lot -- perhaps one every other year? That
feels about right to me.
And yes, you'll get asked to do more. Fortunately, those invitations are
always accompanied by specific dates, so you can use your, "Oh, I'm so sorry,
but that day/week/month is simply not possible for me."
How about committees in your own department? This is a bit tricky.
If you are
in a nice, nurturing department, they won't ask you to do too much, because
they don't want to distract you. However, there are some committees that
are worth the time -- in my opinion graduate admissions and hiring. The former
because it gives you firsthand knowledge of the pool and puts you in good
recruiting territory. The latter, because you know who's coming out in the
few years after you, who you might want for colleagues, and at whom you
should be looking. However, moderation is your friend -- don't do both in
one year -- each of these is very labor intensive (admissions a huge burst at
one time in the year; search a more steady time sink throughout the year).
Just like with your PC invitations, you can be polite and constructive in
turning down committee invitations, "Dear Chair You-Who-Controls-My-Destiny:
While I would be very excited to serve on the suck-all-my-time-out-of-day
committee, I'm afraid that I cannot do it this semester/year. I've
already scheduled all my committee time on other activities. I would
however be happy to serve next year (and will reserve time now if that's
feasible)."
What's a chair to do? They can't really dispute what your schedule looks
like and you have, in fact, signed up to do it next year.
Of course, if it's an activity that you feel you never want to do unless
someone is holding a close relative hostage, you'll need to tweak that
letter slightly and leave off the part about wanting to do it in the
future.
Finally, there are those friendly invitations to "Come give a talk."
Giving talks is a good thing; it can be fun;
it gets you visibility and gives you a chance to find out what's
happening in a department.
But, it also takes time and means "yet another trip."
So, be strategic.
There are times during your pre-tenure years
that giving talks is more important: the semester before
your department is going to write to every researcher on the planet
asking their opinion of you.
Yup, the year before tenure and, if you have a formal mid-tenure-track
review, the year before that.
Even then, you do not need to give 4000 talks.
Be strategic.
You can probably guess at least half of the people to whom your department
is likely to write.
Pick the very top departments from that list.
Rather than visiting every institution on your list, leverage
the most prestigious departments in your field.
Be visible -- maybe, just maybe, if you're up for tenure, you give
the talk rather than having your student give it.
Even if you don't do that, use your conference time wisely:
talk to colleagues, let them know what you're up to.
Invite them out to lunch/dinner with your students.
Finally, rather than traveling to give a talk,
you can ask your department to invite them
as colloquia speakers.
It's funny how many invitations I get to come give talks that are
followed up a year later by letter requests.
You think it's purely coincidence? I don't.
The other way to make sure people know what you're up to is to
convene a mini-workshop on YOUR RESEARCH.
You have to get this right, but if you have the funding and can really
take advantage of the event and you can persuade people it's worth their
time, there is nothing better than inviting 15-20 bigwigs in your field
to spend a couple of days at your institution engaged in thoughtful,
interesting conversation. If they also happen to come away with the
big picture of your research agenda, won't you feel like the star?
I believe that it is becoming more common for departments to allocate
at least some funds to help you do something like this.
It can save you a lot of travel.
Above all, learn to say, "No." You can be polite, but you must be firm.
After one particularly brutal year, I adopted the mantra, "It's all my
fault." The message to myself was supposed to be that I control my
work life and if I'm too busy, it's because I've said yes to too many
things. Surprisingly, rather than being a defeatist attitude, it's
actually quite empowering. If it's all my fault, then I have the power
to change it.
One of the trickiest things for me is saying no to students. I truly
love spending time with students -- after all, if I didn't like students,
why would I choose to be at a University? When they invite me to a faculty
dinner, I'd love to go, but guess what. Dinner time is family time in my
life. I already miss way too many dinners when I travel and I frequently
have some child-transportation responsibilities in the late afternoon or
early evening, so it's quite difficult to really make faculty dinners go.
So, what do I do when students ask? Typically I explain that evenings
are rough for me, but suggest that we do lunch -- either during the
semester, or more frequently during reading period when both our schedules
are a bit more flexible. This past year, I had evening duty in Cambridge
with one of my kids and that let me attend a faculty dinner or two or
use those evenings to take students out. Yes, it cost more than a faculty
dinner, but the students are more interested in just hanging out with you
and talking than with trying the local 5-star restaurant (should you
have one). The hours I've spent over lunch, dinner or coffee with students
are among the most fun of the semester -- it doesn't matter if it's in
the formal setting of a faculty dinner. In fact, think of the faculty
dinners as mechanisms for you to figure out which students might enjoy
just chatting and then do that!
OK, those are the things I like to tell my colleagues. Some have found
these words useful; I'm sure others will find that they don't work.
In any case, you get to make decisions about how you spend your time.
If you make those decisions wisely, so that they simultaneously help you
be productive and keep you sane, you will either end up tenured or you'll
end up not-tenured, but reasonably content with your life, instead of
bitter and resentful.
