Mentoring for the First Time
Congratulations, you are about to embark on what may be one of the most formative experiences of your life! If you are a graduate student or postdoc and you are about to mentor a student for the first time it is natural to feel concern. But just as you were at one point mentored, this is a rite of passage which you will successfully navigate.
The first step is for you to reflect on how you have been mentored previously. What did you like and more importantly, what didn’t you like? Perhaps these will be some points for you to focus on while you begin your first mentoring relationship. Building trust and rapport will certainly help your relationship, so bring your authentic self to this new relationship. Don’t try to emulate someone else, take what you appreciate from your experience being a mentee and make it your own.
Another point which is pivotal is that we normally assume that people learn and react as we do. Therefore, if you struggle with something you might over compensate while teaching it. Also, if you like to learn through reading, you may assign structured learning while your mentee prefers to learn in a more practical way. It is a key conversation to have early on to discern how your mentees learning style may differ from your own. This may create some initial difficulties as you modify your approach, but it is better to get this implemented before you spend weeks being an ineffective mentor.
The next key step is to figure out where your mentee is currently. Go over some of the very basics of your research and see how much they are already familiar with. If necessary, you may need to start at the beginning and build up. Alternatively, you may be lucky to have a student who is already familiar with your research area and the techniques you will be using. Ensure they write down key information and steps as although they believe they will remember it, they won’t! Because I was the queen of Western blots I had the beginner’s guide to Western blotting written out for my mentee’s on the first day. I know they found this beneficial and referred back to it as needed.
There is a common training method which you may have experienced which is see one, do one, teach one. This may work, however you may want to go with an easier but more time consuming approach which is they watch you, then they help you do it, you help them do it, and then finally they do it themselves. You may want to judge your mentee’s ability before you decide which approach best suits them.
One of the most important things about a mentor-mentee relationship is good communication. Therefore, you want to set clear expectations and goals at the beginning of the relationship. These may change as your mentee learns and develops, but there is nothing more frustrating for either a mentor or a mentee when the expectations are uncertain. They will become frustrated as they won’t know how to perform well in your eyes. You will undoubtedly become annoyed as you may believe your expectations were well defined.
Another part of communication is providing feedback in a timely manner. If you see something wrong or subpar you should correct it in the moment. The counter of that is if they do something good you should provide praise. Both of these may feel awkward the first few times, but as you become more comfortable as a mentor these will feel more natural.
In addition to communicating expectations and feedback, you need to be clear about when you can be disturbed. If there are times where you are concentrating or performing a particular part of an experiment and it is paramount you aren’t disturbed, they need to know before you do it. Maybe there is an easy way for them to know, such as you are listening with headphones. Ensure they know before you begin as potentially snapping at them that you are busy will undo any trust or rapport you have built.
An important learning moment for you both is should they ask a question which you can’t answer, you let them know you don’t know but will figure it out and get back to them. You can’t know everything and while it may be humbling it is good for them to see a mentor own up to that. Just remember a time where your mentor pushed you off and then came back with the answer later. Or worse, made you feel stupid for asking the question in the first place.
Something I learned the hard way through my first mentoring experience is that you can’t be “friends” with your mentee. There needs to be professional boundaries which ensures you don’t blur the edges of the relationship. I have a fear of working with Bunsen burners which my mentee thought was hilarious. She found it less amusing when, because she was messing around, she set her gloves on fire! Luckily, she was close to a sink and we managed to get her gloveless and safe quickly. Just know that if your first mentee doesn’t set themselves on fire you are doing better than me!
You will soon appreciate that being a mentor is time consuming. Don’t assume that your day will be unaffected by the inclusion of your mentee. Take the time to ensure they know what their plan for the day is, check in with them to ensure they are on track and to provide timely feedback, and find out if everything went well before they leave. You may then need to make alterations to your plans depending on what you learn through these conversations. If things aren’t going perfectly, show them grace. I’m sure at one point you also struggled to perform what are now basic tasks, so allow them the time and space to become proficient.
I hope that you enjoy being a mentor. I am still in contact with some of my mentees and I love hearing their accomplishments. While it makes me feel old as some of them are now physicians, surgeons, or performing their own research and proud holders of their own Ph.D.’s, it is a legacy I can also be proud of.
My Ph.D. supervisor once told me that his true legacy is in the people he trained, not the research he performed. It is true. The way he taught me certainly altered the way I have taught others, and if that can then continue down the line of mentor to mentee then I have created my legacy while also preserving his.
