As a Ph.D. student, I felt unprepared to mentor—but I’m glad I took the leap

From ScienceMag:

As I waited for the Teams meeting to begin, I started to question myself. “Wait, who am I to be mentoring someone?” I thought. I was just a first-year graduate student who still regularly sought guidance myself; what advice could I have to offer? Months earlier, I had applied to be a mentor through a program at my university that provides free support for potential Ph.D. applicants from groups that are historically underrepresented in science. I am passionate about helping students from backgrounds like mine, and I was eager to pay forward the guidance I had received earlier in my journey. But now that the moment was here, I was overcome with doubt.

As an undergraduate, I had no idea how to become a scientist. The process felt opaque and overwhelming, particularly to a first-generation college student. I always felt as though I was behind my peers, simply because I did not know how to access certain resources or get involved. Still, I pushed forward, learning the hard way through trial and error.

Things began to turn around at my first meeting with the professor who would become my lab supervisor. I was extremely nervous, but she was welcoming and understanding, genuinely interested in learning about me and my career goals. Throughout college, she provided support, professionally and personally, bolstering my confidence, helping me understand it is OK to take time away from lab for family, and more.

Being a mentor at my Ph.D. university seemed a great opportunity to do the same for others. I enthusiastically applied and was excited to be selected and matched with a mentee. But as our first meeting drew close, uncertainty crept in. There was no guidebook to follow. How should I structure our meetings? What if she asks a question that I have no idea how to answer? How could I be ready for this type of leadership role, when I still had so far to go myself?

That day of our first meeting, I was terrified. But once my mentee joined the call, seeming very enthusiastic about meeting me, and started to talk about herself, I had a flashback to my own college experience. I remembered struggling to navigate getting into a research lab and applying to summer internships and graduate school. The fellow first-generation student on the other side of the screen was probably going through something similar—feeling both uncertainty and a fierce determination to figure it out and achieve her professional goals.

What mattered, I realized, was not to be some imaginary perfect mentor with all the answers, but to get to know my mentee, including her hopes and ambitions, and offer whatever guidance and support I could based on my own experiences. We ended the meeting having set some practical goals for the year—including writing her personal statement and practicing research presentations—and just as important, laid the grounds for an authentic, personal relationship.

As our sessions continued, I still went into each one worried I would not be prepared to solve every problem my mentee encountered. But over time, I realized I could help in practical ways. I could equip her with the skills to tackle obstacles, such as answering difficult questions during interviews and research presentations. Just like my mentee, I had dreaded the “tell me about yourself” prompt; where do you start and how much should you tell? In my case, I had found a happy balance by explaining how being diagnosed with mixed connective tissue disease during college had driven me to pursue a Ph.D.—but I didn’t go into details that would have felt invasive and draining. I described my approach to my mentee, so she could adopt the parts that resonated with her.

When I did not know the answer to an issue she raised, I was honest about it and did my best to listen, provide feedback and guidance, and allow her to determine her best course of action. Sometimes I was there simply to provide a safe space to vent. I could help even when I did not have a solution.

A few months after submitting her graduate school applications, my mentee sent an email thanking me for my support and guidance, which she said helped increase her confidence. She probably doesn’t know that she helped increase my confidence, too.

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