Slowing Down, Being Present

As the spring quarter begins, we know that many of you will be experiencing anxiety over fulfilling requirements for your very first —or final — year in your grad program, planning your career trajectory beyond the UW, or managing your time to balance work, family, and graduate school. As the weeks go by, the work will seem to just pile up. This is real.

The good thing is, you can approach being a graduate student from a totally different perspective — by being intentional and mindful. We invite you to take a deep breath (really, a full breath in and out), create some space for yourself to slow down, and check out some possible strategies for being mindful that you can consider incorporating into your schedule.

Resist busyness. There’s an unspoken culture in graduate school that perpetuates the idea that over-productivity is a good thing: that performing and talking about how busy we are is key to being successful in a graduate program. Stanford Career Coach Dr. Chris Golde offers a different perspective and states, “Graduate students report more than can be done.” She recommends slowing down “to make peace with [our] limitations,” and says “there will always be those around you — students and faculty — who accomplish far more than you do. Hold yourself to a standard of what is realistic for you.”

Set achievable goals. It can be tempting during this time of the year to be overly ambitious about your goals, and setting an unrealistic standard for yourself can actually lead to you not achieving what’s most important to you — whether you are in career planning mode, completing your capstone, thesis or dissertation, or working on or off campus. Again, we invite you to slow down. We know that when we were in graduate school, goal setting wasn’t something that we suddenly knew how to do. Take some time to map out and visualize your goals. And finally, we encourage you to reward yourself for each task you complete towards your end goals.

Be mindful. Mindfulness can simply be defined as taking time to observe your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations from moment to moment, without judgment. Why would this be beneficial to practice while you are in graduate school? Research has shown that over time, mindfulness can help us be more compassionate to ourselves and people in our communities, help us be less reactive and more calm in the face of conflict, and help us increase our focus to what truly matters in our lives.

We hope these strategies are helpful to you as you as you navigate the new quarter!

Your mental health and well-being matter to us,

Core Programs Team
#UWGradSuccess

What to do if you experience sexual harassment or assault

This article was written in consultation with Valery Richardson, interim Title IX coordinator, Compliance Services.

We hope that you will never face sexual harassment or assault here on campus, but we understand the reality that you may. This week, the Guide will walk you through the steps you can take, and resources that are available to you at the UW, if you are a victim of sexual misconduct.

Sexual harassment — including sexual violence or sexual assault — is prohibited by Title IX. The best source for UW information can be found on two websites: the Sexual Assault Resources website and the Title IX website.

For email or phone support, SafeCampus is staffed 24–7 and is a good place to start if you have personally experienced harassment or assault or receive information that someone else experienced harassment or assault. SafeCampus can provide immediate safety planning, provide important information about your rights and resources, and connect you with a confidential advocate who can help you consider all of your options and how to make a plan for your situation.

For victims of sexual assault, SafeCampus loosely breaks down your options into steps — which you could choose to initiate in any order that makes sense to you.

Anyone who has experienced harassment, assault, or another form of sexual misconduct is encouraged to contact an advocate. Advocates will confidentially provide support, information and resources. An advocate will allow you to share your experience in as much or as little detail as you would like, discuss your options for medical and mental health care, and help you make a plan for your safety and for reducing the impact of this experience at the UW. Meeting with an advocate does not trigger an investigation by the UW or the police.

If you have been sexually assaulted, seeking medical care can help to treat or prevent illness and injury. It’s also important for preserving evidence. You may also seek a disability accommodation if you are experiencing the impacts of a medical condition.

You have the right to report sexual misconduct to the University, to the police, to both or not at all. If you choose to report an instance of sexual harassment, sexual assault or sexual violence to the UW, the University will conduct a prompt, fair and impartial investigation to determine whether a University policy or code — such as the Student Conduct Code or Executive Order No. 31 — has been violated.

If you choose to file a police report, you have the right to have a support person or advocate with you. You may choose to file a report without pursuing an investigation or prosecution. For more information about criminal and civil proceedings that can result from a sexual assault report, please see the Sexual Assault Resources website.

If a friend has experienced sexual misconduct, there are ways you can provide support. Remember to be a good listener, avoid passing judgment, and provide your friend with options and resources for healing, emotional processing, and for learning the steps to file a complaint.

If you wish to take action to reduce sexual violence on campus, you can learn about bystander awareness and join a group of Peer Health Educators through SafeCampus.

Strategies for Communicating with Faculty

For the past three years, Core Programs has hosted a communication skills workshop with the goal of sharing effective strategies international graduate students can use when communicating with faculty. Below are a just a few of these communication best practices. These tips are useful not only for international graduate students but also all graduate students across the University of Washington.

Be proactive. Faculty panelists at our workshops have stated that despite their busy schedules, they truly appreciate hearing from their graduate students who need guidance or mentoring. As such, it’s important to take initiative if you need to connect with a faculty member. Whether you need feedback on a project or paper, are in the process of searching for a thesis or dissertation advisor, or are seeking letters of recommendation for an internship or job, taking steps to communicate your needs to faculty in advance are steps towards success in graduate school.

Email etiquette. Just like with every mode of communication, there are general guidelines for writing that very first (or fortieth) email to faculty. Some of these tips may seem like common sense to some, but it’s always helpful to remember that all of us start at the beginning, no matter the task. First, have a clear subject line like “Request to Schedule Meeting to Discuss My Research Progress.” Include a professional greeting, and keep your message short and to the point. If you want to convey updates about your work, include an attachment (or ask what the faculty you are contacting prefers) rather than including long updates in the message body. Finally, include a closing statement that thanks the faculty for their time, followed by a closing phrase and your signature. Then proofread your email (with a peer or co-worker if needed) at least one time before sending.

When you are in doubt, clarify. Making a point to clarify what you are discussing in meetings with your faculty advisor is important to being successful in graduate school, whether or not you are an international graduate student. For example, you can use the repeat or rephrase strategy by saying, “I’d like to make sure that I heard you correctly…” If you’re still unclear, you could ask, “Do you mind clarifying what you mean by…?” Finally, it’s always a good idea to take meeting notes and email them to your advisor soon after the meeting, “This is what we discussed… Here is how we are moving forward…” Emailing your notes allows you and your professor to document your meetings and progress.

Letters of Recommendation. Asking for letters of recommendation from faculty can be intimidating, and it’s something that just takes practice. Whether you are seeking a letter of recommendation for an internship, job, or fellowship application, try out these tips. In the body of your email, include a very brief description of the job or fellowship you are applying for. Mention aspects of the job description or fellowship that are relevant to you. Include a bulleted list of the skills or experiences that make you a strong applicant. Make sure to include the deadline for the faculty’s letter of recommendation, the submission link or mailing address, and thank them for their time and efforts. Finally, attach the most recent, updated copy of your resume or CV, proofread your email, and send!

We hope you find these tips useful, and let us know what has worked for you!

Best Regards,

Core Programs Team
#UWGradSuccess

Many thanks to Ziyan Bai, graduate staff assistant for Core Programs and PhD Candidate in Education for doing an outstanding job of organizing these workshops. We also extend gratitude to the following faculty who have offered their time and insights as panelists and guests at these workshops over the past three years (in no particular order): Liz Sanders (Education), Sara Goering (Philosophy), Mari Ostendorf (Electrical Engineering), Wendy Thomas (Bioengineering), Xiasong Li (Chemistry), Kelly Edwards (Bioethics), Gino Aisenberg (Social Work), Gojko Lalic (Chemistry), and John Sahr (Electrical Engineering).

Postdocs, you are more skilled than you know!

Postdocs often reach out asking for advice regarding what to look for in a future career. You may have wondered yourself: Should I stay in academia or consider moving to an industry setting? I enjoy talking about science, should I get a job in policy, outreach, or K-12 education?

It is important during these times of uncertainty to look at all you have accomplished during your graduate and postdoc training (you should be celebrated!) and realize that worrying about your future career is completely normal. While it might not seem clear at the moment, you have developed a large number of skills that are valuable, no matter where you work next.

During the 2017 National Postdoc Association annual meeting, Peter Fiske, science communicator and CEO, shared a list of transferable skills graduate students and postdocs likely developed during their training — without even realizing it. A sampling of these skills are shared here:

Public speaking experience
Ability to support a position/viewpoint with argumentation and logic
Ability to conceive and design complex studies and projects
Ability to implement and manage all phases of complex research projects and to follow them through to completion
Ability to combine and integrate information from disparate sources
Ability to evaluate critically and to problem solve
Ability to do advocacy work
Ability to acknowledge many differing views of reality
Ability to suspend judgment and work with ambiguity
Ability to make the best use of informed hunches
And so many more!

These are all skills that are highly valued in careers both inside and outside of academia. You just need to step back and determine how they apply to your unique experiences.

Research Culture and Climate: It’s On Us

NPR Science Correspondent Richard Harris spent a week at UW in January 2018, and some of us (including postdoc leadership) were able to spend time with him. His recent book brings together much of the published literature and personal stories about the “reproducibility crisis ” in research, biosciences in particular.

We pressed him to identify possible solutions, and — as this is a multi-faceted issue — there are several. As postdocs, we are the current and next-gen researchers and is truly up to us to collectively shift research culture and practice.

We feature a few of the top issues individual researchers can take on now, and you may consider how they can play into your current or next phase of work:

Seek diverse opinions. When developing a research methodology, study design, statistical analyses, or interpreting results for publication, consult with several different people with diverse expertise, experience and backgrounds. Daily judgment calls are made in research, and as you develop your best approach and continue your own training, it can help to get a wide breadth of input.

Be a good scientific citizen. There is a broader movement toward open science with the goal of accelerating progress, minimizing waste and identifying errors to improve our collective learning and potential impact. Since negative results, null findings, or reproductions of experiments are not published in peer-review journals (though Richard Harris says journals are changing practice on this and we need to catch up), it can help to have back channels to share findings, data sets, and analytic strategy so your field can move forward and we can use less research dollars on ineffective studies. There are badges and ways of annotating your CV that can help demonstrate your citizenship.

Get beyond impact factors. The editors of top-tier publications have banded together to speak against the use of impact factors in hiring or promotion decisions, as they don’t mean what we have come to make them mean within academia. Some Schools and Colleges, Universities, and even the NIH, are evolving their criteria to look for a broader spectrum of metrics to demonstrate real impact of your work. Whether your results allowed a research group across the country to move ahead and make a breakthrough, or your publicly shared findings resulted in a policy change, there are other ways to track the reach of your work. When seeking future positions — inside or outside academia — ask about promotion criteria. What things are genuinely valued? If the department is still just counting papers or dollars, and you do not share those values, you may do well to keep looking.

UW graduate student and Lindau Nobel Laureate Fellow Blythe Adamson wrote a book review of Harris’ work and summarized his tips for young scientists:

Use valid ingredients.
Show your work.
No HARKing (Hypothesizing After the Results of the study are Known).
Don’t jump to conclusions (and discourage others from doing this with your results).
Be tough. People may try to discredit you if your hypothesis goes against their life’s work, or for any number of reasons.
Be confident in your science.
Recognize the tension between your own achievement and communal scientific advancement.

The more we talk together as a community, the more we learn, avoid reproducing outdated assumptions about what works, and begin shaping our collective futures. We encourage you to start a conversation in your research group or department, or come chat with us about any of these issues if you are looking for a way to get started! Office hours are always open.

When You’re Feeling Doubts About Graduate School

Feeling self-doubt about whether or not you belong in graduate school is actually a normal experience for many Master’s and doctoral Students. These doubts and anxieties can arise for any number of reasons. Below are just a few that we’ve heard about from your peers, and maybe they will resonate with you as well. Included are tips and strategies on how to move through these feelings.

Feeling like an imposter. Ever feel like you’re not intelligent enough to be in graduate school: like somehow your peers or department will “find out that you’re just not cut out” to be at the UW? Also known as imposter syndrome, these nagging, negative feelings and self-talk are actually quite common for most graduate students, and can make you question your talents, strengths, and resilience. Remember that you do belong in graduate school because you are passionate about your research project, enhancing your professional development, or wanting to make a positive contribution to your communities by earning a graduate degree.

Accessing resources. Your life is busy: balancing your degree requirements, a job or two, and family or community responsibilities is quite a task even when all those areas of your life are important to you. During the thick of it all, anxiety can creep up and make you feel like you aren’t capable of fulfilling your goals and commitments. It’s in those moments, that you can pause and ask yourself: Am I getting my needs met? Maybe there’s a campus or community resource you need to access to make sure you are getting what you need on an individual level, whether that be your campus recreation center, alone or quiet time with a good book or a walk, quality time with friends off campus, mental health support, or even a good meal.

Feeling exhausted. We know you’re all working hard as graduate students, and hard work can get the best of us. Given the rigors of graduate school, this can lead to feelings of exhaustion or possibly even burnout. Again, take pause. Can you ask for an extension on a project? Do you need to take an academic leave of absence? Even better, is there someone you can check in with to help you make a plan for getting much-needed rest, along with ways to move forward after your break? The length of your break is particular to you and your circumstances. Recognizing that you need some time away doesn’t mean you’re a failure, it means you are invested in your success as a whole person.

Remembering your purpose. It’s good to reflect back on why you decided to be a graduate student. Once you are in graduate school, your reasons may actually change over time, especially as you continue to explore how your degree may get you where you want to be in the future. Sometimes your interests and needs really do change, and the path you are on may no longer serve you. This is also a normal experience for many graduate students, and you can talk about it with people you trust on your mentoring team, with close friends, or you can schedule an appointment to talk with us at Core Programs. Talking it over with people you trust can help make sure that your judgment isn’t being clouded by any of the reasons we discussed above. And making an informed decision to take what you have learned thus far, and bringing it into your next phase of life, can be just what you need to do.

We hope you find these strategies useful and let us know what has worked for you!

Best Regards,

Core Programs Team
#UWGradSuccess

5 tips to boost your productivity

All of us struggle with motivation at different times, and winter can be particularly challenging. That said, it can also be a good time to hunker down and get some work done. Whether you plan to stay in academia or not, you will need written products coming out of your postdoc years to demonstrate what you have accomplished. Perhaps you are also finishing up publications from your doctoral research or laying the groundwork for a new research direction. Recently, the National Center for Faculty Diversity and Development (NCFDD)’s “Monday Motivator featured 5 tips for productivity.

Create a plan. How? Dr. Rockquemore writes: “It’s a simple process: 1) list your writing and wellness goals for the remainder of this calendar year, 2) map out all the steps that are needed to complete your goals, and 3) figure out when that work will get done.” While it may not be in your skill set yet, it is truly simple once you start. During your next work week, put “Planning” in your calendar for a 1-2 hour block and work through it. This is your work. This is a great time to revisit your Individualized Development Plan (IDP).
Write every day. We also know that your own writing is the task that will consistently get put aside for other demands (e.g. lab meeting, responding to your advisor, looking up one more article, sifting through Facebook, etc.). Research shows that if you dedicate just 30 minutes a day to writing (really writing), you will make consistent progress toward a writing goal and complete a product faster than if you hope for a half-day or protected Saturday that never does emerge.
Join a group of daily committed writers. You are not alone. We all have to write and produce. Just like a regular exercise or spiritual practice, if you are connected with others who are also committed, it helps you sustain the practice. You can meet face-to-face for your blocks of writing time or just stay connected online and check-in, which gets to the next point:
Commit to regular accountability. Tell someone your goals and plans, and schedule a check-in meeting (virtually or in-person) to see how it is going. In the short-term, this can be yourself. Apps such as Grid Diary can help you self-assess at the end of the day what 3 things you accomplished, and set personal goals for how tomorrow can be better.
Find dedicated mentors. All of this takes hard work, and sifting through the noise that comes at you on a daily basis. Find mentors—you should have a full team—who genuinely are invested in your success (see blog posts on mentoring). They can help hold you accountable, prioritize what needs to happen, strategize where products need to go, and troubleshoot when things fall through the cracks (which they will).

If you are interested in signing up for a weekly email with these Monday Motivator tips from NCFDD, or checking out other writing resources on their website, you can login with the UW membership.

Staying Motivated During the Winter

Whether you are new to the beautiful Pacific Northwest or have lived here for several years, the winter season can serve as a helpful reminder to engage in habits that motivate and inspire you to do your best work. Below are a few strategies that can help keep you energized throughout the quarter.

Stay hydrated. You may feel more fatigued during darker and colder weather. One way to increase your energy is to drink plenty of water throughout the day. Have you ever forgotten to stay hydrated because your work and personal lives are so busy? We have, too. It may sound silly, but try scheduling a daily reminder for yourself to drink a glass of water (at least once an hour) or to fill up your water bottle before heading to the classroom or work.

Fuel up. The Pacific Northwest is known for its love of caffeine. And while not everyone drinks coffee or tea — for those of us who do — caffeine offers that added boost of alertness during early winter mornings or afternoons. Another way to boost your energy is by incorporating fresh fruit, whole grains or nuts into your diet during the season.

Connect with community. To maintain momentum throughout the quarter, it’s so important to connect with peers, advisors, mentors and friends. Maybe you need a studying, project or writing accountability partner. Or it might be time to schedule an appointment with your faculty advisor to check in about your project goals. Even still, the combination of the winter season and balancing a busy schedule can sometimes lead to unintentional isolation. So make time to connect with friends — over the phone or lunch, at the movies or at an event — as this is an important part of self-care.

Reach out for support. Stress in graduate school can contribute to periods of anxiety as well as feelings of self-doubt. If left unchecked, stress and anxiety can lead to serious mental health issues. If you are experiencing intense or prolonged periods of anxiety, or need emotional support for another reason, we encourage you to seek support from qualified mental health professionals on or off campus. And remember, there is no shame in doing so.

We hope you find these tips useful for navigating the winter quarter, and let us know what has worked for you!

Best,

Core Programs
#UWGradSuccess

Make your professional travel budget stretch! Here’s how.

Professional meetings, international workshops, and annual society gatherings are essential activities in your professional life. These regional, national, and international gatherings are where you hear about innovations in your field, grow your network, identify mentors and collaborators, receive critical feedback on your research, and learn about new and emerging directions. And yet, most of us have extremely limited travel budgets we can access, if any at all. The question is: how do you make your limited professional travel dollars stretch?

We pooled our collective experience, polled academics and trainees, reviewed travel advisors, and share just a few of the top tips here. This advice isn’t meant to endorse one service over another, but rather to give examples of ways you can seek alternatives when attending expensive national meetings.

Submit your work! It is easier to receive travel awards and cost reductions from the meeting organizers when you are presenting. Plus it is good for your career, obvi. Some conferences have childcare scholarships too.
Apply for travel scholarships from your professional society, or from other professional organizations that support young investigators. Email the Graduate Funding Information Service if you want help finding travel grant mechanisms that will fit your needs.
Volunteer! Often meetings need support with registration, panel facilitation, evaluation distribution, and numerous other tasks in exchange for a reduced registration rate. It can be a great way to meet people too.
Stay anywhere but the meeting hotel. Even with a meeting discount, you can often use a house-share site (like Airbnb or Couchsurf or Servas) to find something nearby for a fraction of the cost. Your dollars can stretch even further if you can room with colleagues and have access to a kitchen to use, even for morning coffee.
Take a ride-share or public transportation from the airport. If you take SeaTac as an example, you can take light rail into downtown for $2.75 vs. taxi in for $45 (plus tip). Innovations like UberPool let you have the convenience of a taxi without the cost.
Bring your own lunch or snacks for the airplane (healthier and cheaper!). If you are staying at the meeting hotel, consider shopping at a local market for snacks or beverages, rather than getting stuck with expensive hotel meals and refreshments.
Download “cheap eats” or happy hour apps for the area and seek deals for your meals not covered by the conference.
Choose a red-eye flight to arrive the day-of the meeting and save one night of lodging expenses. Find cheaper flights with a flight aggregator like Momondo.
Use your own wifi hotspot or find a local café rather than paying for the expensive hotel wireless access.
Join hotel membership groups (for free) and get access to benefits, like wireless, for free, and eventually earn points to use toward hotel nights or car rentals.
Mail your meeting materials in advance. it can be cheaper than paying for baggage fees depending on your airline.
Apply for an OPA travel award if you are presenting independent research and have specific career activities planned for a professional meeting. Check out our award winners and timeline for application.

Some of these tips may also not be for you. Some of you will prioritize food over lodging, or decent flight times over everything else. Let us know what works for you!

Quick Tips for Fitting in Career Planning

Welcome back to all graduate students at Bothell, Seattle, and Tacoma campuses! We at Core Programs hope you created intentional space for yourself to relax and enjoy the holiday break. The start of a new calendar year is often a time to look ahead and set intentions that help you do well personally, academically and in your work life (current and future).

It can feel like a lot, but we know from experience that doing a little at a time can make a big project more manageable. Below are a few strategies you can incorporate into your weekly routine, so that intentional career planning becomes part of your graduate student experience.

Engage in self-exploration. Across the UW, grad programs provide students with varying degrees (and breadth) of career guidance. Regardless of your discipline, career planning is an important life-long skill to learn and hone throughout your graduate school journey and beyond. To start get you started, consider doing assessments of your skills, interests, values, and strengths. These assessments can help you identify sectors, jobs and work environments that are a good match for you.

Break down each task. We see—and hear you—that you are busy fulfilling requirements for your degree, working a part-time or full-time job, and/or taking care of loved ones. Yet it’s also still true that only you can invest time in your career development before you graduate. Consider carving out 15 minutes in your schedule once a week to (1) make a list of careers you’re interested and the skills they require, (2) search and make note of professionals on LinkedIn who work in those careers, then soon after, (3) explore company or organization websites to get a feel for what they offer, and (4) set up a 30-min. informational interview with one of the individuals on your list, and so many more leads once you get started.

Utilize a range of resources that fits your availability. Schedule an appointment with a career counselor at your UW campus for in-person guidance on developing concrete strategies for your career exploration. Come talk to any of us at Core Programs (Skype appointments available too). If it’s difficult for you to schedule an in-person appointment, get acquainted with free online career planning tools such as ImaginePhD or myIDP—each with their own assessments as well. Attend a graduate student career development event offered by a career center at Bothell or Seattle—and be on the lookout for upcoming events sponsored or co-organized by Core Programs!

Getting stuck—or did you discover an awesome career exploration tool? Let us know! And happy launch into 2018!

Best,

Core Programs Team
#UWGradSuccess