Communication – Page 2 – UW Graduate School Skip to content

Advice Topic: Communication

Working with mentors to support your career goals!

We all have different mentors in our life. These people have our best interest in mind and are able to guide and support our professional and personal development. In your personal life, look for advisors who are compassionate, enthusiastic, generous, honest, insightful, selfless and wise. In your professional life, it is imperative to find mentors who are collaborative, intellectual, knowledgeable, accessible, and visionary. In both, it is important to have mentors who will challenge and support you in doing your best work and being your best self. For additional desirable mentor traits, see Cho et al. (2011) in which mentor nomination letters were analyzed for traits among those who supported the careers of junior faculty. And remember, look for multiple mentors — a single person cannot provide all of the support and encouragement you need! See Graduate School Mentor Memos on Building Your Mentoring Team and What a Good Mentor Does.

Once you identify your champions, build a thoughtful relationship to ensure that it is productive and continues to prioritize your long-term goals. In Mapping a Mentoring Roadmap and Developing a Supportive Network for Strategic Career Advancement, Montgomery (2017) outlines the steps necessary to support a productive mentor-mentee relationship. In addition, in Making the most of mentors: A guide for mentees, Zerzan et al. (2009) provide a very clear checklist to consider as you identify mentors and build your relationships. Briefly:

  1. Self Reflection: Before setting up a meeting with your mentor, figure out what you need in a mentor. What unique skills and experiences do they have that will benefit your career or personal goals? Do you need a team of mentors (hint: the answer is yes!)?
  2. Getting Started: Set an agenda with your interests in mind. How often should you formally meet? Be sure to set goals and follow-up with an emailed list of action items so that expectations are clear to both you an your mentor. For additional tips, see Managing Up.
  3. Maintenance: Be sure to sustain regular contact with your mentor. If you’ve agreed to future milestones, be sure to meet them or discuss more realistic goals if necessary.
  4. Moving Ahead: Your life will evolve. At some point, you will be less reliant on your current mentors and will need to identify more relevant advisors. Be open with you mentor, re-evaluate your relationship, and gracefully transition to your next phase. However, be sure to maintain a positive relationship, as your mentor already invested a great deal of effort in you. They will want to see you continue to be successful and you may find yourself relying on them in the future.

Above all else, keep all lines of communication open. You may have a great plan for your personal and professional development. However, if you and your mentor don’t communicate, then you won’t be working towards the same finish line.

 

References:

  • Cho, C. S. (2011). Defining the ideal qualities of mentorship: A qualitative analysis of the characteristics of outstanding mentors. The American Journal of Medicine, 124 (5), 453–458.
  • Montgomery, B. L. (2017). Mapping a mentoring roadmap and developing a supportive network for strategic career advancement. SAGE Open. 1–13.
  • Zerzan, J. T. (2009). Making the most of mentors: a guide for mentees. Academic Medicine, 84 (1), 140–144.

Engaging in Effective Conversations When the Stakes Are High

When you have important issues to discuss with faculty or colleagues, do you choose email? Text? Phone? Or do you schedule an in-person meeting?

It depends, right? How safe do you feel? How much detail needs to be conveyed and confirmed? Is it a small clarification or a bigger conceptual issue? Is there likely to be disagreement? As a society, we are having fewer and fewer in-person conversations and perhaps over-relying on electronics, opening ourselves up to further conflicts or misunderstandings, and perhaps missing an opportunity to practice professional dialogue.

As graduate students, you know that much of your success in your program is dependent upon the relationships that you build, and we appreciate that much can be at stake.
Generally speaking, in-person communication is key where you want to improve communication or build an ongoing relationship. Where there is a power dynamic, as there may be with your advisor, it can often feel intimidating or uncertain to engage in conversation, so we asked the UW Ombud Office for a few ideas to help get you started:

Tip 1.  Prior to the conversation, focus on your goals. Figure out what it is that you’d like to see happen. I encourage broad goals for many conversations. A goal as narrow as, “Convince my advisor to allow me to take my research in a specific direction” may not be as useful as, “Discuss a potential area of interest with my advisor, and determine opportunities for me to pursue that interest in the near term.”

Tip 2.  While in conversation, be mindful of unproductive behaviors from you or the other person. These can include passive behaviors like withdrawing from the conversation, masking your opinions or ideas, or avoiding sensitive subjects. These behaviors can also look more confrontational like controlling the conversation, labeling the other person, or verbally attacking them. If you or the other person is engaging in these behaviors, it’s time to pause and consider ways to move forward. Once you have identified the behavior, you have two basic choices: attempt to redirect the conversation in a more productive manner, or end the conversation and return to it at a future time (and see our past blogpost on preparing for conflicts).

Tip 3.  If you decide to stay in the conversation, S.A.I.L. – Share that you are looking for a mutual goal, Ask them to share their goals, Invent a mutual goal, and Look for new strategies to achieve your goals. A mutual goal can also be broad, sometimes even as broad as “finish the research project”—and even that can be enough to get a conversation back on track.

Deciding to have an in-person conversation can sometimes be the hardest step, even harder than the conversation itself. The Ombud Office can be a confidential resource for making that decision, working through your preparation for a conversation, and to help you be successful in conversations to improve your relationships, communication, and long-term success – both in graduate school and beyond.

This week’s Core Programs newsletter is written in collaboration with Emma Phan, Associate Ombud for the University of Washington. Emma handles both graduate student and postdoc concerns at a tri-campus level, and enjoys collaborating with students to help them raise concerns and work through academic or professional challenges. Whenever she gets the chance, rain or shine, Emma heads to the beach to surf.

Presenting Your Work To a Broad Audience

There are many transferable skills you can develop in graduate school that will prepare you for many types of careers. These may include the ability to synthesize complex information (studying, reading, and engaging in class discussions), manage a large project (a capstone, thesis, or dissertation), prioritize tasks (balancing your studies, work, and personal life), meet multiple deadlines, and work independently or in collaborative settings.

One transferable skill you may consider developing during your time at UW is presenting your research to an audience made up of individuals who are not necessarily experts in your research specialization or field of study. Below are tips for preparing and presenting your work for a broader audience.

Communicate your research to a broad audience. Maybe you’re developing a three-minute networking pitch or preparing for a non-academic job talk. Maybe you’re finally ready to discuss your research project or capstone with family, friends, or community groups. Interested in sharing the significance of your project with policy makers? No matter the setting, presenting your research in an accessible manner for different audiences can help you and your work have a broader impact.

Know your audience. As mentioned above, you may be speaking to a potential employer or a local community group. Do your research ahead of time to know what might resonate with your audience and understand why they might be invested in your work. And no matter the audience, it’s important to be mindful that you are not “talking down” to individuals you are presenting to. You are framing your work in terms — and perhaps stories or contexts — they care about.

Prepare content. Utilize a guide for preparing effective slides or visuals or get advice and support from the UW Research Commons Design Help Desk. Regardless of your chosen visual format, identify a powerful anecdote, a quotation, or a question that can capture your audience’s attention and is connected to the main point of your presentation. Less is more, so include two or three sub-points that connect to your research question or finding. Avoid including a lot of technical or academic jargon, as this may unintentionally lead to audience disengagement. Finally, consider closing with a question, anecdote or visual that ties everything together — and that again— will capture the audience’s attention.

Practice your talk. Schedule times to practice in front of peers outside of your department, loved ones, or even co-workers before your actual talk. Ask for feedback to learn if your audience can follow your story, if they feel engaged, and if they have a clear take-home message from your presentation.

Want practice in a low stakes, fun, and guided way? Submit a proposal Scholars’ Studio! Or, be an audience member at a Scholars’ Studio event this quarter or in winter and learn from your grad student peers!

Best,

Core Programs Team
#UWGradSuccess

Additional Resources

Strategies to Create Learning Environments for All

The UW Office of the Provost sent an e-mail to faculty and teaching assistants outlining concrete recommendations for sustaining “vibrant classroom discussions at a time when current events have produced sharp political differences among us.”  The goal of the message was to equip all of our instructors with best practices to “establish… respectful class discussions in which students from across the spectrum may fully engage.”  As we all wrap up the Winter Quarter and prepare for Spring, there might be a few ideas from that message to consider.

While designed for instructors, the Provost’s recommendations can be shared and practiced by all UW students—as we all have the capacity to foster inclusive learning environments.  We at Core Programs have adapted and expanded upon these tips as you’ll see below.  If you are interested in learning more, check out these resources curated by the UW Seattle Center for Teaching and Learning.

Engaging Each Other.  Collaborate with your peers to come up with discussion guidelines that will help you down the road, if a discussion feels challenging or becomes heated. UW Professor Gino Aisenberg and doctoral student Ada Onyewueni provide excellent examples of guidelines for engagement from their course syllabi:

  • Listen well without interrupting
  • Practice being present to each member of the group
  • Notice if you’re speaking a lot, then step back to make room for peers to speak
  • Assume that you might miss things that peers see and see things that peers miss
  • Surface your feelings in such a way that makes it easier for peers to surface theirs
  • Regard your views as a perspective onto the world, not the world itself
  • Reiterating these discussion guidelines periodically can help ensure that all students’ voices are heard

Creating Norms. Fundamental to any inclusive learning environment is honoring the belief that disagreement is okay, but disrespect is not.  This is accomplished by setting up and practicing norms for intentional, respectful dialogue. Consider these practices offered by the University of Michigan:

  • Criticize ideas, not individuals in your group
  • Avoid blame, speculation, or derogatory language
  • Avoid assumptions about members of your discussion group
  • Avoid generalizations about social groups based on race, gender, sexuality, ability, religion, or citizenship
  • Do not ask individuals to speak for their (perceived) social or cultural group

This Takes Practice.  Creating intentional and respectful dialogues among peers takes consistent and sustained practice.  There will be discomfort, yet in discomfort there is also the possibility of learning.  As we work together, we will all make mis-steps in different ways and need to recover.  There is a lot going on in any one person’s history and life, and it can help to give a generous read to see where a person might be coming from.  Depending on how much energy you have in the moment, you can choose what to do with a conversation mis-step.  Each day will be different.  Consider what could work for you and your peers.

We hope that as the new quarter begins, you may try out something from these recommendations and see what works for you and your peers.

Best,

Kelly, Jaye, and Ziyan
Core Programs Team

Additional Resources

Watch a recent panel discussion on the meaning of free speech in the context of a public university called Speech and Counter Speech: Rights and Responsibilities, sponsored by the UW Race & Equity Initiative.

Recommendations for Recommendations

How many times is too many times to ask a professor for a letter of recommendation? I often find out about opportunities at the last minute, but don’t want to burden my advisors with creating a letter for me at the drop of a hat. Is it acceptable to re-use a general one that was written for you? Is it an ethical violation to upload your own letter of recommendation? —Anonymous

(This week’s answer is courtesy of Rebecca Aanerud, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Planning)

It is fine to ask for a letter of recommendation as often as needed. Faculty recognize that providing letters of recommendation is part of our job. Most faculty will be able to quickly make any adjustments to a previous letter and so the time commitment is relatively small. That said, it is also completely fine to be direct and simply ask if there are limits or parameters on how many times to request a letter and within what time frame. You should not upload a general one unless you have permission to do so. If someone writes a general one, you should ask at that time if it is acceptable to use for future purposes without further permission.

Ask the Grad School Guru is an advice column for all y’all graduate and professional students. Real questions from real students, answered by real people. If the guru doesn’t know the answer, the guru will seek out experts all across campus to address the issue. (Please note: The guru is not a medical doctor, therapist, lawyer or academic advisor, and all advice offered here is for informational purposes only.) Submit a question for the column →

 

The grad student’s social media starter pack

Is it really worthwhile for grad students aspiring to academics or industry to have a social media presence? What should my social media presence look like? — Social media un-savvy 
Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out! Ultimately, I think the only answer to this is: it depends. It depends on your schedule, your priorities, your skills, your preferences… It depends on you, and what you want out of your academic journey and future career.
What I can do for you is give you a few ideas of why you might want to start a social media presence and a few arguments in the other direction. I’ll also lay out some tips and resources for starting a social media presence, should you care to do so. I’ll focus on Twitter and LinkedIn, since these are the social media sites used most in the academic and business context.
A few reasons why you might start a Twitter:  

  • Twitter allows you to connect with large communities of academics. This can mean a lot of different benefits: the sharing of resources and strategies for managing your graduate education, the sharing of sources and research ideas, and making connections with others in your field or with similar interests.
  • It’s an excellent opportunity to talk about your research in laypeople’s terms, and engage with a public audience. You might even find a new angle for your research!
  • You can follow discussions that happen at conferences, even if you can’t attend. You could also live-tweet an event, and connect with other people at the same conference.
  • A well-maintained Twitter presence can impress an employer.

A few reasons why you might NOT want a Twitter:

  • It can be a distraction
  • Your schedule is packed: you already have too many obligations to manage
  • Your discipline doesn’t have a large social media presence
  • You don’t enjoy it, even a little bit.

On a side note, starting a Twitter is a big time-commitment: daily updates are the norm. Bear in mind that starting a Twitter and then never using it looks, well, kind of sloppy.  
A few reasons to start a LinkedIn:

  • It’s a great way to advertise your skills, experience and achievements!
  • You can connect with recruiters regarding employment opportunities
  • You can connect with people in your industry, or alumna of your alma mater. Some people use this feature to set up informational interviews, which can make for an excellent networking opportunity.

The reasons for not starting a LinkedIn are similar to those against Twitter. However, a LinkedIn page is much easier to maintain than a Twitter account (Twitter requires daily checking and posting, LinkedIn does not).
I hope this helps you discern whether or not you want to start a Twitter or LinkedIn page. If you’ve decided to jump into the social media waters, good for you! Here are some resources to help you get started.
Twitter:
The 10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics
Social media for academics
10 Great Twitter Chats for Grad Students
Blog post: The Tweeting Grad Student
Academic twitter accounts to check out: Shit Academics Say; Steven R. Shaw; Kate Starbird; Calling Bullshit (run by two UW professors); Clint Smith; Lego Grad Student

LinkedIn:

LinkedIn 101: How to Craft a Stellar Profile
Via UW Professional & Continuing Education: 10 Tips for Supercharging your LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn for graduate students: how to market yourself on the net (This post is old, and kind of long, but it’s a really comprehensive guide to building a marketing strategy on LinkedIn!)
31 Best LinkedIn Profile Tips for Job Seekers
LinkedIn for Job Seekers: How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

Best of luck! And be sure to follow The Graduate School on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @uwgradschool.
Sincerely,
The Grad School Guru

You’ve Got (Too Much) Mail

I get a LOT of email (including this one, no offense), and I can’t keep up. How do I get off all of these email lists? Shouldn’t there be one place I can change my preferences? —Anonymous

I feel your pain, really I do. Unfortunately, just due to the sheer size of this university and the autonomy of various units, there is no one definitive, central place. However, if you focus on a few key sources, you should be able to drastically reduce your inbox.

  1. Click on “Manage subscriptions” at the very bottom of the Graduate School Digest newsletter, in the footer. It will take you to your email subscriptions, but only for the Graduate School. If you click on “View all email subscriptions for the UW,” you’ll be able to manage all your email subscriptions. However, the caveat is that this is only for emails and newsletters sent out through this particular software (Convio).
  2. Visit mailman13.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo for a list of all UW listservs.
  3.  Some units may use another software other than Convio, such as MailChimp. You will have to manage subscriptions for those outlets separately. There should always be options at the bottom.
  4. Some emails may be coming from the Registar’s office, or Financial Aid, etc. You will not be able to get off of these lists.
  5. Some emails may be coming directly from your department or a professor. You’ll need to consult with the relevant unit.
  6. If you can’t get out at the source, take advantage of your email software: set rules and filters.

You should have control of how much communication you receive, of course, but I want to advise you to unsubscribe thoughtfully. There have been instances where students opted out at the parent level and then were frustrated they were not getting notices of funding opportunities, events, etc.

Ask the Grad School Guru is an advice column for all y’all graduate and professional students. Real questions from real students, answered by real people. If the guru doesn’t know the answer, the guru will seek out experts all across campus to address the issue. (Please note: The guru is not a medical doctor, therapist, lawyer or academic advisor, and all advice offered here is for informational purposes only.) Submit a question for the column →

Professors on Pedestals

Is there a place on campus where I can learn how to address/talk to professors? I have been in the US for about six years now, but I am originally from a culture where one is supposed to show respect to people older than you. I therefore still cannot bring myself to address a professor by name (as my other fellow graduate students do), or write an email to them without putting in multiple “Thank you for your time!” and “Sorry to bother you…”. 

When I read my own emails that I send out to professors, it’s cringeworthy, since I’m so deferential. It’s worse when the professors I address are just a couple of years older than me. I want to learn to get over this. My friend recently pointed out that calling someone “Prof. X”, and writing so many Thank Yous and Sorrys in email skews the power dynamic a bit too much, and that I should treat professors as colleagues if I want them to treat me as one. 

How do I learn this? I hang out with a lot of American friends but somehow this is something I’m unable to learn.  —Anonymous

Hi, there. In order to address your question, I reached out to several campus partners. I hope their multiple perspectives and experiences are helpful.

Ziyan Bai is a graduate student assistant with the Graduate School’s Core Programs and Office of Postdoctoral Affairs:

“In Winter 2016, I organized a workshop on “Communicating with Faculty” for international grad students. At the workshop, a panel of 3 faculty members and 4 advanced international graduate students from social science, science, engineering, and humanities shared commination tips and strategies including communicating in person or via email. We have a summary of notes from the panel. 

I also got this question many times during my 1-on-1 mentoring with new international grad students. This is not an uncommon situation. The bottom line: find a middle ground that students find comfortable with the degree of reverence they show in the email or talking in person. Usually international students find it uncomfortable if they try to “get rid of” their home culture in order to fit in. There is no universal standard in communication, so staying connected with home culture and being open to learn new culture at the same time is recommended.” 

>>Note: Workshop will be offered again in Winter 2017. Details will be announced in the Graduate School Digest and on the Graduate School’s events calendar.<<

Era Schrepfer is the executive director of the Foundation for International Understanding Through Students (FIUTS), which offers a wealth of support and programs for international students at UW:

“We hear this question pretty frequently. I usually suggest visiting the professor during office hours and being totally honest about this with them directly. Just say, ‘I’m from XXX and in my country we are taught from an early age to treat teachers much more formally, so the culture in the classroom here is hard for me to get used to. I want to be successful in your class and for you to feel comfortable.  What do you suggest to help me with this?’

Usually, they really don’t mind being treated more formally by international students, but it helps to start off the quarter with a conversation. Sometimes, it’s easier to feel comfortable with a professor when you know them a little bit on a personal level, and it’s meaningful to the professor as well. So ask them questions about themselves. Have they ever been to your country? How long have they been teaching? Where did they go to school? It’s helpful to find some common ground with them and see them as people just like you. 

Power distance is one of the most challenging cultural elements! I know a lot of alumni who still struggle with it many years after coming to the US!”

Elloise Kim is the president of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate, and an international student herself:

“As someone who is from a similar culture, I totally understand why you are hesitant to freely communicate with people like faculty members. In my home culture, a respectful manner for people who are older or hold a higher position is obligatory. Yet, if people here can interpret your attitude not necessarily as carefulness but as cultural clumsiness, you may want to question for whom you insist to keep such manners.
 
I’d like to suggest to learn American cultural manners in the way you have learned English. In other words, think of it as a foreign language. Its syntax and phonetics would be very different from those of your original language. But, you have to learn and practice it in the way the language is spoken by native speakers. You do not become a totally different person while speaking English – rather, you are speaking another language still being yourself. Likewise, ways of communication need to be learned and adjusted. You can be very polite in a different way!”
Katie Malcolm is an instructional consultant for the Center for Teaching and Learning and specializes in working with international, multilingual and first-generation college teachers and students:

“This is a great question, and one that many grad students have. The resource ‘Communication Strategies for International Graduate Students‘ has some specific strategies for students about communicating with advisors.”

>>If you’d like the full manual, you can request a free copy. <<

Ask the Grad School Guru is an advice column for all y’all graduate and professional students. Real questions from real students, answered by real people. If the guru doesn’t know the answer, the guru will seek out experts all across campus to address the issue. (Please note: The guru is not a medical doctor, therapist, lawyer or academic advisor, and all advice offered here is for informational purposes only.) Submit a question for the column →

Getting the Mentoring You Need

Throughout your training, but especially in the postdoc experience, your faculty supervisor plays a significant role with you and your future.  We know there is a full spectrum of what faculty have to offer and how this matches with what you need. From what we have learned, it can take “managing up” and being proactive in your relationship with your faculty advisor to make it work for you. The National Postdoc Association recently posted a blog with exceptional tips for how to get more from the mentoring opportunities you have.  In addition to these points, which we summarize below, we also always recommend developing a mentoring team so you can get a full spectrum of support from many and are not solely dependent on one person alone.

With a few additions from us, here are the top recommendations from the National Postdoc Association blog. See the full blog – available to all UW postdocs through our institutional membership with NPA – for even more tips:

  • Make time to meet regularly with your mentor(s). In many cases, you will need to request and initiate these.  Be prepared for your meetings, send a written summary of progress in advance, and focus your f2f meeting on particular questions or challenges you are confronting currently.  Have specific goals and tasks in mind. Send a follow up email of agreed upon next steps or decisions that get made during the meeting.
  • Be willing to listen and learn. Ask directly for feedback – what is currently going well, and what could be done differently to work more productively or effectively together. Not everyone is skilled at giving feedback, so asking for specific areas where you want to know how you can improve shows strength and the willingness to grow.
  • Be proactive about your needs. Being proactive is much more than just taking the initiative – it’s about using your time during your postdoc experience more effectively. Thinking about what the faculty needs can also help you respect their interests while asserting yours.
  • Be a problem solver. When bringing problems to your mentor, you should have possible solutions in mind to foster the development of your own problem-solving skills. While the mentor can provide ideas and feedback, sometimes no one knows your situation better than you.

As the NPA writer concludes: “No matter what kind of a mentor you have – one who offers little or no help; one who constantly overwhelms you with information; or even a mentor who is an experienced teacher and understands how to work effectively with a postdoc – you will get more out of mentoring if you are proactive in the process.”

Additional Mentoring Resources: 

Originally posted on August 18, 2016.

Talking with Faculty About Diverse Careers

Spring quarter is full for everyone, and we also know that many of you are in different stages of reflecting on your career goals.  You may be thinking about what you want to do upon degree completion, starting an internship, preparing application materials, or deepening your expertise in a job you already have.  Throughout this process, some of you have asked: “How do I initiate a conversation my faculty advisor(s) about my professional goals?”

Do your research.  It can be anxiety-provoking to think about approaching your faculty advisor or mentor about your career interests, especially if those interests diverge from you becoming research faculty at a college or university.  One of the best ways to initiate a conversation with your advisor is to be prepared beforehand.  Here are some tips to help you gather the baseline information you need for that conversation:  Assess your work-related interests, strengths, and values to develop a more holistic awareness of who you are as a professional.  Utilize the UW Career Center’s comprehensive guide on building resumes and cvs, career advice, interviewing, and job searching. Understand how the skills you are developing in graduate school are indeed transferable across fields and industries.  Peruse job postings (and volunteer opportunities) that resonate with your self-assessments, whether they are based in non-profit, industry, or government sectors.  Research professional associations affiliated with the fields you are interested in, and contact their members via their websites or LinkedIn.  Set up informational interviews with individuals from professional associations, or with employees from companies and organizations that you can imagine yourself working at–to grow your networks.

Get in the habit of career planning over time.  The strategies noted above are part of a larger process of intentional career planning.   This is a lot of work, but well worth the effort.  Intentional career planning is necessary, if you want to move forward in both knowing and reaching your professional goals.  Break your goals up into smaller tasks, and work on them for 30 min. to an hour each week. You will move forward one step at a time, rather than trying to tackle it all at once.

Develop and bring materials with you.  When you do talk with your faculty advisor, you can bring a simple one page proposal of the career exploration you are engaged in, including sources you are researching and near-term plans for learning more about different options.

Prepare for different responses.  You may reach out to one faculty advisor or several.  In fact, we encourage you to meet with more than one mentor on your team to widen your potential for support.  Practice role playing scenarios with a trusted colleague or friend, where you engage in a conversation about your career interests.   Ask your friend to mimic the most unsupportive response to the most supportive response.  Utilize these mock responses to gauge what your next steps will be.  For example, maybe you find out your advisor has no interest in talking about diverse career opportunities with you but is still fully supportive of your intellectual and technical growth as it pertains to your discipline only.  Whom else can you identify (within or outside of your mentoring team) that will advocate for your need to explore diverse career paths?

Help your advisor help you.  It is highly likely that your faculty advisor was trained to be a teacher and researcher first and foremost, so they may not have the experience to guide you in exploring diverse career pathways.  Share with them your knowledge of all the professional development resources you are accessing (networking, professional associations, social media, UW Career Centers, etc.).  Forward them information about campus events, such as job fairs, the Core Programs community college careers panel, or workshops sponsored by the Career Center like How to Find a Job Outside of Academia for Humanities and Social Sciences PhDs.  By doing this, you’ll be facilitating a reciprocal learning process about your professional development with your advisor.

All right, we’re totally rooting for you!  Please feel free to follow up with us, and let us know if these strategies worked for you.  And let us know if you have other suggestions.

Warmly,
Jaye Sablan, Kelly Edwards, Ziyan Bai
Core Programs, UW Graduate School