Mentors

In the McNair experience, mentors are front and central.  They are an integral part of the experience because they provide expertise, offer support and encouragement, and many times, open doors of opportunity that might seem impossible today.  It’s not to say that the mentor relationship can “make or break you” – but having a good one can make all the difference.

A good mentor will:

• Teach you how to do research in your field
• Expand your knowledge of the field
• Teach you how to ask questions – good questions!
• Model what it’s like to be a professional in the field
• Lend their expertise, wisdom and insights
• Share their experiences and relate them to your own
• Challenge and support you at the same time
• Give you constructive feedback and encourage you to do more
• Connect you with colleagues and other professionals to help you network
• Help you figure out your path
• Help you make good choices about your education and work opportunities
• Call you out when you’re not holding up “your end of the deal”

So, how do you set out to have the best possible mentor relationship?  Well, you try your hardest to be true to yourself, you put forward your energy and enthusiasm, you be respectful and then you let go.  No one has the power to control others.  All you can do is put yourself out there in an honest way and hope that your mentor will be a good fit for you.  And if it’s not?  You move along and find yourself the next mentor who WILL be a great fit for you!

Holding up your end of the deal:

• Connect with your mentor regularly and in person
• Come prepared with a list of 2-3 major items you would like to discuss
• Come prepared with your “homework” or “to do list” completed from your last mentor meeting
• Be honest with your mentor if you are not quite understanding a research task or how it fits within the bigger picture of your project
• It’s useful to step back and review the “big picture” from time to time to make sure it’s fresh in your mind
• BE ON TIME ALL THE TIME!
• Focus on your work together and not personal problems and issues---it’s good to get your know mentor on a personal level (this tends to happen naturally, over a period of time)---but keep the focus of your conversations on your research
• If something isn’t working for you or you can’t make a scheduled meeting, just be honest and get in touch with your mentor well beforehand to discuss
• Make sure you know how your mentor likes to be contacted---mostly through email, have they offered you their cell phone number, do they text?  In general, you should only call/text (if that’s okay with them) during “normal business hours” and not super early in the morning or super late at night!  You can always send an email.
• Go above and beyond.  Let your mentor see your passion by not just doing exactly what they say---take their guidance as a starting point and then run with it---this is truly the basis of a burgeoning researcher at heart!
• Most important: have fun, work hard and enjoy the process… 

How Do You Want To Feel?

Welcome 2013! It's here. So, what do you want 2013 to look like for you? How do you want to feel? With the turn of the year and the start of a new semester, your outlook and approach to things can feel especially fresh.  It's always a good thing to reflect upon the past year or semester and think about the things that worked, things that didn't work, what might have been particularly inspiring to you, major accomplishments that you can build on, areas in your life that might need improvement.

For me, I'm pretty psyched that we got refunded and I can keep doing this amazing work with some amazing scholars.  Now that's an accomplishment!  I'm proud that I ran my first 5K at a 10-minute mile pace and started personal training - made me feel strong.  I'm inspired by my new thinking about my work - coaching work that is - and building on this with my upcoming interactions with all of you.

Time still escapes me though and this is an area in my life that I really want to work on this year.  I know that the key for me in being most productive - creatively, personally, professionally - is to rise early to create the time and space to do just that.  I also know that if I could institute better "sleep hygiene" that it would bring this goal into reach.  Going to bed around the same time and waking up around the same time (including weekends!) is essential but hard to do!  Ideally, I'm shooting for sleep between 9:30 and 10 and wake between 5 and 5:30.  Food is the other thing that needs work!  I'm still a sugar addict.  Late at night (and weekend!) sugar eating isn't doing me any favors and I know it.  Most of you will say - oh Lynn, you eat so well - well, that's because you usually aren't with me during nights and weekends...LOL!  I know that if I brought this into moderation, it would not only make me feel better, it would improve my sleep.  A win-win - yes?

So, how do I want to feel in the New Year?  My top-three at the moment: effortless, smart and in my zone.  I want to make things as easy as possible and stop dwelling on the "shoulda coulda woulda's" in my life.  I want to use my gifts and talents and stop second guessing myself.  I want to develop an inner and outer focus that will bring my creativity to light.  I want to feel at ease when I'm interfacing with others.  When I'm at ease, I feel alive and joyful.

How do you want to feel?  Share with us in the comments below!  Cheers to 2013!  :-)

BIG Picture Thinking

This time of year can become especially crazy for our scholars.  It can be CRAZY in a good way and sometimes CRAZY in a “not so” good way.  Each semester comes with its own set of challenges, evidenced by Maureen’s favorite quote, “it’s been a rough semester,” which always seems to surface round this time.  But that’s okay, it’s just part of the process, right?

• You’ve got paper deadlines.
• You’ve got quizzes and final exams.
• You probably have a few projects coming due (some might even be “group” oriented – yikes!)
• And, for a good number of you, you have your grad school applications.
• Did I forget to mention things like basic self-care (eat*sleep*move) and time for friends/family?
• Oh, yeah, you have those things too.

My goal for this post is to encourage BIG PICTURE THINKING amongst these challenges and never-ending to-do lists.  What I mean by this is that you should try to keep your eye (and mind) on the PRIZE.  This might mean doing better than you did last semester for your grades.  This might be crafting one really superb paper (from one of your classes) that you can use for a future writing sample.  For those applying to grad school – this means focusing your energy on getting yourself into grad school.

This can really be tough with everything going on, but carving out the time to craft and submit super high-quality applications is key.  So is visiting schools!  Several of you have already been “out and about” and that is great!  It takes a lot of time, effort and energy to make these visits happen. 

I want to simply remind you that making these visits happen = getting into your top-choice grad program with full funding.  Period.  It’s exactly the BIG PICTURE kind of thinking that I’m talking about. 

In order to visit your top-choice schools, it might mean that you have to “let some stuff" go by the wayside.  And, that’s okay.  It might be hard to not go “full out” in all of your classes as you normally would (wink, wink) – but doing the best you can given that you are traveling to your schools, and taking time off from classes to do so, will be okay in the long-run.

I think everyone knows that in “our collective CMU McNair experience” to date, the scholars that go and visit schools are the ones that get the best admission offers.  Hands down.

So, it pays to think about your “big picture” of getting yourself into a fully funded grad program and do what it takes to make that happen.  YOUR FUTURE WILL THANK YOU!