Mentoring 101: How to find a mentor in grad school
As you meander through grad school, do you ever wish there were someone who could help you figure out your path and give you insider info about how to succeed? Someone who’s just a few steps ahead of you who wants to help you learn from their mistakes? Someone who is wholly invested in your professional development and success?
Then you want a mentor!
A mentor is someone who is excellent in a certain area and willing to help you become excellent in that area as well. A mentor will enter into a professional relationship with you and accompany you along your journey. Mentors are invaluable resources for grad students.
In this article, you’ll learn what a mentor is and is not, how to find an excellent mentor, and how to maintain a healthy relationship with your mentor. As you read, think about some of the people you know who might make a great mentor and get ready to ask them.
What is a mentor?
A mentor is someone a few steps ahead of you who is willing to invest in a relationship with you to help you learn and develop in a key area. You can have many mentors—one for marriage, one for faith, one for grad school, or even one for running a marathon. You probably won’t find an all-around life mentor. Instead, find someone who is exceptionally skilled in a certain area where you want to grow—in this case grad school—and seek them out for mentoring in that area specifically.
Because mentoring is relationship-based, you want to make sure that this relationship feels like a good fit for both of you. Your potential mentor could be an expert in material chemistry with 50 research articles to her name, but if you don’t feel comfortable approaching her for guidance, then she might not be a great mentor for you. That’s okay! You need to connect with your mentor. Trust is key here.
An excellent mentor will listen to you and challenge you to become the best version of yourself. They will skillfully offer encouragement and support as well as some constructive criticism. After all, they are farther along in your profession and are well-equipped to guide you to a similar place.
Additionally, a mentor will be more of a model than a coach. They’ll teach by example. Remember, you were drawn to them by their actions and interactions. They’ll rejoice in your successes with you rather than feeling threatened.
Finally, a mentor will move you towards independence. They want you to learn from your own experiences. And in a few years, you’ll graduate and your interactions will become less frequent. An excellent mentor equips you for both present and future success.
What a mentor is NOT
So now that you know what a mentor is, let’s take a minute to talk about some of the things a mentor is not. You want to know what you’re getting into and the traits to look for as you select a mentor.
A mentor is not your counselor. For the most part, keep your personal life and drama out of the mentoring relationship. Your mentor is a professional guide. They should recognize that you’re a whole person and that life might interfere, but try to save the personal details for other people.
A mentor is not strictly a coach. Your mentor might coach you in specific skills (like how to give a research talk), but the relationship generally lasts longer and your mentor engages for more altruistic reasons since you are not paying them like you would a coach.
A mentor is not your answer book. They will guide you and teach from experience, but they should not tell you specifically how to navigate your grad school and professional journey. Don’t expect them to have all the answers, and be wary if they start offering too much advice.
Hopefully this clarification of what not to expect from a mentor helps you narrow down some of the people on your list of potential mentors. Now let’s talk about how to approach a potential mentor.
How to find a mentor
Have you decided that you want a mentor? Great! But I have a hunch that your list of potential mentors is still pretty long. Let’s narrow that down a bit by talking about how to find a mentor.
Remember: you’re looking for a mentor for a specific area. Your PI might be a great mentor for engaging in the research process. But maybe you want a mentor who can help you learn how to present well at conferences or one who can help you write stellar grant proposals. For me, I have a research mentor at Baylor, a mentor from my master’s program who helps me with general processing of PhD stuff, and another mentor who helps me in my quest to communicate academic knowledge to a wider audience through this blog and my podcast. It’s okay—good, even—to have multiple mentors.
Some of the best advice I was given in finding a mentor is to find at least two: one who is in a position you’d like to be in (e.g., your research mentor) and one who is very different from you but you still admire (e.g., different race, socioeconomic status, or career). This way, you can learn from a variety of perspectives as you work towards your goals.
Once you’ve identified a potential mentor, it’s time to reach out. An email should suffice, especially if you already have a relationship with that person. Be clear, specific, and respectful in your request. Explain why you want a mentor and why you think they will be a good mentor for you.
If you don’t already have a relationship with your potential mentor, it’s a good idea to start by requesting an informational interview. That way, you can learn about their life, their aspirations, and their communication style. Be sure to follow up that interview with a thank you note. If you still think they’d make a great mentor, you can now start to broach that topic.
Remember that when you ask someone to be a mentor, you’re asking them to give some of their precious time to you without much personal gain. Be respectful in your ask, and acknowledge that their “no” is a perfectly reasonable response. But if they say yes, then it’s time to lay the foundation for a healthy relationship with your mentor.
How to build a good relationship with your mentor
Great, you have a mentor!! Congrats!
Now you want to make sure this relationship is beneficial for everyone involved. Here are five tips to make sure you start off on the right foot and maintain a healthy relationship throughout grad school and beyond.
Talk about expectations from the beginning. This sets the groundwork for what you can expect from your mentor and helps the mentor know how best to serve you. It never hurts to periodically revisit the expectations as your grad school journey progresses. And if you’re already well into a mentoring relationship, it’s not too late! At the next meeting, take the initiative to talk about what you’d like to address going forward.
Come to meetings prepared. Know what you want to talk about so that both you and your mentor feel like the time together is productive. Also, if they gave you things to work on following the last meeting, make sure you’ve tried and are prepared to discuss the experience.
Respect your mentor’s boundaries. If they want to communicate only by email during work hours (M-F 8-5), then respect that. If they offer their cell phone number to you so you can text, use common sense about when to reach out. Just make sure you abide by whatever you agree upon.
Show that you’re willing to put in the work. Don’t expect your mentor to pick up your slack because you’ve confessed all the life stuff you have going on; that’s not their role. Similarly, don’t stay in your comfort zone. By entering into a mentoring relationship, you’re agreeing to be challenged and to rise accordingly.
Terminate the relationship respectfully. No one wants to think about the end of a relationship, but sometimes it has to happen. Maybe your mentor moves away, you graduate, or life (illness, kids, etc.) gets in the way. DO NOT ghost your mentor. Have a conversation about what these life changes mean for the relationship. Maybe you’ll agree to grab coffee if you’re ever at a conference together. Maybe you’ll send an email update every 6 months. You want to end the relationship on good terms since this mentor has given so much to help you.
Grad school is an incredibly challenging and isolating time. No one should walk through it alone.
The current system of research advisors and dissertation committees exists to provide some guidance for grad students, but mentorship is key to achieving your goals.
Take some time to identify potential mentors and then bravely reach out to them over the semester. Let me know how it goes.
Have any tips to add for a healthy mentoring relationship? Leave them in the comments!
