At Weill Cornell Graduate School, increasing diversity and inclusion in the biomedical sciences is one of our institution’s top priorities. Critical for making science and medicine more inclusive is mentoring. We provide our students opportunities to be trained as mentors and to receive mentoring from our faculty and veteran graduate students. These tips on finding a lab mentor are the result of a student run panel for Esprit de Corps members, a program for first year graduate students from diverse backgrounds that works to build community while providing professional development. We hope you find them as helpful as our students did.
1) Know yourself: To know what you want most out of a mentoring relationship requires self-reflection on what is important to you. For some people, what they thought would be the lab of their dreams turns out to be a poor fit because the mentoring style does not fit their needs or expectations. Be honest with yourself and how you work best; know your strengths and weaknesses.
2) Hands on vs Hands off: A “hands on” principal investigator (P.I.) is someone who is seen as more directly involved in the day-to-day activities of the lab. They tend to be around the laboratory more often than not, and more involved in students’ projects. A “hands off” P.I. is someone who interacts with their students but maybe less frequently. This type of a mentor will be involved in planning projects and experiments but will largely allow the student to make decisions about the project they are working on. Both mentoring types have their pros and cons, and there is no general right or wrong style. Knowing what style of mentoring will best fit your personality type is important when thinking about a lab to work in.
3) Talk to the people around the lab: Students often choose labs based on their research interests with little consideration to other factors like mentorship style, which can sometimes be very influential to one’s training experience. Postdocs, graduate students, and other members of the laboratory are vital sources of information about the P.I. and the lab environment. Important questions to consider: 1) How is the lab run? 2) Is the P.I. hands on or hands off? 3) What support will you have in the lab to help with your development? 4) How many graduate students has the P.I. had, and what are they doing now? 5) What is the P.I.’s funding situation? and 6) What is the lab culture like? 7) Are students and lab members happy? 8) What is the publication record like for Ph.D. students? 9) On average, how many years do Ph.D. students take to graduate in the lab? This kind of information gathering is vital to understanding whether a lab and P.I. is the right fit for you.
4) Established lab vs New lab: New labs are usually smaller, with more junior P.I.s. This may result in more attention being paid to you and your work because it has a greater impact on the lab’s future. A drawback is that this could result in more pressure being placed on you to produce results. There are some positive aspects of this environment 1) there is greater opportunity to be given lab responsibilities that can be beneficial in learning how to manage lab-related activities 2) the potential for more publications. Of course this is not always the case, with labs varying in size and intensity. A well-established lab headed by a prominent scientist could churn out high-profile papers with clockwork regularity. However, this may also lead to a more hands off P.I. It’s important to recognize the pros and cons of each type, coupled with your needs and desires as a trainee.
5) Communicate your needs: With any P.I., younger or more established, understanding your needs and being your own advocate is important. Make time to understand their expectations of you and what you need to be successful. This will allow the mentor the opportunity to adjust their mentoring style to best suit you and for you to adopt best practices beneficial to you. An ideal scenario is one in which there is a two-way stream of information sharing, where the P.I. and student can learn from each other. Learning to communicate during your training can build a strong long-lasting P.I.-student relationship. In some situations, this may not always be possible and ultimately only you can decide what is most important to you in a work environment.