Mentor “Tips”

Below is a collection of tips that many WCC mentors and mentees offered during the WCC Mentorship Kickoff Meeting on 9/15/2021. We will continue to add to this section as more tips are offered!

General Advice:

• Try it, and see what happens!

• If there’s something that needs to get done, spend an hour first thing each morning on it.

• Be patient and caring towards yourself!

• “Let the other person say no” - in short, don’t assume someone won’t help you or want to talk to you. Just ask!

• Go to Greece when you can.

• Admitting weaknesses can be more helpful than pretending to be perfect.

• Be willing to admit what you don’t know.

• From my wonderful former colleague, Margaret Toscano, at Utah: “Play to your strengths” (whether in teaching, research, etc.). I found this helpful for reframing a ‘deficit’ or ‘comprehensive’ mentality I had internalized from qualifying exams, etc.

• Recognize your boundaries and your limitations, because we all have them, but sometimes we don’t recognize them and we push ourselves too far (and recognize how these are related to your rank)

• It’s not healthy to say “yes” all the time.

Advice on Writing:

• Write one page a day

• When writing scholarship, don’t position yourself as a lone voice of “first” or “only”, but as part of a rising tide.

• Let the reviewers do the work for you.

• The dissertation doesn’t have to be everything or the best thing you do. It just has to be done.

• Write like you’ve won the argument.

• Writing, editing and receiving criticism is all processual. 

Advice on Giving and Receiving Criticism:

• Get practice at being criticized so it stings less each time.

• Frame criticism in terms of “how to improve.” More feedback makes the negative ones feel just a little bit gentler.

• Don’t create strawmen that you have to hit down; don’t think of it as a combat to death situation.

• The publishing field is like a cocktail party. It’s not a good idea to come in ready to yell at your fellow guests and hosts; otherwise, you won’t be invited back to the party. 

• We’re trained in some ways to look for what’s wrong in things when we’re young readers. Making the leap from being a consumer of other people’s knowledge and producers of our own is about finding what’s useful in anything you read. Find what’s useful and scaffold.

Advice on Advice:

• You can’t take everyone’s advice

• Don’t take all advice as gospel, because they often conflict! Critically think about the advice you’re receiving.

• Take advice specifically from people whose paths you want to emulate, although figuring out what those paths are is a whole separate step!

• Run conflicting advice by mentors and/or your cohort. Take it in but remember that only you know the right thing to do for your situation. Be true to your values and goals.