How do scientists do all that stuff? Students explore the possibilities

Scientists advise students on forging a career in psychological science.

By Jamie Chamberlin
Monitor staff

Peter Nathan, PhD, admits he doesn?t know it all. In fact, he cheerfully uses this failing to his advantage?as a clever way to build rapport with his psychology students at the University of Iowa. By encouraging them to tell him about current research they?ve read about, he is also able to keep up on what?s happening in psychological science.

Nathan?s was just one of several useful insights into a scientist?s career offered to students in a discussion session at APA?s 1998 Annual Convention in San Francisco. Nathan, Claude Steele, PhD, and Linda Bartoshuk, PhD, covered topics that don?t often come up in graduate school, from how to keep up with massive amounts of new information and research, to how to balance career and family, to how to be a good mentor.

Eric Youngstrom, PhD, chair of APA?s Science Student Council, led the session, which was co-sponsored by the council, the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students and APA?s Board of Scientific Affairs.

What?s your style?

Bartoshuk, a psychologist who is a professor of surgery at the Yale University School of Medicine, offered an insight into the ethics of working with other scientists?something she said she learned from her mentor when she was just starting out.

'He did not permit his students to poach off one another,' she said. 'He defined territories for us based on our interests?you had that territory, and no one dared put a claw in that plot of land,' she said. She also teaches them the importance of gratitude in science. 'You can never lose by sharing credit with people who have influenced you and helped you,' she said.

Having hated the dull, archaic way theories were often presented to him in graduate school, Steele, professor of psychology at Stanford University, said it?s very important to him to keep his lecture material fresh and interesting and to engage students in conversation. Nathan, professor of psychology at the University of Iowa, said he encourages his students to pursue whatever they are interested in.

'It?s really important that a mentor encourage a student to develop his or her own project as a function of where they want to go,' said Nathan. He said it?s also important to be aware of students? social and personal lives without being intrusive. 'Be concerned when things happen to them personally as well as with their careers,' he said.

Get me a rewrite!

On the brink of their first manuscript submission, several students were eager for tips on how to survive the criticism that comes with the editing process.

Bartoshuk advised students to respond politely to editors? comments. 'Try to not let it get to you so much that you can?t be rational about making changes,' she said.

Steele says he?s learned to take a journalistic approach to a manuscript on the first try?he finishes quickly, as if he were on a deadline. Then when it comes back from an editor he reads through the comments and approaches the manuscript a second time. 'It does get better once you get used to the process,' he said.

Family first

Each scientist said successful researchers learn to balance their career with family life by putting the family first. 'Publications come and go, and you?re vulnerable if you don?t have family support,' said Steele.

They also reassured students that universities are more family friendly today than they once were. Many colleges will lengthen the tenure probationary period for pregnant women faculty because it?s to their advantage to increase the number of tenure-track women, said Nathan. 'And women should remember that they have the law on their side,' he said.

Tapping your resources

Bartoshuk and Steele said that, like Nathan, they stay informed in their fields by frequent chats with their students and colleagues at meetings and conferences. 'When I hit something new I just pick up the phone and call somebody,' Bartoshuk said. Listservs and web sites are great ways to find out who is doing research or starting a project in your area of interest, said Steele. 'Go to someone in your department who knows how to do something you want to do?it can save you years of time,' he said.