Demystifying Mentorship – Part 2

We've been talking about, um, various, you know, uh, car relationships, right? And how we've done things non-traditionally.

But, but I also know that, that we also have had, and we've been in situations where we either, that either we experienced or you know of someone who basically has had some very bad mentors or mentors that don't respond to, to you.

Mm-hmm.

So, so Corey, how would, how, how did you deal with that? How would you give some people some advice, mentor some, some of our younger colleagues of how to deal with this?

Uh, I can say that I have been in that situation where someone was going through that.

And I, I say, number one, be a friend.

Like, you know, be someone they can vent to and, and let out the frustration because I think that helps in and of itself.

I would say this person in this particular experience was a peer of mine, so I didn't really feel like it was, like, 100% my place to tell them what to do or anything in that situation.

I just listened and said, "That is, that's unfortunate," and like, "What do you feel like you're not getting? What, what do you need, and how can we find it for you? Um, because we can," you know? And I would try to...

And some of the, some of the, um, programs we were talking about earlier, like I, I recommend those to a lot of people because sometimes when you need, um, you know, neuroscience, uh, mentorship or you need, uh, just mentorship in general, like, these programs can help you build that community even when you can't yourself.

So I, I have recommended things like that in the past.

I've recommended groups, um, within the, you know, the college we were at at the time.

I've recommended reaching out to your, your, um, thesis committee members and, like, getting more involved with really talking with them more often.

I, I recommended all those things.

I, I think that if you really advocate for yourself and you really find the pieces of things that you need, that, that you can, you can bring it together.

You can find it.

Yeah.

I, I agree with what, um, Corey said in, in the sense of, in the sense of, you know, you have to absolutely advocate for yourself.

Um, in situations where I think there is a, maybe an unresponsive mentor or somebody, or you know, expectations not met with that mentor, eventually yes, I think you have to find help somewhere else.

But I would say at least try to make a very, a, a real effort, a very intentional effort to, to get, uh, to get to have a conversation with that mentor to express your feelings.

To express, you know, that this n- lack of response or this, you know, n- not, not meeting expectations response is affecting you.

So have that conversation first.

Have that conversation where you express, uh, you know, respectfully but very honestly what is not working for you in that relationship.

And I've actually heard of several cases where that conversation happened, and it did make a big change because the mentor first m- maybe was clueless really, honestly, about [chuckles] not, uh, not even seeing what the problem, that there was a problem.

And hearing it from somebody that is telling you, like, "I am honestly expecting you to do this thing and it's not happening, and it's affecting me." As a, as a, you know, and going back to the example grad student, you know, PhD advisor.