How to motivate your students.

I had a very interesting Friday and Saturday. I learned a little more about how to motivate students using lab socials. But first, I want to describe an interaction I had that relates (albeit remotely) to the topic of student motivation.

Friday afternoon, LookALike and I went out for a second coffee date. (Here is a description of LookALike.) This is one of the things I really miss about LargeUniversityInCanada.

LookALike, it turns out, had a life event that made the last few years of her PhD quite stressful. What was difficult was how the supervisor responded to this event. Her supervisor suggested she "throw herself into her work to forget it."

Sigh.

It's hard for those who have either chosen to ignore the experiences of life or have had very few experiences in life, to understand how to help a grad student in just such a circumstance. So I'd like to make a couple of suggestions:

The first is realize that

a) the hardest part about a LIFE EVENT is not the immediate aftermath, but the many difficult days and nights that follow. Immediately after some LIFE EVENT happens, there are a ton of people around you, but all that support disappears in the months that follow. It gets quite lonely then and this is the time when understanding and support is the most crucial.

and

b) not everyone responds in the same way to shit happening. Sometimes it can just paralyze you. For others throwing themselves into their work, is exactly what they need. As a supervisor, it is your job to know your student. I think the biggest mistake is to assume that your student will react in the same way you have or might to such an event. By knowing your student, you can ADVISE them as to how they might deal with the professional aspects of their life.


****

On Friday and Saturday night, I went to two lab parties. Not my own lab outings, but those of HippieHusband. He belongs to two different labs in the biology department. I will talk about the second lab outing because it highlights a few excellent ways to bring cohesion and excitement into a lab group. It was inspiring.

The group, also a joint lab social between a male PI's lab and a female PI's lab, was mainly from North America and young. A lot of the students had just started in September. People in these labs are studying relatively big things in large and really cool areas of the world. It was a vibrant, enthusiastic, and loud group.

The purpose of this lab social was just to bring people together "for a party and travel slide show, to remind us of warmer times and inspire our thoughts heading into winter." This is a direct quote taken from the email that was sent around by the PI. And the party was held at his place. It was fun. Although the travel slide show was mostly a snooze, the rest of it was quite enjoyable. We played the game Mafia and this was a great tool to encourage students and postdocs to get to know everyone in the lab. At the end of the night, I think both PIs were largely successfully at making the lab group more cohesive.

In the end, I think that the atmosphere of the lab social is probably a good predictor of the working environment of the lab. The event was held at a faculty member's house where the atmosphere was homey and welcoming. People sat in a circle where they had a chance to interact face to face with everyone.

The question is was the second lab social successful because the people involved were young and still enthusiastic, untouched by the bitterness of academic defeat?


Note to self: Locate the fun-loving, confident, and inspiring individual before taking on a tenure-track job.