4 Being a graduate student

In graduate school, academia, and science, failure and rejection happen to most of us fairly often. It isn’t fun to fail. I am in a position of priveledge, with a great job, and so recounting my own failures may not be relatable. For this reason, I find the following blog by Christina Prokopenko useful since it is recounted during a time of struggle rather than retrospectively after overcoming the struggle.

Research is hard. It is research because the answers are unknown, and not knowing the answers makes it hard. For me, this makes research very enjoyable, but sometimes I might have to work pretty hard to make some progress. For me, the challenge is very fun, and working on hard problems is one of the aspects of science that I enjoy most.

If you believe we should do more activities as a lab, please consider taking the initiative and organizing them.

If you believe that we should invite more speakers to campus, please consider playing an active role in the BGSA’s selection process for the BGSS speaker.

4.1 Being a gradute student at MUN

The School of Graduate studies has resoures recommended to prepare you for graduate school here

When you arrive on campus you should visit Clare in the 2nd floor CSF office to get your keys and get set up on payroll.

4.1.1 Opportunities for professional growth

You are encouraged to attend the weekly biology seminar and other discussion groups or seminar series at MUN. Take advantage of the community for a value-added graduate school experience.

4.1.2 Funding

The sources of your funding are outlined on the Program of Study form that you received with your acceptance letter. If your support lists teaching assistantships (TAs), even before you start at MUN, you will need to apply for TAships. Your funding is guaranteed for 2 years (MSc) or 4 years (PhD).

4.1.3 Student visas

Make sure you apply for and keep your student visas current. Please contact the International Studies Office if you need help. I am not able to provide advice on issues related to visas. Other international students may be a good source of information. Apply for visa renewals early as some of my students have experienced longer than expected processing times.

4.2 Work-life balance

Traditionally, there has been a celebration of over-work in graduate studies, but the concept of work-life balance and self care have recently been emphasized as important. I leave it up to you when you work, and I encourage you to seek balance and community during your studies. My former postdoc, Maria Martignoni, wrote a great article about work-life balance.

The purpose of the committee meetings is to outline the volume of work and the timeframes for completion. For MSc and PhD degrees, funding is guaranteed for 2 and 4 years respectively. In addition, please note that you will need to submit your completed thesis several months in advance (please click on the links under ‘2. Preparing for submission’ here).

All biology graduate students are required to take BIOL 7000 and MSc students in biology are required to take two courses. One class should take 12 hrs/wk. In addition, two TAships is 96 hrs per semester (~8 hrs/wk). My hope is that providing you with these numbers will help you plan your timeline to graduation to help you plan the work side of your work-life balance. I encourage you to keep track of the hours you are spending on your TA assignments and to ask, before you begin an assignment, how long your instructor expects the work to take to complete. Be efficient in completing your TA work.

4.3 Mental health

Several articles draw attention to a mental health crisis amongst graduate students, for example here. This article states ‘the issues surrounding graduate student mental health are much easier to describe than to solve’. Amongst the recommendations from this article:

  • ‘universities could require multiple advisors within a student’s field to evaluate degree timelines’. This is the role of the supervisory committee for graduate students at MUN. The supervisory committee at MUN does not examine; your committee’s role is to support you to thesis submission.

  • ‘Departments could also streamline their graduation criteria to reduce disparities in student workload amongst different research groups and to increase transparency of degree requirements’. If you have questions regarding how much work is sufficient for a thesis, these should be brought up with your supervisor/the supervisory committee.

The supervisor-graduate student relationship can be a source of mental health challenges. As such, I have described my supervisory style here.

If you are experiencing a mental health issue:

  • If you would like to tell me, please do.
  • You may seek counselling.
  • You may wish to take a break from your studies to prioritize your health.

4.4 Diversity, equity, and inclusion

The diversity within the lab strengthens our science and the science community. I encourage all lab members to consider their implicit biases and the structural challenges faced by underrepresented groups (specifically women, parents, visible minorities, immigrants, and members of the LGBTQ+ community) in academia and science.

Here are some ways that I consider equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI):

  • I advertise openings in my research group as widely as possible (given that I cannot justify paying to advertise). My recruitment approach is described on my website.

  • If I am an organizing an event or suggesting a reviewer, I consider the EDI of the group. The DiversifyEEB database is a helpful resource.

  • I consider merit relative to opportunity, and I am aware of the Matthew effect

  • I schedule work activities within working hours.

  • I attend training activities in EDI.

  • If two candidates are close, I consider if the difference between the candidates is bigger than my implicit biases (which would be towards researchers who are more like me).

  • If two candidates are equal, and if possible, I will choose the one that fills an under-representation gap.

  • The travel support that I provide to graduate students via my grants includes costs associated with visa applications so as not to disadvantage students who are citizens of specific countries.

  • I support parents who wish to bring their children to conferences.

  • I do not suggest social activities that center on alcohol.

  • I have taken online tests to assess my implicit bias.

  • I am aware that certain groups of adjectives are more likely to be used to describe women in reference letters. I write gender-neutral reference letters.

  • When I was on parental leave, I respected the terms of my leave by priotizing looking after my children and not by trying to get ahead by squeezing in productivity at the expense of the intention of the leave.

  • I consider that people that belonging to minority groups are likely to be judged more negatively during peer review and promotion.

  • I value everyone’s efforts to improve EDI in science, even if these efforts take a different form than my own. I think the solutions to these issues are not clear, and I respect anyone who is making an effort to create positive change, even though, more than likely, they go about this differently that I might.

  • MUN has the Blundon Centre to support students with disabilities through accomodation requests.

  • When I teach, I emphasize the concepts rather than the individuals who first established the results. I believe this helps foster inclusion by communicating that anyone who can think up a good idea can make a contribution, rather than showing photos and emphasizing the names of scientists that may come from only one demographic group supported by vast resources and priveledge.

  • I have read the Canadian Mathematics Society’s excellent report ‘About the necessity of collecting data to support EDI’ and I authored a similar report for the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society.

  • Another great resource is ‘Towards reconciliation: 10 calls to action for natural scientists working in Canada’.