How to do research with my mentors effectively?
I get this question frequently in my open office hours. I am still learning as well but I hope sharing my ✌💰 may be helpful to some.
Key idea ➡️ **Help them help you!**
How? Check out the thread 🧵
*Frequent update*
Setting up weekly meeting with your mentors is great. But, do NOT stay silent during the week. Nothing is more frustrating to learn that the student got stuck 20 mins after the meeting last week in a meeting.
Your mentors want you to succeed! Help them do so!
*Manage meetings*
Before: send results/agenda whenever they are available. Give your mentors time to digest them.
In the meeting: progress update. Reserve the last 10 mins to discuss next steps.
After: Send a summary and an actionable plan to keep everyone on the same page.
*Stick with the plan*
Once you have an actionable plan that everyone agrees with, please stick with the plan. Quite often junior students may go ahead and work on some other tasks instead.
If you think the plan should be revised, talk to your mentors and convince them.
*One single slide deck*
Put ALL the progress/results/figures/discussions in one single slide deck. This saves 5 mins in the meeting locating files and trying to retrieve results two weeks ago when someone asks for it.
*Pls no "It doesn't work."*
"Say sth like: I’ve narrowed down the problem to step B. Until step A, you can see that it works, because you put in X and you get Y out, as we expect. You can see how it fails here at B. I’ve ruled out W and Z as the cause.” people.csail.mit.edu/billf/publicat…
*Do not avoid meetings*
When you make less progress or get stuck somewhere, it feels right to cancel the meeting as you have nothing to report. No! That's a TERRIBLE idea! Discuss the problems with your mentors/collaborators. Help them help you get unstuck.
*Don't try figuring everything out yourself*
If you spend 15 mins googling and still don't know where to start, please reach out to your peers/mentors. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness.
That's all! I would love to hear more suggestions and feedbacks on how to work with mentors effectively!
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