What Happened In Graduate School? Post #3

Trust no one.

This was the biggest lesson I learned in graduate school. I've said before that I've been hesitant to write this post, because my goal isn't to drag anyone's name through the mud, or really to impact anyone's lives but my own. I won't name any names and my goal isn't to shame anyone. But as I've been blogging the past few weeks I'm learning that it makes me feel better and I just don't want to be so sad about this anymore. I need to put it out there and then I need to let it go.

So, why did I feel like there was no one I could trust in graduate school?

Faculty Example 1

One of my professors just didn't know anything about our program. They didn't know what courses we were supposed to take, how to access our grant funding if we were awarded a grant, (if we even managed to get a grant like we were supposed to because they also didn't know anything about how to mentor us in applying for grants). I once asked them during my first year how to begin identifying conferences where I might want to present a poster and they seemed confused and said to look at email listervs and talk to the older students. It was always "ask this student" "ask that student" "talk to the older students, they know how to do it." It created a system where we were all mentoring each other which we didn't really know how to do. And if you tried to disrupt the system you left one of your fellow graduate students in the lurch. The two graduate students who shared an office with me sat on either side of my desk and taught me how to run my thesis analyses because this faculty member genuinely had no idea how to do it themselves.

The thing that was most difficult about this person was they were interpersonally warm and purported to really care about students. They often reiterated to students that they could always come and talk to them about anything that was going on. And I genuinely believe they wanted to be that supportive person! But they just hadn't done the self reflection needed to carry it off. At worst, they couldn't hear any constructive thoughts about the way they were doing things without becoming irritable and defensive, at best they were sympathetic to the fact that I was sad but were unwilling to do anything to address the problem.

For example, at a time when I was feeling very overwhelmed with the amount of work I had to do I mustered up all my courage to tell them that I was overwhelmed. We had agreed initially at the beginning of the semester that I would do four evaluations as a part of my clinical assistantship, and the halfway through the semester they saw that our waitlist was getting long and decided to change it to six. As someone who struggles with perfectionism it is hard to admit that I can't do something but I was desperate. I explained that I hadn't budgeted my time for six evaluations throughout the semester, only the agreed upon four. When that wasn't well received and they insisted that I could do six I took a screen shot of my full calendar and send it to them as proof that I truly couldn't do what they were asking me to do. They emailed back "it looks like you have time on the weekends."

I learned something important about caring about people from this person. You only really care about someone if you still do what's best for them even when it costs you something. If you generally feel warm feelings when you think about someone and do what's best for them when it's easy- that's not really caring about someone that's just...I don't know...not hating them? Whenever there was anything at stake (evaluations not getting done, mouse shit not getting picked up at the clinic, more research not getting published) this faculty member suddenly didn't seem to care about us quite as much. They cared about the tasks they needed done getting done. And I think I could have tolerated that if they'd at least been honest about it, first with themselves and then with us.

Instead, what I learned was that just because someone was interpersonally warm and seemed sincere when they said they cared about you didn't mean they were safe. A part of my trust was eroded.

Faculty Example 2

I spend a lot of my time trying to make sense of interactions with Example 2. Looking back, I think this person was in a lot of pain themselves, and you know, hurt people hurt people. This faculty member supervised a lot of clinical practica experiences. When I was first year they called me into their office and said:

"Well, you have opinions. You definitely have opinions."

Internally, I thought yup, that's what happens when us girls start reading the books. The person I am now might have said it out loud but I was a sweet, gentle first year at the time. The faculty member went on to say:

"You like to challenge the status quo, but there's a time and place for it. I just worry that if you say some of the things you say in class during some kind of professional conference, people will think you're weird."

I sat stunned before saying, "I am weird."

This person then went on to ask what they had to do to earn my trust, and I explained my criteria. That in order for my to trust someone they had to be consistently in my corner and proving themselves trustworthy over time. They said:

"Okay Ashley, I will work to earn your trust."

We then went on to discuss what I felt my current strengths and weaknesses were as a clinician. I shared some things that I was struggling with (which is hard for me). Imagine my surprise when at the end of year evaluation some of the things I shared where used to mark down my overall performance as a clinician and offered as criticism.

If you find the series of above interactions confusing, you're not alone. This was a confusing person and in interacting with them, I never quite knew which end was up. Like Example 1, they could be interpersonally kind and seemed generally fond of me but when push came to shove, they couldn't be counted on to do right by me.

Faculty Example 3

This person stands out because I actually could trust them. I think if everyone was more like this person, things would be okay but unfortunately most people I interacted with where much more similar to example 1 and 2. Example 3 was intense. They could be very openly critical in a way that examples 1 and 2 rarely were, but there was a kind of comfort in this. With them, I knew what to expect. I knew if they said something they meant it, I knew if they were thinking poorly of me they would tell me straight, and knew if they were frustrated with me they would get over it.

In a way, they were the inverse of most of our faculty in that, while they could be interpersonally warm, they were often incredibly interpersonally harsh. Once I forgot to give a measure we needed during an assessment and I acknowledged it by saying:

"I forgot to give them, the measure. I messed up."

And they said, "Yes, you did."

But what mattered most if that when push came to shove, they were actually in my corner.

For example, once I really messed up a project we were working on and we had to stop data collection for quite a while as a result. I was devastated and literally shaking all over and on the verge of tears as I went in to tell them about it. They could see that this was an emergency situation and said they would make some calls and try and take care of it. Then they reminded me that some of the graduate students were gathering at brewery later and encouraged me to go relax, and have fun.

I learned something important from this person too. I'll take someone who is harsh but in my corner any day over someone who is warm, friendly, and willing to throw me under the bus. Example 3 is the only faculty from my program who I'm still in contact with. I consider this person my friend.

Trust

Despite the efforts of Example 3, they alone couldn't completely protect me from the damage of the environment I was in. I couldn't fathom how a collection of people could be so kind to me, and say they liked me and cared about me, and fail to come through for me when it really mattered. I technical terms- it really messed with my head. For better or worse, I struggle to trust others now no matter how nice they appear on the surface. I learned that niceness has no consistent correlation to trustworthiness and that the vast majority of the time, trusting someone higher up in academia will burn you. For better or worse, this has impacted my personal and professional relationships and made me a different person than I was.

Good luck out there everyone.

Until next time,

Ashley