Go on, follow the link, you know you're curious. It's not Monty Python, I promise. That's this link.
Sorry, I couldn't think of a good science joke related to expectations, but that's what we'll be talking about this evening. Flying Circuses and Harry Potter Filk Bands aside, expectations are a big part of grad school. Your expectations, your advisor's expectations, your instructors', your committee's, even your family's expectations shape your world and experience.
Before I talk about what I think of expectation, let me tell you a story about something that happened last week. My class was assigned 4 papers to read over night (this particular professor had assigned about 50 pages of reading a night for the past two weeks. It's well known that that this professor can read at warp speed, even if none of the rest of us can). He clearly expected us to have read everything he'd assigned. We did not. For this particular day of class, he had split the class in two and assigned each half of the class two papers that we were supposed to present that day morning. I did read both of the papers I was supposed to present (although I admit that I'm writing this post instead of reading a paper I'm supposed to have read for tomorrow). Usually, if you want to guarantee that a grad student reads a paper, tell them they have to present it, but since the email about presenting went out late in the afternoon the day before class, some of my classmates only registered the first half of it. They read the first paper, but did not realize that there was a second. So, the first two papers go pretty well. We stumbled through them, not completely understanding what we had read, mostly because of unfamiliar research techniques, but the professor sort of talked us through it and he seemed please enough with out performance. Then we got to the second set of papers. The ones that a lot of people hadn't read. He very quickly realized that the people he'd assigned to read the paper hadn't done so. He asked if anyone HAD read the paper, about 5 of us raised out hands. This one was not one I'd been assigned, so I had only skimmed it. After a few minutes of us all fumbling around trying to explain these figures at the same time as we try to understand them, the professor rage quits. You read that right, he threw up his hands, said, "well, the exam questions will be focused on these two papers," and he packs up his stuff and walks out of class an hour early.
Lets pause at this point and unpack the expectations. It should be pretty obvious that the professor expected us to have read the papers he sent out. Maybe less obvious is that we expected less reading and more lead time on these assignments than we actually got. There's also your assumptions, dear reader, about whether or not we should have done all the readings, and your thoughts of what you would have done in our places.
Now let me tell you what happened next. Leaving class nearly an hour early, my lab-mate and I ran into our advisor walking towards the classroom. He happens to be one of the co-directors for our program, and wanted to ask our class for some feedback on a scheduling issue for next semester. Obviously if we were walking out of the building, class let out early. We explained what happen, how a lot of the class hadn't read all the papers we'd been assigned and the professor got aggravated and ended class early. I expected a reprimand, or at least a comment about what we should have done. Instead, our advisor laughed and then made a joke about how it was a 50/50 shot whether he got an angry email from the professor complaining about us, because he know the professor would want to complain, but also knew that he wouldn't want to admit that he didn't teach the full class session like he was supposed to.
Suddenly, we have a complete shift in expectations. Instead of reprimanding us, he accepted that we didn't do the readings, and makes a joke about what the instructor didn't do.
See, that's one of the secrets to grad school, one of the things that makes it very different from high school or undergrad: The expectations are different. Figuring out exactly what those expectations ARE is critical to your success. Things you need to work out with your advisor are expectations like what times do they expect you in lab? How do you handle holidays? If they ask you to do something, what's the turn around time they expect? How much time are you expected to dedicate to lab vs teaching responsibilities? Some of these expectations might come from different people, and might conflict with each other.
Circling back to the class example, let's talk a bit about class expectations in grad school. You will get a LOT of reading. More than you can actually do and keep up with your other responsibilities. Part of the way you deal with this is learning to read more quickly, and pick out the important parts. The more literature you read in a certain field, the fast you'll get, because you're already familiar with the underlying principles and expermental techniques. In class though, you can't rely on that, because in many survey classes, you're encountering things outside your area of study and expertise. From there, you have to learn what a given instructor really expects, and how you can best meet those expectations.
More important than all of this though, is understanding more generally what the expectations are for grad school classes overall. An instructor and a course director will always tell you you should do your best, read everything, and try to get as much as possible out of the class. Also, always drive under the speed limit, brush your teeth after every meal, check your oil and tire pressure every time you get in your car, get 7-8 hours of sleep a night, and eat three healthy meals a day. If you expect me to believe you do each and every one of those things, never try to play poker with me.
The real expectation for courses in grad school are 1) that you pass the course (B is passing, anything more than that is redundant because your GPA matters a lot less at this point). 2) That you come out of the class understanding what is relevant to what you study. If you study history, you might need a language class to read primary sources, but the goal of you taking the class is not to get an A in the class. The goal is to learn the language well enough to read those sources. See the difference? In the situation I discussed above, my advisor understood that my lab-mate and I didn't really need all the ins and outs of visual neuroplasticity1 for our research, because we work in a cardiac lab.
The take away from all of this is that the expectations of a grad student aren't always what you would expect them to be. Another take away that ties in but probably deserves its own post is that you have to balance competing and sometimes mutually exclusive responsibilities. To do that, you have to know who expects what from you, and what will happen if you don't meet those expectations.
As both a grad school and a life skill, everyone should learn how to both identify and manage expectations. Those of others for you, those things you expect from others, and most importantly, those things you expect from yourself.
Expect the unexpected, and always look at the data,
Faxe MacAran
Twitter: @TheMacAran
1) Neuroplasticity just means how the brain, with its synapses and neuron, can rewire itself to adapt to different ongoing situations. It's a pretty complex process and there's a lot of research ongoing about what can and can't happen and how it happens and what triggers is. It's a hot area of research. It's just not MY area of research. If you wanna learn more, there's a famous example of people actually adjusting to seeing the world upside down.
Sorry, I couldn't think of a good science joke related to expectations, but that's what we'll be talking about this evening. Flying Circuses and Harry Potter Filk Bands aside, expectations are a big part of grad school. Your expectations, your advisor's expectations, your instructors', your committee's, even your family's expectations shape your world and experience.
Before I talk about what I think of expectation, let me tell you a story about something that happened last week. My class was assigned 4 papers to read over night (this particular professor had assigned about 50 pages of reading a night for the past two weeks. It's well known that that this professor can read at warp speed, even if none of the rest of us can). He clearly expected us to have read everything he'd assigned. We did not. For this particular day of class, he had split the class in two and assigned each half of the class two papers that we were supposed to present that day morning. I did read both of the papers I was supposed to present (although I admit that I'm writing this post instead of reading a paper I'm supposed to have read for tomorrow). Usually, if you want to guarantee that a grad student reads a paper, tell them they have to present it, but since the email about presenting went out late in the afternoon the day before class, some of my classmates only registered the first half of it. They read the first paper, but did not realize that there was a second. So, the first two papers go pretty well. We stumbled through them, not completely understanding what we had read, mostly because of unfamiliar research techniques, but the professor sort of talked us through it and he seemed please enough with out performance. Then we got to the second set of papers. The ones that a lot of people hadn't read. He very quickly realized that the people he'd assigned to read the paper hadn't done so. He asked if anyone HAD read the paper, about 5 of us raised out hands. This one was not one I'd been assigned, so I had only skimmed it. After a few minutes of us all fumbling around trying to explain these figures at the same time as we try to understand them, the professor rage quits. You read that right, he threw up his hands, said, "well, the exam questions will be focused on these two papers," and he packs up his stuff and walks out of class an hour early.
Lets pause at this point and unpack the expectations. It should be pretty obvious that the professor expected us to have read the papers he sent out. Maybe less obvious is that we expected less reading and more lead time on these assignments than we actually got. There's also your assumptions, dear reader, about whether or not we should have done all the readings, and your thoughts of what you would have done in our places.
Now let me tell you what happened next. Leaving class nearly an hour early, my lab-mate and I ran into our advisor walking towards the classroom. He happens to be one of the co-directors for our program, and wanted to ask our class for some feedback on a scheduling issue for next semester. Obviously if we were walking out of the building, class let out early. We explained what happen, how a lot of the class hadn't read all the papers we'd been assigned and the professor got aggravated and ended class early. I expected a reprimand, or at least a comment about what we should have done. Instead, our advisor laughed and then made a joke about how it was a 50/50 shot whether he got an angry email from the professor complaining about us, because he know the professor would want to complain, but also knew that he wouldn't want to admit that he didn't teach the full class session like he was supposed to.
Suddenly, we have a complete shift in expectations. Instead of reprimanding us, he accepted that we didn't do the readings, and makes a joke about what the instructor didn't do.
See, that's one of the secrets to grad school, one of the things that makes it very different from high school or undergrad: The expectations are different. Figuring out exactly what those expectations ARE is critical to your success. Things you need to work out with your advisor are expectations like what times do they expect you in lab? How do you handle holidays? If they ask you to do something, what's the turn around time they expect? How much time are you expected to dedicate to lab vs teaching responsibilities? Some of these expectations might come from different people, and might conflict with each other.
Circling back to the class example, let's talk a bit about class expectations in grad school. You will get a LOT of reading. More than you can actually do and keep up with your other responsibilities. Part of the way you deal with this is learning to read more quickly, and pick out the important parts. The more literature you read in a certain field, the fast you'll get, because you're already familiar with the underlying principles and expermental techniques. In class though, you can't rely on that, because in many survey classes, you're encountering things outside your area of study and expertise. From there, you have to learn what a given instructor really expects, and how you can best meet those expectations.
More important than all of this though, is understanding more generally what the expectations are for grad school classes overall. An instructor and a course director will always tell you you should do your best, read everything, and try to get as much as possible out of the class. Also, always drive under the speed limit, brush your teeth after every meal, check your oil and tire pressure every time you get in your car, get 7-8 hours of sleep a night, and eat three healthy meals a day. If you expect me to believe you do each and every one of those things, never try to play poker with me.
The real expectation for courses in grad school are 1) that you pass the course (B is passing, anything more than that is redundant because your GPA matters a lot less at this point). 2) That you come out of the class understanding what is relevant to what you study. If you study history, you might need a language class to read primary sources, but the goal of you taking the class is not to get an A in the class. The goal is to learn the language well enough to read those sources. See the difference? In the situation I discussed above, my advisor understood that my lab-mate and I didn't really need all the ins and outs of visual neuroplasticity1 for our research, because we work in a cardiac lab.
The take away from all of this is that the expectations of a grad student aren't always what you would expect them to be. Another take away that ties in but probably deserves its own post is that you have to balance competing and sometimes mutually exclusive responsibilities. To do that, you have to know who expects what from you, and what will happen if you don't meet those expectations.
As both a grad school and a life skill, everyone should learn how to both identify and manage expectations. Those of others for you, those things you expect from others, and most importantly, those things you expect from yourself.
Expect the unexpected, and always look at the data,
Faxe MacAran
Twitter: @TheMacAran
1) Neuroplasticity just means how the brain, with its synapses and neuron, can rewire itself to adapt to different ongoing situations. It's a pretty complex process and there's a lot of research ongoing about what can and can't happen and how it happens and what triggers is. It's a hot area of research. It's just not MY area of research. If you wanna learn more, there's a famous example of people actually adjusting to seeing the world upside down.
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