I got the two top scientists in my field to both agree to be my advisers. One of them, not an effusively friendly person, said my research proposal was extremely interesting, new, and important. I cried a little, but luckily I don’t think he saw.
Could you tell about your research proposal? What was the key reason you got those great advisers? The quality of your proposal alone may not have been wnough.
Getting my first adviser, Professor C, was a nightmare that made me miserable for a month. I really wanted him as my adviser because I think he is one of the only good scientists in my field and my department. I also had long-term plans to ask him to advise my later degree. I met with him once, and showed him a vague, decent research proposal. I focused more on being charming than on the research, because this had been working well for me with the other professors I knew. Unfortunately (and fortunately!) C is more focused on the science. He told me he would think about it, then email me back in a week. He never emailed me. I emailed him. He didn’t respond. I emailed him. He didn’t respond. I despaired, decided I had ruined my career and destroyed my chances of succeeding in the field I love by making him dislike me and now having no advisor, and emailed him again. He didn’t respond. After six weeks of this I told a different professor what had happened, who told my C ignores most emails, even from other professors, and it’s really hard to interpret his lack of response. He recommended that I just show up at his office and try to talk to him again. I worked desperately hard, trying to create a proposal so good it would redeem my earlier failure and weird stalking in C’s eyes. I became completely obsessed, didn’t sleep, read every paper in my entire subfield, thought and talked it over for a week, thought of five original questions, of which three were “important,” wrote the proposal with every important point underlined and put in bold, and finally put on my most professional blazer and went to C’s office. When I found him and showed him my proposal, I was literally shaking. He agreed to be my adviser right away. He seemed kind of confused about the whole thing, and said he just forgot to answer my emails. Sigh.
I got the second adviser because I got the first one. He emailed his colleague Professor K recommending that K meet with me. Otherwise I would not have stood a chance of catching K’s attention, since he does not take early-stage students and does not teach at my school. I wanted a paying position as a research assistant in K’s lab, in addition to him being one of my official advisors, but K was expressing ambivalence about the idea. I basically wrote an extended research proposal/contract, stating exactly what I wanted to do, how I was going to do it, what I expected of him, and what I wanted in return. He agreed, and said he deeply admired my audacity, and that my display of confidence made him feel more confident about my ability, and that I was the sort of intense and serious person he wanted in his lab. This is one of the academically boldest things I have ever done, but I had a strong sense that he would appreciate that sort of behavior.
I write all this because I’m not really sure what made the difference. I certainly acted bolder than I usually do, and I’ve noticed that most of the good things I do follow bursts of very intense misery and feelings of insecurity that I channel into desperately hard work. I’m never surprised when I do well, though; the insecurity is this sort of instrumental self-imposed drama I use. I wish I could work desperately hard without such a seemingly mentally unhealthy process, but so far I haven’t found any better personal motivators than my intense fear, even dread, of failure and the desire to protect my sense of my own identity as a smart, successful person.
Thank you, this is helpful information, and reinforces my notion that for reasons I can’t figure out, emails are never useful for communicating anything other than practical matters with superiors.
Was this your first time having a boss? / generally being in a position where a stranger was in a position of formal power in this way? The first time I had a boss I kept getting this impression that he thought I wasn’t doing enough...but then I realized that he actually thought I was pretty great and that people in dominant positions are often sort of aloof and curt towards those underneath them, and this is behavior is more-or-less independent of how much they like you.
Sometimes I wonder if there is a selection effect (where people who succeed in making minions a bit nervous, intentionally or not, get harder-working minions and therefore climb ranks faster)
It wasn’t my first time, but it was my first time having to work that hard for someone’s attention professionally. He not only had power, he also had incentives not to take me on (not enough time, high-risk low-reward, sets a precedent of accepting younger students, etc.). Dr. C has definitely become friendlier to me recently, although I still find him harder to charm than most of the people I work with. I think part of that is that yes, it works for him to make people a nervous and concise. I think he’s also just socially awkward as well.
I got the two top scientists in my field to both agree to be my advisers. One of them, not an effusively friendly person, said my research proposal was extremely interesting, new, and important. I cried a little, but luckily I don’t think he saw.
Could you tell about your research proposal? What was the key reason you got those great advisers? The quality of your proposal alone may not have been wnough.
Getting my first adviser, Professor C, was a nightmare that made me miserable for a month. I really wanted him as my adviser because I think he is one of the only good scientists in my field and my department. I also had long-term plans to ask him to advise my later degree. I met with him once, and showed him a vague, decent research proposal. I focused more on being charming than on the research, because this had been working well for me with the other professors I knew. Unfortunately (and fortunately!) C is more focused on the science. He told me he would think about it, then email me back in a week. He never emailed me. I emailed him. He didn’t respond. I emailed him. He didn’t respond. I despaired, decided I had ruined my career and destroyed my chances of succeeding in the field I love by making him dislike me and now having no advisor, and emailed him again. He didn’t respond. After six weeks of this I told a different professor what had happened, who told my C ignores most emails, even from other professors, and it’s really hard to interpret his lack of response. He recommended that I just show up at his office and try to talk to him again. I worked desperately hard, trying to create a proposal so good it would redeem my earlier failure and weird stalking in C’s eyes. I became completely obsessed, didn’t sleep, read every paper in my entire subfield, thought and talked it over for a week, thought of five original questions, of which three were “important,” wrote the proposal with every important point underlined and put in bold, and finally put on my most professional blazer and went to C’s office. When I found him and showed him my proposal, I was literally shaking. He agreed to be my adviser right away. He seemed kind of confused about the whole thing, and said he just forgot to answer my emails. Sigh.
I got the second adviser because I got the first one. He emailed his colleague Professor K recommending that K meet with me. Otherwise I would not have stood a chance of catching K’s attention, since he does not take early-stage students and does not teach at my school. I wanted a paying position as a research assistant in K’s lab, in addition to him being one of my official advisors, but K was expressing ambivalence about the idea. I basically wrote an extended research proposal/contract, stating exactly what I wanted to do, how I was going to do it, what I expected of him, and what I wanted in return. He agreed, and said he deeply admired my audacity, and that my display of confidence made him feel more confident about my ability, and that I was the sort of intense and serious person he wanted in his lab. This is one of the academically boldest things I have ever done, but I had a strong sense that he would appreciate that sort of behavior.
I write all this because I’m not really sure what made the difference. I certainly acted bolder than I usually do, and I’ve noticed that most of the good things I do follow bursts of very intense misery and feelings of insecurity that I channel into desperately hard work. I’m never surprised when I do well, though; the insecurity is this sort of instrumental self-imposed drama I use. I wish I could work desperately hard without such a seemingly mentally unhealthy process, but so far I haven’t found any better personal motivators than my intense fear, even dread, of failure and the desire to protect my sense of my own identity as a smart, successful person.
Thank you, this is helpful information, and reinforces my notion that for reasons I can’t figure out, emails are never useful for communicating anything other than practical matters with superiors.
Was this your first time having a boss? / generally being in a position where a stranger was in a position of formal power in this way? The first time I had a boss I kept getting this impression that he thought I wasn’t doing enough...but then I realized that he actually thought I was pretty great and that people in dominant positions are often sort of aloof and curt towards those underneath them, and this is behavior is more-or-less independent of how much they like you.
Sometimes I wonder if there is a selection effect (where people who succeed in making minions a bit nervous, intentionally or not, get harder-working minions and therefore climb ranks faster)
It wasn’t my first time, but it was my first time having to work that hard for someone’s attention professionally. He not only had power, he also had incentives not to take me on (not enough time, high-risk low-reward, sets a precedent of accepting younger students, etc.). Dr. C has definitely become friendlier to me recently, although I still find him harder to charm than most of the people I work with. I think part of that is that yes, it works for him to make people a nervous and concise. I think he’s also just socially awkward as well.