Your Introductory "Script"

“The key to a good speech? Three things. Be clear. Be brief. Be seated.”
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

If you are attending professional meetings, meeting with seminar speakers or collaborators, or networking for a job, you need to have a succinct introduction for yourself.  This is often called an Elevator Speech (a introduction that lasts no longer than an elevator ride).  You may not be giving this introduction in a elevator -- in fact, you probably won't be giving it in an elevator -- but you still need a script to use to capture your audience's attention quickly. Think of this as your 30-45 second introductory script.   This script will be what you use to introduce yourself to new people at just about any professional event you attend.  You need to practice your script so that you can highlight who you are and your important accomplishments yet make sure it doesn't sound like you actually are reading from a script -- it needs to sound spontaneous but professional.  How do you begin?  Here are my suggestions.   

Crafting your Introductory Script (as a student)

• Give your name
• Give the name of your program of study
•  If you are at a scientific meeting, make sure to say which university you are from
• You can also include your mentor's name
• Give your expected graduation date or number of years in the program
• Discuss your area of research interest and how your background relates

Giving your Introduction

• You will be giving variants of this speech for years so review it and make changes before each event you attend where you might meet someone new. 
• Be enthusiastic. Maintain eye contact and confident body posture. 
• Be flexible with your script so that you can be guided by the person you've just met.  Listen to their questions if they interrupt you and be sure to answer them.  Prepare in advance with succinct answers to likely questions. 
• Once you've been asked technical questions, you can fill the listener(s) in with more specific details about your project. 

Go ahead and write out your own script.  What would a practice script look like? Here is an example of what I could have used as a graduate student:

"My name is Betsey Wagener. I'm a 4th year Cancer Biology student at the University of Arizona and plan to defend in November. I work on prostate cancer metastasis mediated by matrix metalloproteases. Your research interests me because ____."

In the News: "The Future of the PhD"

Last week Nature featured quite a few articles and editorials regarding the current status of PhD programs and job opportunities for PhD-level scientists.  These topics have been ongoing sources of debate and this issue of Nature presents a good overview of the issues and opinions involved.  Check it out! 

• Fix the PhD -- This is the main editorial for last week's issue and includes links to the related articles in the issue. 
• Seven Ages of the PhD (requires subscription or institutional access) -- An interesting insight into the PhD process:  past, present, and future!
• Education:  The PhD Factory -- A critical examination of graduate training worldwide, including Japan, the US, China, Singapore, Poland, Egypt, and Germany
• Education:  Rethinking PhDs -- This article highlights a few programs with groundbreaking training ideas. 
• What is a PhD Really Worth -- A commentary on skills acquired during PhD training and the importance of finding a good PhD program. 
• Reform the PhD System or Close it Down -- A proposal that many graduate programs need to be either shutdown or undergo major reform. 

My personal thoughts on this topic are that PhD programs are changing to meet modern day challenges but there is so much more that can be done to help current and future students.  I think it's important to admit students who do not plan to search for traditional academic or even industry track positions into PhD programs.  It's also important for programs to explain career prospects and graduation statistics with prospective students. 

While we may be training an oversupply of PhDs for academic positions, there really are lots of careers available to motivated and hard-working individuals with PhDs.  Some of these jobs may require a longer job search but they are no less worthy than the "golden" tenure-track faculty positions or much coveted jobs in Big Pharma.  It takes all sorts of students and student interests to make a successful PhD program and it's in the best interest of training programs to really show their students all the varying fields with career opportunities that open up once the PhD is earned. Along those lines, formalized training in presentation skills, networking, mentoring, project management, and writing become vitally important to the modern PhD student...and to modern PhD programs.

Relating to Your Mentor

Recently, I had dinner with an old friend.  She is currently a tenure-track professor in a non-life-sciences field and is balancing everything, good and bad, that comes with being a tenure-track faculty member.  She told me how she has been regularly speaking with her graduate school mentor for advice and how they have been getting together at conferences for lunch in order to catch up, discuss the current issues in their field, and for continued mentorship.  As I listened to these stories, I smiled and asked if this was the same mentor I remember her having in graduate school.  She sheepishly looked at me and started laughing, as if to say, "Yes!  Can you believe it?!" You see, as she was finishing up her PhD, my friend had nothing good to say about her mentor, other than the fact that her mentor was truly and expert in her field.  My friend seriously thought that her mentor was trying to drive her crazy as a graduate student and purposefully impeding her progress toward graduation.  I think at one time my friend even called her mentor "crazy". 

The fact that my friend was having lunch with her mentor and speaking so highly of her didn't surprise me at all, even after having heard many horror stories about this mentor while my friend was finishing up her PhD.  You see, I had a very similar experience myself.  My graduate school mentor was one of the last people I wanted to talk to as I was finishing up my degree but now I regularly seek out opportunities to meet with him whenever we are in the same town.  I appreciate the mentorship he continues to give me even though there was a time when I thought he must be the worst mentor ever.  Luckily, I can look back on that time in my life and laugh, just like my friend can.  We both realize now that the mentorship we received was excellent and we were lucky to get it, even if we didn't know that at the time. 

I think this is a common reaction for many graduate students to have with their mentors.  Graduate school is tough...and it can seem like your mentor really is trying to drive you crazy or is finding new research avenues for you to take that purposely make graduation elusive.  However, most of the time, your mentor really does have your best interests at heart -- you just may not realize it until a few years after the fact.  It is more likely that he or she is trying to make you more of an expert or more well-rounded than it is that he or she is simply trying to drive you crazy.  That said, some mentor/advisor relationships don't work out and you should seek guidance from other committee members or your department head if that's the case. 

So, what can you do to get through graduate school with a shaky mentor relationship?  First, I think it's important to know that it can be perfectly normal to have ups and downs in your mentor relationship.  Also, make sure you seek out mentorship from faculty members other than your immediate advisor and use these people as a sounding board to get different opinions (just understand that they might reinforce your mentor's advice).  Do what you can to finish, accepting the fact that your mentor might be right, and try not to burn every bridge while finishing up.  Remember, a few years from now you might be enjoying a cold beer or hot coffee with your mentor, discussing your current graduate student's shenanigans!