Start Your Mentoring Network Now
Welcome to the NIH, Summer Interns! By now you have pipetted your first samples, attended your first lab meeting, and maybe even survived your first failed experiment. More importantly, now is the time to start building the mentoring relationships that will shape your entire career.
What Makes a Great Mentor?
Great mentors have specific expertise and an enthusiasm for sharing it. Moreover, the best scientific mentors want to share their experience with you not because it is their job, but because they are genuinely invested in your success. However, not all mentors are created equal, and your job is to recognize the right ones early.
Look for mentors who give honest and direct feedback. Ask yourself what area of mentorship you are looking for, whether that be to expand your lab abilities, career advice, or application support. Is your prospective mentor able to help you in the area you need? Do they have the time to do so?
Pay attention. These characteristics often highlight someone who is well-positioned to share their valuable insights with you and thus form a productive mentoring relationship.
One Mentor Is Not Enough
You will need the expertise of more than one mentor over the course of your career. While a research mentor may be able to guide your experiments, project design, and hypotheses, another mentor may be better equipped to offer candid advice over coffee.
Also, do not neglect the power of having peer mentors, who are actively braving the same challenges you are and can give you valuable insights as to what to do next. You can also approach some mentorship relationships as competency-focused, such as working with someone who can help you build a specific skills you are lacking, in areas like science communication, leadership, or grant writing.
The Art of Asking for Feedback
One of the most underrated professional skills is knowing when and how to ask for feedback. Many junior trainees often wait passively for evaluations on their work and behavior, but the most successful trainees seek out feedback proactively.
Actively seeking feedback accelerates your progress and sharpens your ability to problem-solve, while simultaneously deepening your understanding of how your job connects to the bigger picture. Asking for feedback also helps to build a lab culture where open dialogue is the norm within the research group.
When asking for feedback, be intentional:
What specifically do you want to improve? Vague questions yield vague answers and may not be a good use of your or your mentor's time.
Match feedback to expertise. For example, go to your PI for scientific direction, go to a a senior graduate student for day-to-day lab skills, and go to OITE for professional development help.
Bring specific questions and data to focus the conversation.
Take notes, follow along, and follow up if needed.
Feedback is data, not judgment. The goal of receiving feedback is to learn what you can improve, not to hear that you are doing everything right.
Your Invitation to Grow
Consider this your summer internship to-do: identify one person who embodies the qualities of a great mentor, and ask them one specific question about your development. That single conversation could change your mentorship trajectory.
Science advances because researchers are relentlessly curious. You should apply that same curiosity to your own growth. Seek out mentors, ask questions, and never stop working to improve your professional relationships.