How to network with professors in your department?

[acrosschemworld]

The title says it all. Any tips on how to network with professors in your department in a professional way, especially in lab sciences where most of your time is spent doing experiments in your own lab and socializing mostly with your lab members and (if you are lucky) your PI? How do you establish meaningful relationships with other faculty members for such reasons as getting recommendations, getting them in grad school committees, or networking with their connections? 

 

For more specific advice, I am at the end of my first year and will probably need a recommendation from some professor other than my advisor in November, and I don't think anyone knows me well enough to write anything more than a form letter. I joined my current lab the summer before my first year and decided to stay, so I skipped the part of going to group meetings and talking to professors to figure out what group I want to join. I also had a slightly rough start to adapting to grad school and I don't think I left the best impression to most professors I had classes with, so changing that impression could be harder than approaching new people. There are these two professors whose research directions are closely associated with my project and I only talked to each for about 5 minutes but I feel I should do somehting so they get to know me a lot better. I asked the students working for one of them for lab-specific advice plenty of times and am comfortable to keep doing that, but I don't know how to approach the professor, especially because I'll probably keep having questions that his students could answer for me.

 

[victorydance]

The easiest path, in my opinion is:

 

1) Through classes, then

 

2) Through office hours. 

 

It seems like you neglected these two avenues and that is a shame. For most professors, students who show they are passionate about their study, through participation in class and getting to know them/asking for opportunities/engaging intellectually with them 1 on 1 will go to bat for their students.

 

Office hours are the bread and butter of developing relationships with professors. Use them wisely. 

[MoJingly]

Professors in my school don't really hold office hours. But I've had good luck setting up appointments with people.  Just send a quick email and say "hey, Prof X.  I know you through Y (class, etc). My research project is in a similar direction to yours and I would love to chat about it since you approach the issue from a different angle." 

 

Well, something like that. If you have this meeting and then ask for a recommendation a week later, your reasoning behind the meeting will be pretty transparent, but it might be the best way to go.  

 

People usually love to talk about their science.

[bsharpe269]

I have been networking mostly through classes. If a professor gives an optional assignment or reading then I always do it. I spent hours on an optional project like this for one of my classes last semester and after bringing my results to the professor, he asked me if he could write one of my PhD LORs (Im working on my MS now). Also, when taking a class with a professor of similar research interests then I go out of my way to go by their office to talk about research. I will ask them to send me extra papers, in addition to the ones we read in class, on the topics that I find most fascinating and then I go to their office to talk about those papers.

 

I am not a super social person. I go to some of the networking things at shcool like pot lucks but I skip out just as often. Part of that is just because I have a long commute to campus. I have found the things I mentioed above extremely helpful in networking though.

[geographyrocks]

I don't know how other schools do this, but my department has social hours where the grad students and faculty all hang out and do social things. Do you have anything like that?

[seeingeyeduck]

I've personally found it easier to show up at office hours and talk shop than to socialize but I'm not terribly social to begin with.

I think just go in or make an appt and change their impression of you. If you've only talked to them for five minutes then they have very little impression of you. Don't psych yourself out by thinking they don't think well of you. At this point you just need to start showing up so they become familiar with you and your interests. Networking is pretty simple, right? You just have to go on a regular basis and have interesting ideas or questions.

[St Andrews Lynx]

I think that it is OK to explain to a professor that you need a letter of recommendation when you are setting up an appointment to speak with them. Academics appreciate that you need 2-3 letters for every position you apply for, and once your advisor is spoken for you've got to ask several other people, too! So don't feel bad about what you're doing: I think that most faculty would appreciate that you're getting to know them (and making their subsequent letter-writing easier!).

[bsharpe269]

Will you be taking more classes in the fall? If you are very engaged in class and approach your professors outside of class this fall then a month or two could be enough to get a letter. I make an effort to take multiple classes with the same professors instead of one with each to build relationships. I sometimes also pick classes based on reserach fit with the professor. Can you take a class under one of the people with similar reserach interests next semester? You can then stay after class to talk about connections between the class material and your research.