Building Relationships

[Jazlynne]

Any advice for what to do (and what not to do) the first few weeks/months of a program to build good relationships with your faculty advisors (for RA/TA/GA assignments)? How soon did you reach out to schedule a meeting to discuss expectations? Particularly for those of us who are not blessed with strong social skills and are generally on the quiet/reserved side...  

What about building relationships with faculty you want to work with, but who are not your advisors and you won't have a class with them (or any other formal introduction opportunity)? 

I get the impression my program is pretty formal, so it's not the environment where faculty and students get together outside of school (I've read about students going out for drinks with faculty, hiking together, etc.). My struggle is with finding a balance between talking strictly work, and still getting to know them beyond research (the likability factor). 

Thanks in advance for any and all input!

[fuzzylogician]

Some answers will be program/field/people specific, but to the extent that one can give generalized answers: 

- For work expectations (TAship, GAship, etc), the first week of class would be a good time to figure those out, if not sooner. For example, I just reached out to my TA for next semester and we scheduled a meeting for the week before classes start. If I were you I'd give the prof a bit more time to reach out, and if you don't hear from them, write them to introduce yourself and ask for a meeting around the beginning of the semester. 

- For other profs you want to work with, you could schedule a meeting to introduce yourself early on, but really the time to start talking to them more regularly is when you have something to talk about. That might actually mean later in the year, depending on the structure of your program and when you start developing projects of your own. In some fields first-year is very much coursework based, and it therefore it takes longer to reach out to people outside your instructors and cohort, and that's okay. Take your time, you're not missing out on anything if you don't have anything to talk to profs about yet, anyway. Once you do have something to discuss, you just email whoever you want to talk to (or you stop by their office) and schedule a meeting, simple as that. If you feel that there's potential for a good working relationship you ask for another meeting the following week/two weeks/whatever timeline allows you to get work done, and after a few rounds of that you might just ask to have a regular weekly/bi-weekly meeting to continue working on your project. 

- For getting to know people beyond professional settings, that really depends on the person and the program. I'd suggest taking this one slowly and consulting with other more senior students once you're there and know some of them. Professors can vary greatly in how much they want to share with students, and it might take a bit of time to figure that out. Again, take your time to figure out the subtle workings of your department.

There will be social opportunities to get to know people, at least on a superficial level. Your department will likely have a 'beginning of year' event of some kind and you could find ways to chat with some profs there; you could strategically try and sit next to one of them at a talk and strike up a conversation before the talk starts; if there is a speaker in town and there's a party or dinner organized, that's another way to chat with people in a friendly non-academic setting. Some of those things might not happen until at least a few weeks into the semester, but that's fine. For what it's worth, I would say that I mostly started talking to profs outside of classes in my second semester and then in second year; in the first semester I just did my coursework and tried to figure out what else I needed to know about the program I was in.  

[TakeruK]

To add to fuzzy's great advice:

- For profs you want to work with, one thing that has worked well for me was to let them know at the beginning and then set up a followup meeting to actually start the project. In my PhD program, we are expected to work with 2 profs on 2 projects during the first year. I set up my first project during the admissions process and most students don't begin the second project until January-ish. But I knew who I wanted to work with so in September, I talked to that prof to tell them about my interests. We discussed possible projects and decided on something for me. We also decided that I won't start working on it until December/January so we decided that we will meet again later that year to really start work on the project. I liked this format because it helped me to know I already had something set up and that if I did get some spare time over the next few months, I could start doing some reading on the topic on my own. In addition, profs only have so many places for students, so I wanted to ensure I would be able to work on a project I really wanted to work on. This worked out for me, since this project eventually became my thesis project.

- I find that for discussions with faculty members beyond work topics, it's easier and better to let the faculty member take the lead at first. Definitely consult with senior students to see how the program feels. Relationships with your fellow students are different though! Especially with your cohort, it's up to you and your cohort-mates to decide how you want to interact with each other. So even if it's not typical for grad students in your program to hang out with each other after work, if you and your cohort-mates want to do so, you should! The thing with grad student culture is that it has a high turnover rate as people leave and new people arrive. Obviously, as a new first year student, it would be awkward if you tried to change how the 4th and 5th year students socialize, but within your own cohort, you should feel free to find the balance that works for you.