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Soliciting Engineering Lab Involvement
25 Plays3 days ago
In this episode, Dr. Jill Fennell sits down with Dr. Brandon Dixon, Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies at the Woodruff School and Director of the Laboratory of Lymphatic Biology and Bioengineering at Georgia Tech. The two discuss how undergraduate engineers can get involved with lab work and how best to solicit lab directors for opportunities in different labs.
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Show Notes and Timestamps:
- 01:01 Introduction to Topic and Guest
- 02:05 Value of lab involvement as an undergraduate
- 04:20 Advice for students interested in labwork and available labs
- 07:06 How does student communication shape their perception by lab faculty?
- 11:49 What qualities are lab directors looking for in potential students for labs?
- 14:03 Which ways of communicating are preferred by faculty?
- 16:10 How to demonstrate being a good fit for the lab and crafting identity in communication
- 19:05 Demonstrating readiness and fit without over or underselling yourself
- 21:16 How can students show preparation if they don’t have any research yet?
- 23:30 What kind of language signals understanding of research vs. wanting a lab job?
- 25:33 What are common questions asked during the meeting stage?
- 27:37 Good questions from students during the meeting
- 31:28 Good practices for following up after email exchange
- 33:41 Reasonable window for a next steps follow up email
- 36:37 How best to communicate a change in plans without burning bridges
- 38:08 One takeaway piece of advice for students interested in lab research; outro
A list of undergraduate research opportunities is shared here.
Take a look at an example email solicitation here.
A transcript of this episode is available here.
Episode Edited by Lee Hibbard.
Recommended
Transcript
Season 4 Introduction: Beyond Clarity in Communication
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to season four of Communication Mechanics, a podcast for engineers. In this
Decision Making in Engineering Communication
00:00:13
Speaker
season, we're focusing on a reality many engineers experience early, but aren't always taught to name. And that is that communication is not just about clarity, it's about judgment.
00:00:24
Speaker
Engineers constantly make
Professional Communication Among Engineers
00:00:25
Speaker
decisions about audience, purpose, power, and consequence, often before they feel fully prepared to do so. Across these episodes, we'll explore how engineers communicate as they enter professional spaces, work across hierarchies, solicit opportunities, and take on greater responsibility.
00:00:42
Speaker
Whether
Communication's Role in Professional Identity
00:00:43
Speaker
you're a student, a new engineer, or someone mentoring others, this season is about understanding how communication shapes not just what engineers say, but who they become as professionals.
00:01:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the podcast.
Interview: Dr. Brandon Dixon on Lab Involvement
00:01:02
Speaker
Today we are interviewing Dr. Brandon Dixon. He is our Associate Director for Undergraduate Education here at the Woodrow School of Mechanical Engineering. And we're going to be talking about soliciting engineering lab involvement. Welcome, Brandon. Hi, Jill. It's great to be here you.
00:01:18
Speaker
Can you tell us a little bit about your lab? Sure.
Engineering Tools for Healthcare and Lymphatic Diseases
00:01:21
Speaker
My lab is over in the biotechnology square area, and we engineer tools and technologies to improve healthcare care for lymphatic diseases. So this is both on sort of the diagnostic side and the therapeutic side.
00:01:35
Speaker
And, you know, some of the tools in our belt are imaging and tissue engineering and computational modeling. oh Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here. Today
Value of Undergraduate Research
00:01:44
Speaker
we're really going to be digging into what could be the first real professional communication moment some engineering students face and that is connecting with labs, faculty or other research groups. So we're really thinking about not just what to say but how the communication in a way can make it easier for others to say yes.
Lab Experience vs Classroom Learning
00:02:05
Speaker
Let's
00:02:05
Speaker
do a little bit of context first and I'd like to ask why is undergraduate lab involvement valuable is it academically professionally or everything Sure. i You know, I think there's a handful of things that in which lab experience would derive value. So for many, if maybe I'll start with but the one that was more personal, I was not raised in an academic home and where I had parents or even close family friends that did academic research. So I had no idea.
00:02:36
Speaker
what that involved. And so an undergrad research experience was really the first time that the world of academic research and academia was opened up to me. And so, you know, I think one reason to get involved is that you actually just don't know what you don't know. and it may be, you know, may end up like in my case becoming your career. you know Certainly, that's that's one benefit. I think the second is most of what we do in the classroom is um you know we we learn how to solve problems that the instructor and many, many other people all know the answer to. And we learn how to repeat that process and eventually show that we, too, can solve those problems.
00:03:22
Speaker
Where
Finding Lab Opportunities Without Major Commitment
00:03:23
Speaker
in the lab, you are solving problems that no one knows the answer to. And so that's probably more similar to what you would encounter in in in the workforce at a job. You know, your boss is not going to pay you to give them an answer they already know.
00:03:39
Speaker
They are going to pay you to solve something that's unknown unknown. or difficult to solve and so how you know the the lab is a great opportunity here at Georgia Tech to sort of face those challenges and learn how to navigate the unexpected and how when you get an answer how do you know it's the right one or how do you communicate your confidence that it's the right one when you can't go to a solution manual ah and check.
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's I mean, it's really exciting work. um And it's very different work, as you said, from what you might be doing in the classroom where you're researching something that the we don't know the answer to. So what advice do you have for students for figuring out if lab work might be something that they would like to do? And then how do they figure out what labs are available to work in?
00:04:30
Speaker
you know Sometimes maybe the first point of entry might not be to to to start looking for you know a major commitment, research for credit or pay opportunity, particularly if you don't really know what undergraduate research looks like or what you'd be interested in.
00:04:48
Speaker
And so, you know, you might want to first just look for opportunities to learn. We
Research Opportunities: Seminars and Faculty Listings
00:04:53
Speaker
have seminars all over campus. Every single graduate student has to publicly propose their research thesis and defend their research thesis.
00:05:03
Speaker
They're open to the public. These could be chances for you to just pop in as an undergrad and see what it involves. And and you do it in a way that doesn't require anyone to schedule extra time for you. Or it also gives you a chance to sort of show your own initiative and and also learn. I mean, it there's i have a colleague, actually Dr. Federoff here, he was telling me he's done this ever since he's been here. one Once a week he goes to a seminar anywhere on campus in any discipline just where he looks at the title. He's like, that looks interesting. I'm going to And I really admire that about them him because he's like, look, at a university. Why stop learning? Right, yeah. And so I think that can be a great place to start.
00:05:41
Speaker
Certainly we have some more organized formal mechanisms for you as a student to know what research opportunities are available to you. So on our undergraduate page, if you look for the section about undergrad research, there is a file that gets maintained by the advising office that basically lists out all the faculty who are actively looking for students and the details of the undergrad research projects they're looking for. Awesome. We can link to that in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah. so we'll put that there and you can you can go there. And that's ah and they'll often say whether they're looking for someone as a volunteer or someone for academic credit or or for pay. All three of those options are available to you as an undergrad student, you know depending on the project needs. What are those options again? So for academic credit, so typically you you can get three hours credit. It counts as one of your depth as one of your free electives within the curriculum, and we allow you to take up to six hours within mechanical engineering doing research.
00:06:37
Speaker
You can also do it just on a volunteer basis, and we like to know when you're doing that. So even if you're doing a volunteer basis, we'll still register that experience through the registration system.
00:06:47
Speaker
and then you can do it for pay as well. Sometimes the faculty member may have a sponsored project they're paying you off of, but then also there's things like Pura where you actually apply for an undergrad research assistantship that gives you a stipend for a semester to do research.
00:07:03
Speaker
ah So all three of those are available. Yeah, those are great options. All right, this
Crafting the First Email to Faculty
00:07:07
Speaker
is Communication Mechanics, so let's get into the communication. Before a student even meets faculty, how does their communication shape how they're perceived? Yeah, so I would say more than anything, that first email you send will play a really big role in whether you hear back anything at all.
00:07:27
Speaker
I mean, just to provide you some context, your typical faculty member probably gets 15 emails a week from high school students,
00:07:38
Speaker
current undergrads and prospective graduate students and postdocs all interested in working in their lab. So 15 a week is probably a good guess. So you're talking about hundreds over the course of a year.
00:07:53
Speaker
And at the end of the day, they're going to be able to take three or four. And so um how you how do you get your email to stand out? you know Certainly being here at Georgia Tech automatically, you know ah ah of those 15, a lot of them are from people outside Georgia Tech wanting to come here. But even within Georgia Tech, there may be – and it's also very seasonal. So if you send that email during phase one registration or two weeks before phase two registration ends, you are one of 30 undergrads who are looking for something for credit.
00:08:29
Speaker
And so it's less likely your email is going to get read than maybe if you send it in the middle of the semester really early on and plan ahead. Because there is a cycle to these things. that You get a lot of emails about research right before the next semester begins, and then you don't hear anything for a while, and then you get a lot of emails right before the next semester and you know begins. So timing can matter.
00:08:51
Speaker
But then more than that is there' the communication itself. That email, you there's things you can do to... probably ensure that it never gets answered, but there's things you can do to it certainly at least increase the probability that you will get a response. Well, let's start off with some of those don'ts. Do
Common Mistakes in Reaching Out to Faculty
00:09:08
Speaker
you have any maybe common poor assumptions that you see illustrated in these early emails or have you seen students signal sort of lack of readiness before you even have that first meeting via their emails?
00:09:22
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. You know, I think I think most faculty when they see the first email, they are drawing judgments about the seriousness with which you're approaching this desire to do undergraduate research. And let me let me explain that. um You know, undergrad research is research in general is hard and it takes persistence and dedication. And they're going to make a judgment about how much time and thought they think you have put into that email based on the content there. And if there are things you've done that convey that that lead them to assume not much time or thought.
00:09:58
Speaker
i mean, i'll give you the most extreme example. I don't ever see this from undergrad students at Georgia Tech, but I particularly see this sometimes from students outside wanting to come here. You can have an email that will say, dear sir.
00:10:09
Speaker
and then it's very clear that it was sent through some mass mailer 65 people. i don't even get to the second paragraph before I hit the delete button on those emails. There are some that even I as a communications chair get. like i I don't have a technical research lab here, obviously, in my role. Yeah, I mean, I think there are people that actually have built these tools that just farm websites and pull off email addresses of all the faculty and send out these blast emails. So, i mean, obviously, no one at Tech is trying to do that, and that's ridiculous that you'd even think that would work.
00:10:43
Speaker
But what I might see a Tech student to is they'll say, I'm really interested in your research, and then they verbatim write what I put on my lab webpage. Right.
00:10:54
Speaker
Or my faculty bio. And it's sort of like, okay, you did go to the effort to copy and paste, but do you really understand what that means? And are you really interested in that?
00:11:05
Speaker
Just because I get so many requests, that's kind of a, that automatically is sort of a sign to me that this probably isn't a student I'm interested in. Yeah, if you can't even paraphrase what you just saw and in two sentences, it might not be the best match. Or not even that it's not the best match. it As you said, you have so many applicants. Yeah. I mean, I work in such a niche area, and we all do. I'd almost rather your interest in my research see a bit a little bit naive than verbatim, you know, just spitting my own words back at me. Because...
00:11:36
Speaker
There are very few people in the world that know exactly what we work on because it's so so narrow often. But just we want to see your curiosity. Why is it the things that we're doing in my lab, why is it that you might be interested? Right. So, so far you've said curiosity, you've said initiative. Are there any other, like, qualities that you're really looking for?
00:11:58
Speaker
um
What Faculty Value in Research Students
00:12:00
Speaker
I would say perseverance. And and um I don't know if we're intentionally looking for this or just the the nature of the the system requires it.
00:12:12
Speaker
But if you send one email and give up, and don't send another one or don't do anything after that, maybe the interpretation there is, okay, well, first time the experiment doesn't work, that's it, right? You're going to have to do something over and over again and try multiple approaches in the lab. So, you know, I'm not sure we're that intentional in our filtering process, but but there is something to be said about the student that perseveres in trying to get in touch with that faculty member.
00:12:41
Speaker
That, oh, they really they really do want to do this and they're not just kind of looking for the the easiest, you know, way forward. Right. Because this this aspect of choosing undergraduate researchers is just another layer on top of a very multilayered position and what their day to day might look like.
00:13:00
Speaker
Right. i I know of some faculty that have 60 undergrads in their lab. Of course, I'm nowhere near that, but I typically might have five or six in a given semester, you know, on top of eight PhD students. and then And then, of course, all the other things you're doing as well. And so... Yeah, the the time I have to really think about your email is is short. And so when I get it, doing the best to with that time to grab my intention, but also realizing that, you know, maybe the first time the email came through, it came right after another email. Yeah.
00:13:38
Speaker
that automatically got me thinking about something that I needed to do and and you're kind of you were lost in the noise. And so there's a little bit of luck of when is that email read, which is why you might need to send it more than more than once.
00:13:51
Speaker
Of course, we're operating the assumption here that the only mode of communication so far is email. and um And I think there are also maybe more effective ways to communicate beyond email.
00:14:03
Speaker
Which ways do you think are most preferred by faculty? Yeah, I think that's um think that's a really good question. and I think it's hard to probably put a box and say, well, every faculty is going to want this. where you know Faculty are all i'll have their own tendencies and preferences and idiosyncrasies and whatnot. so um But i you know I certainly think if you can get in front of the face of the faculty member, that goes a long way. Right. And there's different ways you can do that.
00:14:36
Speaker
You can figure out when that faculty member's lab meeting is. And, you know, again, I don't want to universally speak and say every faculty member would just be overjoyed if this happened. But I think I speak for myself. If a student came, figure figured out when my lab meeting came and said, hey, i you know, send a quick note. I'd love to just sit in on the lab meeting.
00:14:55
Speaker
Would that be OK? I'd be like, sure, that would be great. Come sit in on the lab meeting and and see what we're doing. hmm. So that's an option. Certainly if it's a faculty member that you have for a class, maybe that's why you got interested in their research, go to their office hours.
00:15:10
Speaker
That's so an hour a week at least that they've dedicated to just being there to meet with students. ah My office hours are often, you know, unless it's before a test or a quiz, they're often kind of lonely. Hmm. Feel free to stop by. I have them every week. Don't go when there's a test. Go right after the test. No one comes in And chat with me about my research. But that could be a great way to engage faculty.
00:15:35
Speaker
Certainly, you know, beyond that, i think if you go to seminars that interest you, there will be other faculty at those. A lot of our seminars are outside guests, but there will be other faculty at those seminars that are equally interested in that seminar, and it's a chance for you to...
00:15:51
Speaker
to meet. You know it's just like any ah any kind of job where networking certainly can play a role. Yeah, and a lot of these can also be coupled with email. Like you can send it beforehand, yep sneak into office hours. I just wanted to let you put a face with a name. yeah i hope that you'll consider me and, you know, make it low pressure. Yes, definitely.
00:16:10
Speaker
One of the things I tell undergraduate students when they're getting ready to apply for graduate school and they have to write a statement of purpose, which is a really weird genre that you almost never have to write outside of applying to graduate school or grants or something.
00:16:24
Speaker
And that is really trying to show why you are the right person to do this research in this lab right now. The stakes aren't quite as high whenever it's just sending this email to the lab, but I think that's really what it's getting at why it's a good idea to include something about yourself there.
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And um for me, at this level in your career, it's really about why why do you want to do this and where are you headed? Right. That's it. It's just about being honest and and and showing your your your intentional. It doesn't mean you have to have your entire life planned out, but you at least know you know what it is you want to achieve through this.
00:17:05
Speaker
It also helps the reader get this sense of you, the the writer in this case, is ethos. Like, who are you? What is it that you want to do? And why that is appropriate, specifically for research. As you said before, this is something where the answer is not known yet. So coming in with the attitude of, I have all this experience, I know everything, is not necessarily the best ethos for the kind of person you might want in a lab. Yeah.
00:17:33
Speaker
Yeah, and I would say even the kind of person I want in the lab, it's not a's there's not one answer to that because we have different kinds of projects in the lab. And so i have sometimes I have projects where I have a grad student who really needs support through some um doing tons of like histology and staining and analysis. it's It's somewhat mundane. It's somewhat repetitive. Yeah.
00:18:00
Speaker
but I need someone who can pay attention to details. And so
Beyond Resume-Building: Meaningful Experiences
00:18:05
Speaker
in that case, a good a good student might be, hey, here's a med student. They know they need to do these things to be competitive for med school. They're willing to just do the work.
00:18:14
Speaker
And I don't necessarily need the most creative student in the world for that undergrad research project. I need someone that's like, no, i I'm willing to do what it takes.
00:18:26
Speaker
um I want to learn this technique and and I want to get on a paper. And that's that's the type of student i'm looking for when it's that project. But I may i we have other projects that are more open ended or or we need someone who we know is really good at coding or whatever.
00:18:41
Speaker
And so we might, you know, the type of student we're looking for, and even why that student wants to do the research may there may be different fits. Right. so Yeah, so really just be true honest about who you are and what you want to do as opposed to trying to figure out what it is that the professor is wanting or whatever.
00:19:04
Speaker
Let's dig into demonstrating readiness and fit a bit more. And the idea here is you know how we can help students understand and how they can convey fit without overselling or underselling themselves.
00:19:16
Speaker
When faculty look at a student's message or CV, what makes you think this student is ready for a research position? Sure. So I do have occasionally, this is another one where i'm like, I don't i don't know if i how many faculty I'm speaking for, but if you are a third-year student and your CV has five three-month research stints on it, that's probably you're probably not going to be a student I'm goingnna reach out to because to me, i read that and I see, oh, this is a resume builder.
00:19:51
Speaker
this this This student is looking for resume building things to add on so it's it's got all these... And that's not what I want to invest in. So you could have a student that's overqualified, if you will, if if you want to define qualifications by how many different labs you've been in. I think you could also argue they're underqualified because they didn't stay long enough at one place to to become.
00:20:15
Speaker
Research takes time, especially academic research. Exactly. So. You know,
Highlighting Skills Without Prior Research Experience
00:20:20
Speaker
I think that. um But there's sometimes I get CVs where things jump out at me that that have nothing to do with technical expertise, but they show leadership or perseverance or selflessness. Mm hmm.
00:20:36
Speaker
You know, I might see someone who did some volunteer thing in high school or this, and and they did it long enough that I was like, okay, this was a this was something meaningful to them. This is a person when they have something they believe in they go after it.
00:20:50
Speaker
And, you know, that is just as good of a quality as, you know, how well you know Python. Research is a commitment and that's not to like scare students away thinking you're gonna have to dedicate yourself to this for forever but in order to really see a lot of the benefits and the returns on it you need to be committed to working through some testing that doesn't work out.
00:21:15
Speaker
How should students show preparation if they don't have any research yet? These are sometimes some of my favorite students to take because this was me. So maybe I have a personal affinity to to one of these students.
00:21:28
Speaker
um But I, you know, I can see a hard worker. I mean, my my, I don't, I guess I had a resume. I don't remember if I did. was too long ago. But if I did have a resume, it would have had seven years working at a grocery store from the time I was 16 until I started grad school.
00:21:47
Speaker
um I would think some faculty member saw that and was like, huh. That's not typical. Like this person really can do what it do. What needs to be done and has a sense of worth, work ethic and responsibility and commitment. So, you know i think I think you could show that and it doesn't have to be that you have research experience.
00:22:07
Speaker
I think certainly, you know, there's ways to show other examples of leadership here at Georgia Tech. And so I'm not, you know, fine, you haven't been in an undergrad research lab, but maybe you were on an SEC team or...
00:22:23
Speaker
Maybe you're already a PI in the invention studio or you have mastery of a particular tool set there. That's actually probably how I got. I've never asked my my old PhD mentor this, but I think it probably was one of the ways how I got into his lab.
00:22:39
Speaker
I had worked in a machine shop as a high school student for my neighbor, and so I knew how to use a mill and a lathe, and he found that out. He offered me a position in his lab because he needed someone to help.
00:22:52
Speaker
we didn't have a We didn't have the amazing Montgomery Machining Mall like we have here with full-time dedicated machinists. It was sort of a shop, and you had to know how to do stuff unsupervised. Yeah. And ah that's how I got you know a job in in grad school. So you know those kind of skills could also, we we wouldn't call those research, but but what you know how to the software you know how to use, the prototyping equipment or electro equipment or coding languages, you know those can all be useful things to put in the CV as well.
00:23:26
Speaker
Particularly when someone's looking for a very specific project. Alright, one last question about this original contact moment. What kind of
Understanding Research Challenges in Initial Contacts
00:23:36
Speaker
language signals to you as the audience for these emails, I understand what research is, how it works, versus I just want a job, I just want a lab spot.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. I would say, you know, four out of every five experiments don't go as planned. So someone that understands how research works is someone who knows how to fail fast.
00:24:02
Speaker
and That's a key thing. It's not just fail, but fail fast. So even if you have examples, I guess, from your own life where you can say, hey, here's something I had to do that was tough and it and and and and it took lots of perseverance, but also ab adaptability. Problem solving. Yeah, problem solving. i Maybe you're 2110 team and that your experience there is a great thing to go to if you know as a way to as a way to communicate that.
00:24:31
Speaker
But certainly, um and then maybe the other thing is i don't think research anymore, at least not in my field, is done by a single person at a lab bench by themselves. It is a people business and research involves working with people across disciplines.
00:24:49
Speaker
Within the ah within the the lab, this means you need to be able to trust someone else to be the expert in one thing while you can be the expert in this thing. And if you have to be the expert in everything, you're probably not going to be an effective researcher. And so that's another you know research is really a team, a team business.
00:25:10
Speaker
And so. So talking about collaboration. yes exactly. Talking about collaboration, being a being of a disposition that um communicates that you're a person that can work well with other people. and And this doesn't just mean you're friendly. This means you effectively manage conflict and you can stay on time and with deliverables and all those sorts of things as well.
00:25:32
Speaker
So as
Discussing Research Interests and Experiences
00:25:33
Speaker
we're moving from that initial contact, the email probably that gets sent to the meeting that might follow that, in this subsequent meeting where you have made it past the email stage, you've agreed to meet with the student, what are you looking to hear from the student? Or what are some common questions you like to ask in these meetings?
00:25:53
Speaker
Yeah, I like to hear, I like to start with what the students interested in, why they want to do research in general, how that's going help them prepare them for what's next or help them figure out what's next. Either one is fine.
00:26:06
Speaker
What about what, what in your experience at Georgia Tech so far has sparked this interest? You know, was there a class you took and that's why you're interested in this sort of thing? I, you know, really to get at the why,
00:26:19
Speaker
You know, I mean, part of it is just I think you're engaging their professionalism, how well I think they're going to interface and work in the in a team environment. And those kind of I mean, I think probably standard interview.
00:26:33
Speaker
The things that are going on in all sorts of interviews, i think, go on here. Probably going to get more details from the things that were just stated in that an original email. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. if If there's a particular thing you really think sells you well, hint at that in the email because then hopefully if that jumps out, that's going something I'm asking you to talk about.
00:26:54
Speaker
you know You don't want to write a paragraph about the time you went you know to Nepal in the summer with your church or whatever and and did work, but you – You can't tell me, but maybe you put there and I'm like, oh, tell me about that. Why do you do that? Or what'd you learn? Or, you know, like that. So that that can be an opportunity for you to be ready to expound upon those things. And you can almost set yourself up um in the email you send. Oh, right. Yeah.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah. Hint at things that you want to be asked questions about. Exactly. Most about your past experience or about maybe something in the lab that's really interesting. Maybe there was one very specific paper where you're like, are you still working on this? I thought this was super interesting. I'd love to talk about it.
00:27:37
Speaker
What questions do you like to hear students ask during this meeting? And what do those questions signal to you? I think definitely if a student asks a question about, say, say ah a topic or a paper they read or something, and they there are certain questions and that you can ask that convey a depth of understanding that will really make you stand out.
00:28:00
Speaker
um you know i let's see if i can think of an example of you know we we had this paper we had published in science advances and um we was with susan thomas and i together we had had this therapeutic that we were delivering to treat lymphedema and it was very very you know creative approach where we could really get this drug right into a lymphatic vessel and help it pump more and I'm really proud about the paper.
00:28:28
Speaker
I mean, there was there was a there's a big problem with with that ah approach and getting it into ah into a patient. And that problem is, you know, would a therapy in which you have to inject yourself every day really work in this patient population? And I remember I can't work as an undergrad or a grad student, but I had someone ask that.
00:28:51
Speaker
question
Connecting with Graduate Students in Labs
00:28:52
Speaker
to me and I thought yeah theyve they actually really thought about this and that was you know that was quite insightful so something that you know goes really goes beyond and it know it's hard to prepare for that other than just you know if you this takes a lot of time like you can't have this level of thought about nine different labs at Georgia Tech. you You have to sort of decide, hey, this is the one or two labs I really want to go after to to to approach it with this level of of curiosity and understanding.
00:29:24
Speaker
You can also you know do more preparation once you get that email back saying, yes, I'd like to meet with you. And what you should do then if I was a student in that situation, go back, look at the email that you wrote. yeah What kinds of questions are they likely to ask you based on what you said about yourself? And then...
00:29:42
Speaker
how can you continue the conversation? Because that's the best thing that you can do is not just answer questions and that's the end, but extend the conversation. So they ask you a question about yourself, you answer it and then further it, connect it to a part of their research. Try to actually start a conversation with the person as opposed to just this one-to-one exchange. Yes, definitely. And, um,
00:30:07
Speaker
I'll say, and this is this is not, you know, different labs operate differently, but for labs that do rely heavily on their own graduate students and and technicians and postdocs and things to um to supervise and mentor PhD students, every single thing that we've said here about the conversation you're having with the faculty member absolutely applies to the conversation you have with a graduate student. So for me,
00:30:36
Speaker
If I can't if if one of my graduate students if I if if none of my graduate students are convinced that they want to mentor you, it actually doesn't matter what you convince me of. I'm not going to force you on an unwilling Ph.D. student. My priority is just has to be for my Ph.D. students and their progress and within my lab.
00:30:54
Speaker
And so it is equally, if important, if not more important, that you connect with one of those people and that they really understand the value you're going to bring um and that they're going to want to work with you. that may That's not going to be universally true across every lab at Georgia Tech, but I certainly think within many labs that will be the... So don't don't overlook the importance of the PhD student or the lab technician or the postdoc in this process as well.
00:31:26
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, so you did your research. You wrote the email. You got a response. You had a face-to-face or maybe a team's meeting or something of the like. Let's
Effective Follow-up Strategies
00:31:36
Speaker
talk about next expectations, following up, and maintaining momentum, which can be important.
00:31:43
Speaker
What are good practices for following up after this email? Is it thank you email? Is it trying to clarify next steps? What do you recommend? Yeah, so i think I think for sure the first thing you want nail down is what's the next step.
00:31:57
Speaker
And, it you know, it could be – there's a variety of options, right? what Option one could – maybe the the the option you'd be – you'd least want to hear, maybe they say, i don't have the capacity in my lab to take you right now, but let's stay in touch.
00:32:12
Speaker
So in there, I think the question – I think – It's probably the faculty member is going to place it on you to decide what that means. Let's stay in touch. You know, probably don't email them the next week. Right. But clarify the expectations of like, would it be okay if I email you in, you know, two months? Right.
00:32:30
Speaker
or Or three months or whatever to see if if things have changed. something Would it be okay if I attended a monthly or every other month meeting? Exactly. Would it be okay? um You wouldn't even have to ask, but you could show up to talks that are relevant. Exactly. No, that's a that's definitely one. if if it's Would it be all right if i um if i come to gra if I come to your lab meeting and just sit on ah sit on that so that I can learn? And if an opportunity presents itself, you know we can we can I think that's a great option.
00:33:03
Speaker
That also will communicate your seriousness to the other lab members. If they suddenly see you at lab meeting when they're not showing up to lab meeting on time sometimes or things like if you're there right when lab meeting eating starts and then three PhD students trickle in five minutes late, it's like, oh, who's this person? And and I say, oh, yeah, that's an undergrad who wants to do research in the lab. but or They haven't found the right project yet. Like probably you're going to be getting some emails.
00:33:30
Speaker
If you if you sort of put yourself out there in that sort of way so that could be ah an excellent idea or like you said going to the proposals or defenses or in those sorts of things too.
00:33:41
Speaker
Let's say that you know, maybe one of the labs has a disclosure agreement and and you can't go to the meeting. What is a reasonable window to wait before you send a follow-up email if that's like the main route that you need to take for next steps.
00:33:55
Speaker
Yeah, i think I think it depends on what occurred in the yeah in the meeting right that you had. So was did the professor say, let me think about it? if that If that's the case, then probably two weeks is probably a reasonable time. If the professor said, i don't have any we don't have any space right now, it's probably like a check at the and the next semester, end of the semester. like like were We're on a very semester-type schedule.
00:34:22
Speaker
schedule so it's very it's very unlikely that the capacity of the lab will change over the rest of that semester but then maybe some students graduate leave or whatever that changes it so yeah I think and if you're unclear of what how long you should wait maybe ask for clarification yeah and on that and so that you know say hey it was great having this conversation with you I really enjoyed it I would love to be a part of your lab when would be best if I when would be best for me to follow up with you Exactly. Yeah, that would be that.
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah, I would do exactly that. Sometimes, though, the the point may be like what may happen is I might say, oh, yeah, this is great. I really enjoyed meeting with you. Ph.D. student has said they're happy to meet as well.
00:35:07
Speaker
At that point, I'm putting the ball in your court and I am assuming that you will take the initiative to make sure that meeting with the Ph.D. Like I have I've acknowledged that they know you you exist. They know you're going be reaching out about this.
00:35:22
Speaker
You guys touch base. And you should be willing to email that person once or twice just in case. You know, again, I always say don't ever get to start by one unanswered email. It really could have just gotten lost in the email ether. So please, you know, make sure that happens. Make sure the next step for you is to is to quickly, as soon as that person can, meet with that person that you've been assigned to meet with next. right Maybe don't send two emails in a day. sure yeah you know Give them two-day window to respond, but follow up. Show that you're you're interested. that you're I will sometimes in emails frame this as, you know I'm just signaling my continued interest in the position. Exactly. Do it in a way where the recipient can graciously...
00:36:10
Speaker
respond and not feel shamed by the fact that they ignored your first email but also you know you can say something like man I know we we all get so many emails so just just send this again so it's on the top of your inbox right something like that and I I see that as a it's a non-threatening you're not accusing me of not caring about you or whatever it's just you recognize that these things get lost and and you're you know and you want to let me know you're still interested right Let's talk about maybe something a little bit more complicated.
00:36:41
Speaker
What is the best way for a student to communicate if their plans change without burning bridges? Sure. Yeah, i think be yeah you know I think the communication needs to be prompt.
00:36:55
Speaker
um So as soon as you know your plans have changed, don't don't drag it out because you're you're dreading that conversation because the longer you wait, the worse it is. And then just
Communicating Changes in Plans to Faculty
00:37:06
Speaker
be clear. I mean, you don't especially if it's at this early stage where you're meeting with two or three different labs or maybe you're meeting with a lab and then you're also thinking about an internship. There's no no one's writing up a contract here or any anything like that. I think just being just being clear and and prompt and, you know, just just letting the faculty member know.
00:37:27
Speaker
um You know, i really appreciate the time that you spent meeting with me. I was really interested in your lab. I just got this opportunity to do this and I've decided to do that instead. I want to thank you for your your time.
00:37:39
Speaker
And that's it. You know, I think that's probably that will be all the fact everyone needs to know. And, it you know. It doesn't burn a bridge. I mean, you're not going that faculty member for reference because you're not in their lab. like you You've got another reference you're gonna have instead, you know which is that's just the nature of it. But yeah, I think most that's going to go over well in almost all. And faculty members are used to students, you know, having options for opportunities. Sure. Yeah, exactly.
00:38:07
Speaker
All right, let's wrap it up here then. One more question for you. What's takeaway piece of advice for students thinking about contacting labs or faculty for involvement?
00:38:18
Speaker
Spend
Thorough Research Before Contacting Labs
00:38:19
Speaker
the time doing your research. that shows you're serious about wanting to do research. So spend the time really figuring out what are the labs on campus that are you're interested in what that professor is doing, who's in the lab, all of those sorts of things.
00:38:42
Speaker
Know who your customer is. i guess I'm not your customer. Know who this future employer is. Know your audience. That's what all of communication is. Know your audience and and really spend the time to do that. um You know, tech students are notoriously bright.
00:39:02
Speaker
They're also notoriously last minute. Like, by and large, they make decisions for next week or maybe the week after. They can have a bit of tunnel vision from time to time. And so that's going to...
00:39:17
Speaker
It's going to be really hard for you to decide you want to do research and then find a lab in a week. And that that would be, you know, avoid that. Really take the time to, you know, to do your homework and think about what you want to do next.
00:39:31
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for being here. This has been a great conversation, and I'm sure the students will benefit from it. Sure. It was fun.