Woman to Woman: Success Strategies for Graduate Women

The second annual Woman to Woman: Success Strategies for Graduate Women lunch, held in January, featured Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Professor Deborah Goldberg, Dean of Rackham Graduate School and Business and Public Policy Janet Weiss, and Dentistry Professor and Assistant Dean, Marilyn Woolfolk.

The WISE-sponsored event included more than 100 female graduate students from science and non-science departments. Panelists talked about their paths to success and their strategies for overcoming potential obstacles. Their tips included:

1. Befriend others. Ask them questions. People will talk and will be candid -- you'll be surprised.

2. To find a job, look early at successful resumes. Do this early in your education so you will understand what you will need to do. Go around and talk with assistant professors and ask them questions about their job process.

3. Continually ask yourself -- How can I raise my visibility?

4. Main question for you at the job interview: How are you going to establish yourself as the authority in whatever topic you are studying over the course of the next few years?

5. Once you have a job, look at how the institution will be evaluating you. Mold yourself to their expectations. Find out what materials you will need to submit. Try to develop a template of the areas you will be evaluated on and check with the department chair that this is correct.

6. There is no easy time or right time to have children. Make the choices you want to make. This needs to be tempered a bit by reality but be sure you understand what you want to do in terms of when you will raise a family.

7. It is hard work but it is also one of the greatest jobs in the world. You get to be a lifelong student, get paid for it, and paid to travel all over the world.

8. Pick your battles. If someone you work with says or does something you don’t like, you need to decide if your life will be better or worse if you stand up. Think of your colleagues as being part of your very big family. You won’t always love what they say and do, but you accept them just the same.

9. Don’t forget about the importance of human touch. Don’t spend all your time away from the physical presence out of others. Step away from the computer, email, cell phone at various times.

April 2006 eNews

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