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Why I am writing advice articles

Posted October 27, 2021

As a young scholar, I scrutinized academic processes. As a faculty member, student conversations provided mountains of topics of confusion or difficulty. I wrote informal notes to guide my advisees, and those were the seeds for my now-public articles.

Structural inequalities, biases, and racism continue to produce unequal access to opportunity. In 2020, social unrest in the United States was shining a light on these problems, around the same time Michael Lewis spoke persuasively about the value of coaching and the effects of unequal coaching access. Advising is a form of coaching, but I was only advising a select group of students. I wanted to work at a larger scale and share best practices so that academic success doesn’t require access to insider information.

In addition to biases and racism, I worried about a second problem. Most scholars hide their detours, failures, and fears while highlighting their achievements. Competitive academic environments almost require this behavior. I have done it myself. But concealed shortcomings are corrosive for students who perceive their role models to have led failure-free lives. 

I will succeed with this effort if I provide some insight that helps you reach your goals, or be a little less anxious during your journey. I also want you to be efficient with your professional work. Our goal should be high-quality and impactful work, and there are are no bonus points for extra suffering en route to the same destination. 

I especially hope to contribute to greater equity of access to education and research opportunities for members of disadvantaged groups. These articles are available for all, but I suspect that they are most useful to those of you with the least access to other sources of advising and counseling. 

My advice won't always lead to good professional outcomes. Biases, luck, access to resources, and many other factors will influence your ability to navigate an academic system. I also worry that my advice could be in tension with systematic biases. If I suggest communicating directly and openly with your advisor, could that strategy be less effective for some groups of people?

My writing thus comes with caveats. First, I hope my ideas are useful, but I know they are insufficient to put all students on a level playing field. Second, I try to stick to topics where I can provide value. Third, I will trust you to take what is personally valuable and exclude irrelevant ideas. You know what your constraints are, and are capable of finding other perspectives, so I won't water down my writing with caveats.

This is an ongoing experiment. I will continue releasing articles, gauging the reception, and learning. Your thoughtful feedback—positive or negative—is always welcome.