Undergraduate Research

Research is unlike any other activity you do as an undergraduate. For many students, it is the first experience of a white-collar style work environment. Below are suggestions for how to be an effective mentee in my lab based on my observations of students.

Be responsive:

• Read your email at least once each weekday.
• Either (a) send a complete response within two working days or (b) send an email acknowledging the message and giving an estimate of when you will respond.

Be prepared:

• Before a meeting, make sure your Dropbox Paper file is up to date.

Communicate:

• Err on the side of sharing too much. It is easy for me to ignore unnecessary communication. It is impossible for me to read your mind.
• Share just about anything: preliminary results, bugs, epectations around progress (e.g., “I have an exam this Wednesday, so will not make as much progress”).

Use the calendar:

• Respond to event invitation requests.
• Update your status if something comes up.
• Trust the calendar whenever you are unsure where or when a meeting is.
• If an event is missing, tell me (mistakes happen!).

Know your deadlines:

• There are many ways students work with me (honours, capstone projects, vacation internships, dalyell projects, and more). I try to keep on top of what you need to submit, but at the end of the day you are responsible for deadlines.
• If we are working on submitting your work to a conference or journal then be aware of the deadline for submission. Unlike university work, there are no extensions.

Complete essential tasks:

• If you are meant to do a specific task by a specific time, let me know if you don’t expect to be able to do it. I understand that things come up. It’s best if we can intentionally adapt as needed.
• Note, this is not for general tasks like “build the model”. It is for specific tasks like “every Tuesday morning, send a short email snippet to the whole collaborative team”.

Some other resources you may find helpful:

• Getting Things Done. I do not follow all of this, but for a long time, I did keep my inbox at <10 items. I struggle with that now, particularly when teaching, but it can be very helpful for productivity.