Graduate Student Mentorship
Cars 3 is one of my closest friend’s favourite movies, and based on her enthusiastic recommendation, I watched it recently. If asked to describe this movie in a nutshell, I’ll have to say that it’s a movie about mentorship. It’s a movie that makes you feel romantic about mentors and exhibits how often they can be such powerful sources of inspiration and support.
Naturally, as graduate students, none of us have had Lightning McQueen’s storied career. But that does not mean we do not find ourselves in mentorship positions where we can be a source of positivity, support, and inspiration. It may be with the undergraduates we find ourselves teaching, and it could also be peer mentorship with graduate students who are not as far along in the program as we are. Much like Lightning McQueen and Cruz Ramirez, it is not uncommon to find ourselves unknowingly being viewed as mentors. It is up to us to accept that role with grace when we become aware of it.
One finds graduate students assuming such mentorship roles more formally in other STEM fields, especially ones where research work occurs in lab-based research groups. The lack of a similar structured setting can be seen as a boon for those of us in mathematics – as it provides us more flexibility in developing intentional mentorship.
Mentorship is a relationship that inherently and explicitly comes equipped with a power dynamic. It can be a powerful source of affirmation, but it is precisely this power of affirmation that reflects how much power over us we have handed over to our mentors. Therefore, taking one’s role as a mentor is crucial.
Now, the pitch here is not to be the mentor crew chief – we will get our shot at being Doc Hudson eventually – we should be realistic about how much we can and should bring to the table while fulfilling our primary responsibility of being a graduate student. The goal is to present ourselves as resources to undergraduate or younger graduate students who could, but do not have to, develop into a deeper mentoring relationship over time.
We have fostered mentorship with undergraduates and maximised graduate-undergraduate interactions in UC Santa Cruz and found success through the Directed Reading Program (DRP) and the Undergraduate Colloquium. DRP is a program that pairs graduate students with undergraduates where they work together on a mathematical topic, usually outside the standard undergraduate curriculum. It has been an essential source of graduate-undergraduate interaction and has created continuing relationships. Several DRP pairings have emerged from the relationships formed while the graduate student was interacting with undergraduate students in a teaching capacity. The Undergraduate Colloquium, brought out of its long dormancy by our AWM chapter, hosts expository talks from graduate students, a regular LaTeX workshop to complement the Proofs class, panels on applying to graduate school and undergraduate opportunities, etc. The colloquium has also hosted long-form talks from undergraduate students, specifically from folks who participated in the DRP and wanted to present an extended version of their work and students who wished to present the work they did in their senior theses or senior seminars.
Graduate school can often be a jarring experience, as we often see an acute shift in the expectations and support structures we may have been used to. There comes an urgent need to form a community (also see this post by Roberto Hernandez). During my time at UC Santa Cruz, we have intentionally attempted to foster a graduate student community. I want to highlight two things that have played a significant role in this. For the past few years, we have organized a Peer Support Program for new incoming graduate students to help them ease into the graduate program and help them with the hidden curriculum. The program pairs two “senior” graduate students with three first-year graduate students to create a pod for the entire academic year. Our AWM chapter has been active in maximizing such relationships and interactions. The chapter organizes a biweekly discussion session called the EmpowHer Hour, where we discuss articles that speak to the gender issues in mathematics and STEM, and it has been a massively successful forum to center graduate student experiences that often go overlooked and undervalued.
It is essential to recognize that organizing these programs to cultivate mentorship opportunities and experiences is service work. I encourage people to read this post by Kayla Gibson on service work to pair hopes with realities and self-care.
My motivation for helping organise these programs was to create an environment for myself and others in which we would find some peace. Such intentional mentorship and community have often replaced and have helped manage and heal the more disastrous mentorship I received during various stages of my college education.
One of the joys of mentorship is the fulfilment you receive from helping the person you’re mentoring realise their dreams and have a role in assisting them to achieve them. But mentorship in mathematics also provides you with the joy and opportunity to revisit what made mathematics fun and why you decided to do mathematics in the first place, especially when we spend much of our time stuck in our research.
In the kind and wise words of Cruz Ramirez, for your time as a mentor and as a graduate student – be a fluffy cloud.
Deewang Bhamidipati is a fifth year graduate student at UC Santa Cruz studying arithmetic geometry and algebraic number theory. He is passionate about teaching, community building and mentorship in all of its forms. During his off time you can find him reading, watching KDramas and distracting people from their work.