Julia Strand 0:02 Hello, and welcome to the juice in the squeeze. I'm Julia strand here, as always with my co host, Jonathan Peelle. Hey, Jonathan, Jonathan Peelle 0:09 hey Julia, Julia Strand 0:11 I want to start off by thanking you wonderful listeners who've been taking the time to get in touch with us via Twitter and our website and emails, we've gotten a lot of emails lately. And it's it's really nice to be hearing from you on a range of topics. So we've gotten a couple of messages lately that are going to be the inspiration for our main topic today. But we also got an anonymous email from a graduate student that we wanted to spend a few minutes addressing. Before we get into the the content of today's show. Jonathan, you want to if you want to give the quick summary of what this grad students going through? Jonathan Peelle 0:46 Sure. So this student wrote to share that they're having some struggles, building what they would see as a positive relationship with their advisor, they're having trouble having meetings as often as they would like, and just sort of not feeling like they're on the same page as their advisor. And there's, you know, so I won't go into the details. And this is a huge topic, I think. Julia and I have both been fortunate to largely have had pretty positive relationships with our advisors. And so we have more experience from that end. But it's important to point out that lots of people don't. And we've heard, you know, over the years, and including through today, we know lots of people who've had challenging relationships with their advisors. But I think you know, that's harder to talk about. So we often don't hear about those examples. There was one comment that the student made that we wanted to pull out. And I'm gonna, quote, not only do I feel like, it's completely my fault, that I couldn't cultivate a good relationship with my advisor, I have this looming anxiety about what I'll say, during that period, in a dissertation defense after the research slides are presented, when the student tells a funny or meaningful story about their advisor, and how thankful they are to be their graduate student or whatever. And so, well, Julia, what do we say to that? Julia Strand 2:06 First, it is not completely your fault that you can cultivate a good relationship with your advisor. Advisors are human beings, too. And some of them are better at their advising roles than others. And the description that you give is is not of one who is a warm and helpful advisor doing everything they can for you and you failing in some way. This sounds like not a good relationship. And based on the description you gave, it sounds like you've tried a lot of things to make it go well. So I reject that it is your fault that you couldn't cultivate a good relationship. Jonathan Peelle 2:39 I mean, I would just say this is I don't think I ever had this an intro to psych, but I'm just going to call it psych 101. It's like life 101 that if if there's a relationship between two people that isn't going well. I mean, it's pretty much never just one person's fault. Just generally, sometimes it is. Well, that's not entirely true. Sometimes it is, but but in this case, it's certainly not your fault. Julia Strand 3:03 And then there's also this, like the looming anxiety about what you'll say when, you know, in the time when people typically say nice things about their advisors, and I think it's perfectly You know, it is I think what people often do in this situation is say, I'm very grateful to Dr. This and such for their support. If you don't have to, you know, go out and tell complicated, funny stories, right, you can just as long as you are respectful and polite. That's, that's, that's perfectly, that's perfectly fine. Yeah. Um, the other thing, though, is that my guess is that people who are in this kind of situation feel more alone and feel more unusual than they actually are. So so people who have great advisors tell stories, funny and meaningful stories about their great advisors. And so we hear about them more. So there might be some kind of, you know, selection bias availability, heuristic stuff going on here that it's easy to think about people talking about their great mentors, but but plenty art. And that's a topic for a whole other for a whole other episode, right? Like what it means if there are a lot of people who are doing this job who are bad at it and making the lives of their trainees really difficult. Um, but I'd also say that this is this is perhaps not as uncommon as it may feel like, I know, that doesn't make it better. But, but if, if that helps at all, Jonathan Peelle 4:24 I mean, the other thing is, I've definitely witnessed advisors who seemed to have really easy relationships with some advisees and not others. And I don't think that that in the case of that I'm specifically thinking of it was clearly no fault of the student it was was that by dumb luck, someone could work with that advisor and I happen to be okay. But it was really, you know, in that case, I would say it was sort of the advisor letting the student down that they couldn't find ways to work with with more than, you know, that type of person anyway, so if there are people in your in your lab group who seemed to be having an easy time of it. I also don't think there's any evidence that this is this is your fault. You know, there's only so much you can do. And really, I think the most of the burden falls at the advisor here, you know, there's a power dynamic, they have more experience, you know, and so on and so forth. And so if you're having trouble getting this to work, I would, I would? Well, I would, I would, I don't know, I'm trying not to use the word blame. But I think a lot of the responsibility falls with the advisor to figure it out. And if they're not doing that, that's not your fault at all. Julia Strand 5:33 And, and also, just to highlight a thing that you just said that some advisors work better with some types of students than others. I also know situations have advisors who are really great with their male students, but not their female ones, or their female ones, but not their male ones. And so to have, and that is, you know, absolutely, it's something that is that is the advisors, oh, yes, I'm gonna say fault of not being able to be successful working with a variety of different kinds of students. And especially given that the modal professor is white and male that's going to disproportionately burden minorities and women. And, and so there are a lot of things that advisors need to work on as well. And I mean, one of the other things that I find particularly frustrating about about the kind of advisor that's described here, is that grad students only have five years to figure out how to be grad students. Right. And it's like, you're trying to learn a whole bunch of things, including how to manage your advisor, whereas advisors have really long careers to try to figure out how to advise well, and it doesn't seem like this the strategy that's being described here. There's no way this works well. Yeah. Right. And they've got a lot more time to figure it out. So Jonathan Peelle 6:49 I mean, just Well, anyway, in fairness, we don't ever really get training on how to be an advisor. And so I think it is kind of incumbent on on advisors to go seek that out and be intentional about it, but not everyone is. So there might be people who actually wouldn't do better if they were if they were shown the way. But But yeah, the fact that they're not trying very hard doesn't doesn't seem possible. Julia Strand 7:17 Yeah. And like, and then it may not seem like a priority, right? Like, if you're doing badly at your research, that's the thing, where people are like, Oh, I guess I got to figure out how to do this better. Um, you know, but if but if your grad students are frustrated and unhappy, and you don't have good relationships with them, and that's not something that, like the advisor isn't likely to know about. Right, like, right. That's, you know, and that's, that's something that it's incumbent on them to figure out, too. Jonathan Peelle 7:41 So I mean, so anyway, there's no easy fix. I think cultivating other mentors is really important. You have to be so I guess, depending on the situation, talking to a program director or department chair, might be appropriate. In some situations, that might not be helpful. It depends, it kind of depends on who those people are. But I think I would consider it up because you should have a good relationship with your advisor. And if you don't, you should have the support to work around it. Julia Strand 8:14 So thanks very much for reaching out. And we wish you all the best. Yes. So the the main topic that we wanted to cover today was also inspired by a couple of messages that we've gotten lately, which is people who are about to be on the job market, either, you know, in the upcoming months, or kind of looking ahead to the job market in a couple of years, and have questions about what it is like to teach and research and work at a small liberal arts college, like I do. And so we wanted to use this episode to talk a little bit about, about the process of applying to work at what I will call slacks, small liberal arts colleges. So that the process of applying and then also what it's like to actually work in one of these places Jonathan Peelle 8:55 do you want to start with? Well, you want to join into the opposite order. And you can share a little bit what it's like to work there. And then we can talk about, you know, applying to do that. Julia Strand 9:05 Sure. Yeah. One of the reasons that I was excited about these emails that we got, and then happy to do this episode, is that I would have loved to have this episode when I was going on the market, because I had, so I went to tufts for undergrad, which is not quite a small liberal arts college, although it's on the smaller side. But so I didn't know exactly. But working at a small small liberal arts college working in a slack would would be like, and of course, all of the people that I worked with, during my PhD didn't know that because they had ended up at a at a research one and r1 University. And so I didn't have much information about what it was actually like to be at a slack. Luckily, there's a student, a grad student who was a couple of years ahead of me who had ended up at Colby College. Hi, Jen Cohn, if you're listening. And she and I talked with her a bunch about it and she really like inspired me and got me excited about What it would be potentially like to be to slack. And so I've had a number of those conversations with people in the past several years. And so I'm now happy to be doing it for for all of you, dear listeners. So So Carlton is. So one thing when we talk about slacks is that slacks are not at all homogenous. So different kinds of institutions have really different expectations, or research and teaching load. And so what I'm going to be talking about is is limited or specific to the kind of slack that Carlton is, which is a small liberal arts college that is very teaching focused, but also has a lot of the administration has high expectations for research, and also gives great support for research. So Carleton, we're on trimesters, and our teaching load is a two to one meaning, I'm always teaching either two classes or one class, each trimester. But I get teaching credit for supervising student research in my lab. So I run my lab, we do research, I have a bunch of undergraduate research assistants, and teaching a supervising them in my lab counts as one of my classes. And then when I teach my mid level sensation and perception course, that has a lab component that's associated with it, and that also counts as a teaching credit. So I'm, I'm actually only ever teaching like one classroom class at a time with with lab work. Um, so that's, you know, so we say it's, you know, it's, it's, like, focused on teaching, but it's different from some other colleges, you know, where people will be teaching like four classes at a time, and not have a lot of expectation for, for doing research. And this is something that I had no sense of when I was when I was going on the market, I was like, oh, liberal arts colleges, you just teach, there's no research, right. And that is the case at some and not at others. So what it is like to work at Carleton is, it's the best, I feel like I have won the job lottery and there is like no position of the world that would be would be better for me. Um, it's awesome. So here's why it's awesome. I get to teach great classes have my own design, there is little to no oversight in terms of what content I teach and what textbooks I use and what format I deliver in. So there's a lot of intellectual freedom to come up with and and you know, and build great classes. Um, the very best part is that I get to work with really remarkable students. I don't know how the admissions committee does it. But Carleton students are like, they are so eager to learn, they just have like fire in their belly to learn. I hardly ever do any kind of like, mind, everybody, we should, you should learn this, because it's really great. You know, they're all just like, they're with bright eyes, excited about learning that in my first year teaching at Carleton, there was a time where a student who's in my class came into my office during office hours and said, you talked about this thing in class, and you just mentioned it kind of tangentially, and I know it's not super related to what we're what we're doing. I know, it's not gonna be on the test or anything. But I just found it really interesting. And I was wondering if you could recommend some additional reading for me, so I could learn more about that. And I was like, I like thought I was being punked. I was like, Oh, you want more reading? Hmm. You want extra assignments? And then I was and I was like, Oh, no, you actually do? Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah. Great. Here's a book, you know, you should read this. And so so working with that kind of student is just a joy, right? to just get to like, sit down with them, and then think about how to teach them in fun and engaging ways rather than trying to like, convince them to, you know, take the medicine of learning. Um, so that is awesome. And then Carleton as an institution also really supports research. So there is an expectation that, you know, I'll publish that I'll public publish with undergraduates. Um, there is an expectation that I will at least try to get grants. I don't, I don't like think I would have been denied tenure. If I hadn't gotten a grant before. 10 years. Before, you know, tenure. I mean, I certainly, I certainly wouldn't. It's not the kind of place where like, if you don't have a grant by tenure, you can't get tenure. But of course, they like it. They like it when you do. Um, and so it's really like it's a it's a terrific kind of place to work at because I feel like I get to put a lot of energy into teaching, which I love. But I also get to put a lot of energy into research, which I love. Jonathan Peelle 14:55 That sounds great, did you, you know, well, I guess we're gonna get into the applicant. process. But I wonder, you know, did Carlton stand out like that when you were applying for jobs? So you know, how broadly Did you? Did you cast your net during the, you know, job application process? And you know, how much of this Did you know beforehand? or How much did you figure out during interviews or whatever? Julia Strand 15:16 Yes, I most well, so I grew up in Minnesota. And so I knew, you know, like, the reputation that Carleton had in Minnesota as as you know, being a very good school, but, but didn't know. I mean, certainly, when I was, when I was applying, I didn't have a sense of like, what the culture is for supporting research or what, you know, what students are like, um, so most of that I figured out in the interview, although some of you like some things you can figure out, based on the job ad, right, they usually say like, how many classes you're teaching at once, and if there is, you know, as expectations for research, and so you can get a little bit of that, but it's really hard to figure out things about the culture of an institution without, without visiting. But so so when I applied when I was on the job market, three times. First, to get a visiting assistant professorship at Carleton, there was supposed to be a one year gig. And then that ended up being renewed for a second year, but not before I head was already on the markets widely again. And then the third year was on the market widely. Again, the Carlton ended up getting approval to open up a tenure track line that I applied for, but I also applied, you know, everywhere else at the same time, so I basically applied to like every small liberal arts college that was hiring all three of those years, and was just very lucky that it worked out for me to be at Carleton, you know, that I got to be at Carleton for each of those three searches. Jonathan Peelle 16:48 When you were I think you've talked about this before, but but remind me and our listeners, you know, at what point during your PhD did you decide you were going to kind of you were interested in the slack route. Julia Strand 17:00 Yeah, it was actually like, well into my postdoc. So I had planned to quit academia after Well, after my master's, and then after my PhD, and then after my postdoc, and it was like, in the midst of my postdoc that I thought about applying for visiting assistant professorships. I didn't think I would be competitive on the tenure track market. And also I kind of dropped dropped the ball and like didn't get to it in time, or didn't think of it in time. And so, so that's why I applied for visiting visiting physicians that that first year. Jonathan Peelle 17:34 Did you like how sure of you like that first year? How Sure, were you that this was the direction you wanted to go? Julia Strand 17:41 Like, the first year? Jonathan Peelle 17:42 Yeah, we were playing for the visiting job. You like, this is what I want to do. And I wish I had thought of it earlier. Or were you like, I don't know. I'm going to try it out and see if I like Julia Strand 17:50 the ladder. Yeah, I was like, I was like, I think I really like this. I don't really know. I don't like I didn't really know what I was getting into even. Um, so not not at all. Sure. But then, like my first year at Carleton, my second year at Carleton, I was like, oh, yep, this is it. I want to I want to die in this office. Jonathan Peelle 18:09 Yeah. I mean, I just want to be that I ask because I think some people just seem very sure their career trajectory, and whether whether whether they are they just come off that way, or whether it works out, I don't always know the end of the story. But But many people including me, have not been sure. Right. And so some and sometimes, sometimes you can think your way through it. And you think okay, here are the pros and the cons and I you know, people have really good, you know, self awareness and they can like reason it out. And and that's not always been true for me. I think sometimes you have to try it. Right, especially with a new thing you've never tried before, and whether that's anyway, so we're talking about snacks today, but if people don't have experience at that, like maybe you don't know that you'll love it until you until you try it. Or maybe that's true for like non academic stuff, too. Right? Like I could never do a job besides this but but maybe you could if you had the chance. So this is I don't want anyone to do anything drastic based on my advice, but I just couldn't try something. But um, but I do think there's something to be said for anyway, sometimes you just need to experience that and you can't just think your way into a new career. You know, the perfect career the first try? Julia Strand 19:24 Yep, yep. Amen. Jonathan Peelle 19:28 So how do you apply for a job at slack? Unknown Speaker 19:31 Okay, so I mean, Jonathan Peelle 19:32 how obviously you like find the job ad and you know what they want, but like, what on a farm? Julia Strand 19:37 piece of paper? Yeah, okay. So, uh, I guess I also want to do a little bit of a disclaimer too, that your mileage may differ. different institutions are different. The pieces of advice that I have been thinking about are things that I have noticed in the files of people who have up By the end, you know, what I have noticed about what has what has worked and what hasn't. But of course, you should collect lots of people's perspectives. And, you know, follow the advice. That's, that seems reasonable. Okay, so I think the first thing is to make sure you understand what slack is and what it's about. We get lots of, we get lots of letters that basically look like people applying for every job that's available, whether it's a slacker at r1, and not like writing, and not tailoring the letters to the different kinds of institutions. So when we get a letter, like a cover letter, that is, this is my amazing research. These are all my grants, I'm so great at research, blah, blah, blah, and a sentence at the end. It's like, I also value teaching. So I'd like to be at a small liberal arts college, that feels like Jonathan Peelle 20:52 a perfect fit for your institution. Julia Strand 20:55 Right. And, and of course, places like Carlton Dumont people who are doing awesome research. But we also want them to make it clear that they're excited about the prospect of teaching undergraduates how to do research, and watching them grow and molding them as scientists and you know, teaching teaching in the lab, as part of teaching. So, so being able to save, you know, to say things that make it clear that you understand that small liberal arts colleges are not like, oh, there's a good metaphor. Okay, people, sometime people, people who are not vegetarians, and don't understand vegetarianism, think of being a vegetarian as just taking your plate and scraping off the meat and eating everything that's left, whereas vegetarians would tell you that it's just a different way of thinking about food. And it's not like your life minus meat, it is your life minus meat, plus all kinds of things you don't know about, like temping, and EDA. And so and I think thinking of slacks as taking an r1. And then scraping off some of the research is also not what a slack is about. So it is it is getting to, to really cultivate close relationships with students work really closely with students, and like get excited about sharing in the intellectual journey of 18 to 23 year olds. That is something that you have to do, but it's something that is, is you know, fun and exciting to do. And also that, that it may be working with a different kind of students then then you're used to working with also. So the first thing is to like, if you're applying to slacks make it clear that you're applying to slacks because you want to and not because you see them as some kind of fallback plan, or as some kind of like, you know, Junior Varsity for. Um, the other really general piece of advice that I would offer is to try to get as much teaching experience as you can. And that is both so that, you know, if you like it, or hate, it may be that you start teaching and you realize you don't like it, and then that isn't about advice for how to do this. It's about you know, maybe maybe you shouldn't do it. Um, and the other reason to get a lot of experience teaching is so that you have things to say in your teaching statement about why you like teaching, what is it that you like? And also like, what kind of teacher you are? What kind of assignments do you do? What are your goals? What are things that have worked in your classes and things that haven't? So that the teaching statement is really an opportunity to make it clear. You know, what, what kind of faculty member you are and you aspire to be? Jonathan Peelle 23:47 Do you think I'm gonna say something that I have no data for, but I think is true anecdotally, which is that a lot of research schools, they all require teaching statements, but I've heard from lots of people that those count very little. And so you say applicants have to do them statements, teaching statements counselor liberal, like our one schools and things. And so the assumption is like, well, if you're I again, I'm not condoning this point of view. But the point of view in many places is if you're a smart person, you can figure out the teaching, we're just going to hire you for your research. And my impress I think, I think that that is true in many, probably not all places, big research universities. But I would say that at a move to slacks that is not true at all that I'm going to guess that the teaching statement figures very heavily into the evaluation and it's probably also really obvious if like you've never done teaching or or if you haven't thought about it again, I haven't like yeah, thoughtfully crafted your teaching statement. Unknown Speaker 24:51 Yeah. Yeah. The Julia Strand 24:54 idea of like, if you're a smart person, you'll you'll figure out the teaching is really funny because figuring out teaching, figuring out how to teach well is incredibly hard. I think I think teaching, especially at the college level, if you don't, if you don't care about doing it, well, I think would be super easy. Like, I could definitely walk into a classroom with some slides and just, you know, Yammer for 70 minutes about anything. And that would not be very hard. But to do it thoughtfully in a way that, you know, builds on what they learned about last time, and scaffolds toward the teaching goals that you have in the long term and have assignments that give them the opportunities to build the kind of skills that you want them to have. That's super hard to do. Well, I mean, let alone You know, putting together lectures that are interesting and engaging and, you know, a pitch at the right level and all of that. So, so yes, slacks definitely care a lot about about the teaching statement. Jonathan Peelle 25:53 So here's a question. So you were like, you're kind of vegetarian metaphor. But then, you know, at least in your experience, and not to, you know, put words in your mouth, but but you also did not have a lot of experience. Before you had experience, right? It's a little bit of a catch 22. Right. So if you're, if you're a graduate student, or a postdoc at a big research university, and you think you want to apply for a job at a slack, that's fine, but then you don't have the, you don't have the experience. So like, so. So how do you get from point A to point B? Right? Like, how do you write a competitive application that shows you really understand what it's like, and you sort of like, live and breathe a culture? Although you've never you've never been there? Julia Strand 26:35 Right? Yep. So I think the getting as much teaching experience as you can helps with that, whether that is like ta or guest lecturing, or, you know, being like the Instructor of Record, being in charge of the class is, is the best, but but it certainly isn't always possible. But you want to be able to say in your teaching statement, I did everything I could to get teaching experience. And here's how I went above and beyond the bare minimum that the grad school requires to get that experience. Because as you do that, you're like, you're building up examples of things that you can talk about. I mean, I'm doing this in a very, like application centric way. But you're building up examples of things that you can talk about in your statement, you're also building up your teaching philosophy, this is such a, you know, the label, you know, your teaching philosophy, when I started doing that, I was like, Oh, my philosophy, I don't know, I just, this is how I teach. And then I like wrote for some pages, and I was like, is this a philosophy, I don't know. But this is like how I think about teaching and how I approach it. And so the more experience you get, the more you have to say about those kinds of things. So even if you the institution that you're at, doesn't offer a ton like that, it's that it's hard to be the Instructor of Record. If you ask some of the faculty, who, you know, if you can do some guest lectures for them, as you're preparing those guest lectures, you will realize, Oh, I was going to talk about this thing first. But then I actually realized I have to talk about this thing first, because they talked about this in a previous lecture, you know, and going through those exercises of like thinking about how to teach in the most effective way, will give you some, some insights and give you some things to talk about in terms of, you know, when I am structuring my classes, I am keeping in mind what the students have already learned and how this is going to build, you know, and even those kinds of things are just demonstrating that you are thinking about things from the students I view and thinking about how to put information, you know, together in an interesting and accessible way. And that's, you know, that's stuff to talk about. Jonathan Peelle 28:35 I mean, a lot of universities have, you know, teaching centers that offer training and workshops on teaching, which I have to say I never did any of as a graduate student. But but but it's available. And I know Wash U has has things like that, too. And I pretty sure this is true for washu. But anyway, most most of the time, they're very happy to have graduate students turn up at those. And so there are things again, I think, doing more than the bare minimum. I mean, it helps it look like you're you're interested, but that's because you actually are and then you actually learn things too, right. So it's kind of giving you a couple of a couple of I don't want to say feather in your cap, arrows in your quiver. Anyway, a couple a couple of different things that are going to help. Julia Strand 29:23 Yeah, and and you know that then you also have more to say in your in your teaching statement that say I was only able to be the Instructor of Record once or I wasn't able to be the instructor record, but it ate a bunch and I sought out you know, I went to all of these workshops about about pedagogy. those are those are the kinds of things that signal to an admissions committee. Oh, this person actually cares about and is interesting in teaching and is doing everything they can to get that experience. Jonathan Peelle 29:51 Right. And if all those opportunities didn't happen, like the week before you submit your application even better. Julia Strand 29:59 Yes, Yeah, um, another another way that you can get experience with teaching without actually doing teaching or another good kind of experience for, for slacks is to get experience working with undergraduates in research. So that's a big part of my job, right is the teaching in the lab working with students on research. And so if your lab has undergraduate research assistants, I'm taking some time to talk with them and asking if they want to, you know, talk with you about an article or talk with you about the process of applying to graduate school, or, you know, cultivating relationships with with them. Um, that isn't something that I think would like, make or break you, right? If I see a strong application, but they don't talk about how they have mentored undergraduates in their lab that that's, you know, that's not that's not a deal breaker at all. But if you're having trouble getting, like Instructor of Record positions, this can be a way to get something and also something to, you know, talk about in a teaching statement, where you're talking about how one of the things that you're excited about is continuing to work with undergraduates on doing research. Jonathan Peelle 31:07 So one thought I had, I don't know why this is not something I've done. But it strikes me that if someone thinks this would be a good career for them, they're getting in touch with someone at a slack and be like, Hey, can I come visit your lab? Or can I come sit on your class would be a reasonable thing to do. Because that gives you some some kind of hands on experience with like a real a real live college campus that might be different than the one you're doing your, your degree or postdoc at. And it gives you a chance to kind of, you know, these conversations that the Julia and I are having, like, you could have that conversation with a real professor at a real, that have real slack. And like, maybe you'll maybe you'll make connections, maybe you can guess lecturer in their class, maybe you can, you know, maybe they're looking for people to teach a summer quarter anyway, just trying to make connections at the local places, even if they're not hiring, just to kind of give yourself some more experience. Julia Strand 32:02 Yeah, I, I'm always eager to talk to graduate students and people that are ones who do similar research to what I do, because I'm excited to get my students to talk to grad students who are doing the same kind of stuff. Because, you know, basically, I can be to grad students, what grad students can be my undergraduates. And so I think that's a great idea to build those connections, both. So people can learn in both directions. Jonathan Peelle 32:30 Right. And I mean, most of the time, I this is true for lots of situations, but people are generally very happy to hear from you, especially if you're offering something like to give a talk at their lab or give a guest lecture or whatever it is. Because again, like he said, it's everyone benefits but but if they're too busy, they'll just not get back to you or tell you they're too busy, or they're not going to hit you. Julia Strand 32:53 I recognize too, as, as I'm making all of these recommendations, I realized that like all of these things take time, right? and graduate students, I think are notoriously busy and strapped for time. And so if if you are listening to this and thinking, Wait, I thought I just had to do my research and fulfill the obligations that the graduate school has for teaching. And now you're telling me to go to the Learning and Teaching center and mentor undergraduates and talk to people at small liberal arts colleges? How am I supposed to fit all those things in a right eye, all of these things take time. And I don't think it's necessary to do every single one of these to be a competitive candidate. Part of figuring out part of figuring this out is like figuring out what kind of candidate you want to be. Right? Rather than just trying to check every single box. Think about like, what, like, what are the things about teaching that you want to really work on and get better at and focus on those. If you feel like you haven't had any experience, mentoring people in research, maybe you would prefer to work on that. But But I'm not saying that like in order to be successful, you have to do every single one of these things. These are just, you know, things that I have seen work well in the past. Jonathan Peelle 34:01 I mean, another Yeah. Another thing is, that can be challenging, I think is, again, our because of our background, Julie and I are sort of talking about this for if you are at a bigger research, university training, and then you're thinking about, you know, applying for a job at Aflac, but some advisors will be really supportive of this, and others will either be less supportive or just like not be very helpful to you because they don't have any experience. And you know, I'd like to think I would be supportive, but but not that helpful, because I wouldn't have experienced I would say go go talk to Julia. But I think trying to navigate these demands on your time, when not everyone might be as enthusiastic about it as you are is also challenging. And I don't think there's any magic sauce for that. You just have to sort of do what you can and, you know, kind of prioritize a little bit where you think you can make the biggest difference. Julia Strand 35:01 In terms of research, and what you can do to set yourself up to be successful at slac, research wise, um, there are so slacks differ tremendously in the kinds of resources that they have for research, you know, the kinds of startup packages that they offer, all those kinds of things. But it would be extremely unusual for a slack to, for instance, like have an fMRI, right, like, there are some places that would have collaboration with nearby bigger, like nearby are ones where people can like, use using fMRI or something. But the resources in that regard typically tend to differ. And so as you were thinking about your research program, and the kinds of questions that you're asking, and the kinds of tools that you would use, it's important that those can actually reasonably be done with undergraduates at slac. Right, if, if in order to understand the research that you're doing, you need a master's degree in computer science or something, it might be hard to get undergraduates involved in that I have been incredibly impressed at the extent to which my students are able to be like, actual contributing, like actual collaborators in research, right? This is not like, I'm making them a cute little canned research experiment, research experience, where I know exactly what we're going to do and how it's going to work. And I'm just letting them, you know, put their hands on it for a little bit. Like we're doing science together, right, the the students who I have, who are doing research with me or not, and those who are co authors, these are not like courtesy co authorships. Right, these are like if if a faculty member did the amount of work that they did, they would be on it in just the same way. And so the kind of work that I do is, is well suited for undergraduates, because they can, you know, understand the mechanics of the research, like how we design studies, the stimuli that we use the stimulus presentation, software, those kinds of things, they can understand those pretty quickly. And it will take a few terms to get caught up on on the theoretical stuff, but but it's, it's possible for them to do that. And when I was in graduate school, a lot of my work was I was doing some like computational modeling of spoken word recognition, that takes a bit more more of a learning curve, like it would take more time in order for people to be like tributing to that in a meaningful way. And so when I got to Carleton, I had a couple of lines of research going and shifted to the one that was best suited to being done at a slack. And so I think it is good, even early in graduate school, you know, if you're thinking about ending up at a slack, to be sure that you are actually doing research that you can do at a slack. Jonathan Peelle 37:56 For that, and this was sort of not waiting to involve undergrads in your research is a good idea to right. So if you have, you know, students in the lab where you could have students in the lab who are helping you, that's a great chance to practice like, you know, partnering with them and mentoring them in that, you know, in a deeper way, right, than just kind of giving them boring, you know, copy this number into that spreadsheet, you know, they're not really involved very much. And that's, that's your choice. And so I think there are different ways to, you know, to bring them into the projects. Julia Strand 38:27 Yep. Okay, so you're so the the application package typically consists of cover letter, which is like the abstract and package your teaching statement, which we've talked about a bit, the research statement. And then the other kind of key component is your is the letters of recommendation. And the most common kind of slip up that I see in letters of recommendation. And it is incredibly common is that most letters say, their research is so great, they're awesome at all these things, they've gotten these awards. I've never seen them teach, but I bet they'd be great. Um, and, and that I mean, I think that is incredibly common. But when we have letters that say, they asked me to sit in on a couple of their classes, and I did, and here's how they teach, and here's how awesome they are. Those really stand out. So so if you can ask one of your letter writers to come and see you teach, or you know, even like watch a recording of you teach, if you know they're not available at the time. That's that's really great, because that gives much more information about your teaching and about what you would be like as a teacher, then your advisor tried to extrapolate from how you are lab meetings to what you'd be like in the classroom. And it's also I think, totally reasonable to coach your letter writers a bit. They didn't you know, they don't work at slack and so may have less of a sense of what slacks are like, than you do. And so I think it's perfectly reasonable to say, I'm applying for positions at liberal arts colleges, supervising undergraduates is really important there. And so it would be great if you could point out how much I have worked with the undergrads in this lab, and how much I have sought out teaching opportunities above and beyond what the grad school requires, and things like that, because they will probably be grateful to know the kinds of things that you are hoping that they're able to convey. Jonathan Peelle 40:28 And the other thing, and this is not always possible. But if you can plan ahead a little bit, right. So if you're thinking a year from now, I'm going to go on the job market. And I would like, I would like my letter writers to say x, right? You could imagine what the letter would say, oh, they've, they've done this, and they've done that opportunity. And I've observed them do this thing, then you have a whole year to make that happen, right? Like you consider be aspirational about it. Whereas if you say, Oh, this letter is due next week. And then they say, Well, I'd love to say you're a great teacher, but I've never seen you teach, you know, you don't have time to fix that. Right? So I think, again, if you if you're in a position where you can talk to your letter writers early if you know, then it gives you some time to help fill in, fill in the gaps. Yep. Julia Strand 41:14 Also, I would recommend if you are planning to teach Oh, well, this is I'm now thinking about how to update this advice in the era of COVID. I was gonna say, next time you're going to teach in a classroom, try to try to record it. But I guess next time, you're going to record a lecture, you're already recording it or next time, you're going to teach a zoom class record. seeing yourself teaching is just like heartbreakingly terrible, but it's also really, really a great exercise in getting better at teaching. It's kind of amazing the like verbal tics we have and weird ways we stand and Dumb ways we talk that only become apparent when you watch a recording of yourself doing it. So it's so it's useful as a as a teaching technique. But that's also useful, because if it turns out that your advisor is going to be on sabbatical, and isn't going to get to watch you teach, or whatever you can, you can at least ask them to watch a video of you teaching, and then have have something to say about that. Jonathan Peelle 42:15 But and in fact, I think maybe this is what you were sort of alluding to, but online teaching may be a more and more of a component, which has its own, you know, a challenges. And so, you know, getting experienced doing that, even if, again, whether it's with the with the Instructor of Record or not, but being able to talk about about the different considerations for teaching online course, or a hybrid course or whatever, is probably also useful. But you know, it's I think, I think it's safe to say Julia, but correct me if I'm wrong, all of these things, it's not so much that you have, you know, you have a box of things that you have to tick all the boxes, and then you'll get the job. It's more like the overall difficulty of it is like the you're you're engaged and interested in trying to take to step into that world and, and show that you care. Right and or demonstrate that you've you've done some of this. So again, it's not that you have to do all these 20 things. But it's more like if you don't do any of them. It doesn't really show your commitment. Yep. Julia Strand 43:16 Yeah. And I think it's very easy to kind of like, start doing bean counting comparisons between people, right, like, when I was looking at some of the others, you know, people in my grad program when people are going to market I was like, oh, they've taught three of their own classes, and they have X number of publications, and they've taught stats, so they could offer to teach stats, and that's at I mean, I think this is general, like true of the job market generally, but especially at small liberal arts colleges. People are looking for like, the package, right, like, oh, what's the line about you hire the player? Not the position? Is that it? Is that a thing in baseball? Sure. Unknown Speaker 44:01 Um, Julia Strand 44:03 but but so you know, at a at a small liberal arts college, where there are going to be, you know, maybe 10 people in the department. It is not possible to cover every single kind of expertise, the way that a department who has 50 faculty in it ever could, right? And so whether you're a cognitive psychologist who studies speech, or a cognitive psychologist who studies memory, or you know, like, those, those are kind of different in the research end of things, but if they're looking for someone who can teach basic concepts and cognition and provide and provide meaningful research experience for students, whether or not you published in speech journal, extra memory journal, why like those, those things are not the only things you need to care about. Right. So so so the kind of general advice that I would give is, figure out the kind of teacher and the kind of researcher that you want to be and build With your credentials to be that kind of person, and then you know, that is the package that you that you put out there, you can't possibly be everything. And so you know, you pick the the set of set of skills and the research area that you're the most interested in. And then that's, that's, that's what you advertise, I say that to kind of like try to reduce stress or like, you can't be everything to everyone. So just, you know, you be you best. And hopefully, hopefully, the market will reward that. And sometimes it takes a couple of goes, I think, especially this year, probably the next couple of years, the markets not going to be like anything we have really seen before. And so you know, be be gentle with yourself if things don't work out, because it's a tough time. Jonathan Peelle 45:50 To do so I'm gonna put a link in the show notes to the psych job wiki, which I actually didn't. Anyway, for better for worse, I did not. I looked at it a little bit when I was on the on the job market. But I did I was not compulsive about it. But it is a good resource to know about it the list listing of, you know, psychology jobs in the current year, and there are a lot fewer of them now than there typically are this time of year, which may or may not change. But anyway. Oh, and look, there's one at Carleton College. Sorry for cellular molecular neurobiology. Oh, yeah. So anyway, so that's a good, it's a good resource to look at, I advise you not to get too compulsive about checking back about things. But anyway, everyone has their own approach to this. Sorry, that the wick, the idea is that wiki gets updated. And so there'll be a link to the ad. And then if someone gets called for an interview, then they'll update the wiki and say phone interviews have begun. And then if someone gets called for a campus visit, they'll update the wiki and say campus visits have been scheduled. And so when I say be compulsive, you can sort of like, refresh it every day to see how your favorite job is progressing, which is informative, but I think people tend to get really stressed out about it. But it's a good it's a good collection of of ads anyway. Julia Strand 47:14 Um, and then, of course, have have people look at your materials, it's totally reasonable to ask your advisor to look at your teaching and research statement. I think it's great if you can find someone who has at slac to have a look at them, too. If you don't have anyone who fits that bill, we'll get in touch with me. And depending on how smart I am, I'll try to help with that. I think it's, it's it's nice to have a lot of sets of eyes on those, both because they just kind of catch things in, you know, ways, catch things that you didn't mean, or they come across differently than than you might expect it. And also because sometimes people say, hey, you didn't talk about XYZ great feature of you. And so they can be nice ways of noticing the stuff that you missed that that people might be interested to hear. Jonathan Peelle 48:02 Yeah, and especially people who have been on job search committees, I mean, yes, get all the eyes, you can on it, but especially people that had the experience of searching through all these applications, I think are especially useful. Julia Strand 48:17 So for those of you who are about to put this advice to use, I'm very good luck. As I said, feel free to reach out if you have if you have questions. And if you have questions about anything else, feel free to reach out as well. Jason squeeze dotnet is our website. We have really enjoyed getting, getting all the emails that we have been lately, so please feel, feel welcome to keep those coming. Jonathan Peelle 48:38 Yep, please do. And I think we're gonna be taking a break in two weeks. So I can sharpen my sword slash be traveling. But we'll be back soon. Julia Strand 48:49 Sounds good. All right. Talk to you later. Bye.