Well, I am starting to get the hang of being assertive. To a certain extent, this is paying off. It did not help me get a couple of grants, but with regards to my immediate surroundings and program, it is paying off a bit.
There is a conference, for instance I want to go to, and a new "teaching pedagogy" course this fall in my department that I do not want to take. [I put that in quotes because my advisor is involved in the teaching of the course and I am not a fan of her teaching style.] I got a summary of my last committee meeting and there were two surprises, although in reality I am not surprised they were there.
The research meeting. My meeting summary claims that it is expensive and may not be relevant to my research. It is on a topic I find VERY interesting, but I think my advisor is still bitter that my interests, so far, are more aligned with the research I did as a technician and not hers. To be fair (to me), what I work on now, in my advisor's lab, is more closely aligned with my research as a tech than her interests and she is the one who started the project, but whatever. She has no money; I want to go to a conference that costs a lot of money. I want to look for money; she argues that the conference is not relevant. I argue it is relevant and show her a famous guy who will be there who I want to meet. I get to apply. I win! I win! Apparently I am more stubborn than my advisor.
The course. It is supposed to help the first years teach the introductory biology labs. I taught on my own in a foreign country with no teaching pedagogy training and did a darn good job, if I do say so myself. I can be quite demanding and find that not all students appreciate me not just giving them the answers. Not my problem. Anyway, in year five of a PhD program, I do not want to take a course on teaching pedagogy from someone whose teaching style I do not like. I told the department chair as much. She was actually a little happy to hear that because another professor had requested me as his TA and this may make it easier for the department chair to put me on a TA my advisor would rather not have me on. I win! I win! Apparently it does not pay for my advisor to claim I am interested in this course or that my "committee" (i.e. just my advisor) thinks this course would be good on my CV.
The catch. I just got accepted to a week long course in MONTANA. I TOTALLY WANT TO GO TO MONTANA. The catch is that it also involves a 3-credit fall correspondence course online and I just finished making the argument that this "teaching pedagogy" course would be useless to me. For the record, this Montana course is all expenses paid and I think it would really help me communicate science to the public, as is its intent.
I guess this will just be another fight to put up. If I get travel money for the conference, in addition to being accepted to this course, all those rejected grants will (almost) be forgotten.
I also have to be careful with how many times I say "I win! I win!" :-)
5 comments:
Hey, take your "I wins" and enjoy the heck out of them. I admire the fact that you know what you want and are willing to fight to get there. Make your own choices accept when they are bad ones and rejoice when they are good ones.
You win! You win! :-)
Assertiveness is SUCH a good quality to have. Recently I've decided that my most valued skill is the skill of confrontation - how to do it without being at the mercy of my emotions. It's tough to learn, but so worth it!
This all sounds very promising. You never know about the Montana course, maybe you will learn things about teaching that you'd never considered. I'm really grateful for the pedagogy classes I've taken.
Yay Montana!! You win! I look forward to photos of rolling landscape and mountains (am I far off?)
Why is your advisor so worried about criticising your interests and making you take a course you don't want to? Shouldn't she busy enough worrying about her own work?
Ron, I will enjoy them...I will just try to make sure my advisor doesn't hear me rejoicing too much. :)
Spark, I'm workin' on it!
Danielle, I am looking for inspiration for the next step in my career, so hopefully you are right about the course!
Aurora, I have no idea what my advisor's problem is! If she could actually express why she does or does not want me to do particular things, rather than make up things, it would be much easier to deal with!
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