In article <1995Sep19.174254.1 at max1.u.washington.edu>,
wijsman at max1.u.washington.edu says...
>>I need some advice on an issue which I am sure has come up for other
people
>who read this newsgroup. What do you do when you have a bright female
>graduate student working for you and that student gets sufficiently
>discouraged about her own abilities to consider quitting grad school
even
>when from the faculty perspective there is plenty of evidence that the
>student is really very talented? I don't know if I am worrying because
I
>know most students have some ups & downs and this is just one of those,
or
>because in a quantitative field (biostatistics in this case) the
cultural
>baggage about females not succeeding in a math area is more extreme than
>in, say, bench biology, and I want to make sure that the student does
not
>make a decision because of lack of self confidence which she will later
>regret. I remember that I, too, was pretty insecure about my abilities
at
>the same age (mid-20's) and a lot of that disappeared with the magic age
of
>30 for some reason. I am posting here because there just might be some
>ideas/experience out there which I haven't thought about which could
help
>in this situation - either to find a way to quell some of her fears, or
to
>give any futher information which would help make her decisions easier.
>>The situation is as follows. I have such a student right now working
for
>me as an RA. She has not yet chosen a thesis topic. Everything I have
>seen about her in the last couple of years she has worked with me
indicates
>that she is a good scientist. She came out of a biological
undergraduate
>program, but has done well in the graduate classes in statistics &
>biostatistics and is good at asking the "right" kinds of questions when
>working on research problems or reading journal articles. Last year she
>took the very challenging statistics theory class which all our students
>take (and she did reasonably well). She found the theory class to be
very
>discouraging, though, and now, despite having passed all her qualifying
>exams (including the theory exam), seriously questions her own ability
in
>the field. Despite my attempts to reassure her to the contrary, she is
>still not convinced that she can do a Ph.D. in biostatistics. Any
advice?
>Past similar stories with happy/sad endings?
>>Ellen Wijsman
>Research Associate Professor
>Div of Medical Genetics, BOX 357720
>and Dept of Biostatistics
>University of Washington
>Seattle, WA 98195-7720
>wijsman at u.washington.eduEllen:
I wish you had not included so many details about the person you are
concerned about. I know it would REALLY embarrass me to find out my
professor put a note like this about me on the internet. As a grad
school dropout myself I can tell you that there are many reasons why
someone would quit that have nothing to do with lack of self confidence
or ability. Some reasons include: burnout,lack of funds, lack of
commitment, other pursuits, etc. It is a very personal choice that only
she can make. I think you are "hand-holding" a little too much with this
person. Give her some space and she'll make the decision that is right
for her.
Lichen
