Professional Well-Being
How could nurturing all aspects of your well-being be the thing that helps you land that dream job? In this episode, Assistant Director of Graduate Student Career Advancement Kirsten Elling explores all things professional wellness—including how to make networking easier, how to enhance your relationship with your advisor, and the perspective necessary for a sustainable work/life balance. Learn how the University Career Center can be a confidential space for you to figure things out on a professional level and a guide toward not only greater professional well-being but also that ideal job you didn’t even know existed.
Give this episode a listen and let us know what you think! Follow GradWell and join us on our journey to greater well-being for graduate students at the University of Michigan.
Guests
Kirsten Elling, Ph.D.
Kirsten Elling, Ph.D., assistant director of graduate student career advancement, supports the career development of U-M Ph.D. students through one-on-one career counseling, program development, and delivery. She also consults and collaborates with U-M faculty in support of graduate student career development. As a psychologist, Kirsten brings a holistic approach to the important work of helping students navigate their career development within the context of work/life balance and other important factors. She finds much joy in helping graduate students explore all of their career options, leverage their networks, and navigate the search for both internships and jobs.
Resources
- University Career Center
- One-on-One Coaching
- Ph.D. Connections Conference
- University Career Center and Rackham Resources
Resources for Advisor Relationships
- Mentoring Others Results in Excellence
- Graduate Student and Program Consultation Services
- Rackham Doctoral Intern Fellowship Program
- Guide for Graduate Student Mentees
- The Advising Relationship for Graduate Students
- Graduate Student Mentoring Guide
Transcript
Sam Hobson:
Hey, welcome to GradWell, a limited series podcast that explores various ways the University of Michigan can support its graduate students and their journey to greater well-being in our everyday lives, brought to you by Rackham Graduate School. Each episode, we’ll explore a different dimension of well-being by interviewing a resource on campus that can help you thrive a little better. I’m Sam Hobson, a PhD candidate and a GSSA in Rackham’s Professional Development and Engagement office. My fellow grad students, it’s time we start placing as much importance on ourselves as we do our work. You’re worth the effort.
Kirsten Elling:
Well-being doesn’t just happen to you. You have to cultivate it.
Sam Hobson:
Hello, hello. On today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about professional well-being with Kirsten Elling, assistant director of Graduate Student Career Advancement at the University Career Center. I’m excited to have you all with Kirsten and me today. Okay, let’s dive in.
Kirsten Elling supports the career development of the university’s PhD students through one-on-one career counseling, program development, and delivery. She also consults and collaborates with Michigan faculty in support of graduate student career development. As a psychologist, Kirsten brings a holistic approach to the important work of helping students navigate their career development within the context of work-life balance and other important factors. She finds much joy in helping graduate students explore all of their career options, leveraging their networks, and navigating the search for both internships and jobs. Hi, Kirsten. Thank you for being here with me today.
Kirsten Elling:
Thanks again for inviting me to be here today with you, Sam. I really am looking forward to talking about this topic with you.
Sam Hobson:
So Kirsten, how did you get into the work of supporting the career development of graduate students?
Kirsten Elling:
My PhD is in clinical psychology, and so I actually started off in the mental health counseling space working in a couple of different college counseling centers along the way, and I really enjoyed the mental health work with students. My first job was at the School of the Art Institute and their counseling service, and I also was the liaison for their Career Development Office. And I really loved that synergy because often in my counseling work with students, lots of things came up. We were talking about their mental health and relationships, but inevitably that sort of where am I going in life? Career and work-life balance, like all of that would come into the mental health counseling sessions as well, so I think they’re very interrelated. So I found that I really loved the work with graduate students. It’s such a important and pivotal time in your life and you’re making a lot of complicated decisions about your professional identity and what you want out of life and thinking about quality of life and all of these things, so I knew that I loved that work.
Sam Hobson:
Although it seems quite obvious when you say it, the idea that our sort of professional trajectory is very sort of interwoven within our mental health as graduate students, but I don’t think it’s necessarily something that we talk about enough, that a lot of the time, it’s mental health, emotional health, but not necessarily what this episode is about, the professional dimension of well-being and our mental health and what does the future entail for us specifically as grad students, specifically within our professional realm, and how that then influences our mental health currently right now, right here. So I am taking notes.
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah. And I feel like these conversations about what am I going to do with my degree? And you never do that in a vacuum, right? Everyone’s considering all of these other pieces of who you are and family and partners and just location and work-life balance. And I think also what can be layered about it is that your sense of what you want out of your career can evolve and change during graduate school. I certainly meet with a lot of students who maybe started off thinking, I’m going to be a professor, and then they change their mind along the way for any number of reasons. And sometimes they feel really good about it, and other times, it feels like, oh, I had a picture to certain identity for myself and now I’m going in a different direction, and that’s just a lot to process and unpack.
Sam Hobson:
Yes, that really resonates with me as a person whose professional trajectory has shifted drastically from when they entered. I get it. Yeah, yeah. And I think that it would’ve been really lovely to have spoken with you as I was going through that existential crisis of like who am I? What do I do? Because it’s not necessarily what I thought I wanted to do and what I thought I was going to do. So I’m really glad and I think that we’re really fortunate to just have you and have access to your department for those types of conversations.
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah, thanks. I think the other thing too, that can be really complicated in graduate school is that there’s a lot of people who maybe have an idea of what you should do after graduate school, right? So I mean, there’s your own opinion, but your family may have some thoughts or your partner may have some thoughts. Certainly your department and your advisor may have some thoughts about that. And so, I remember sitting with that like sort of, oh, other people’s agendas and how do I navigate that?
I had one moment, it was the clinical internship I had applied to a site in Seattle that was a very prestigious site, and the grad studies director was really encouraging me to pursue that. And I had gone out and visited and it didn’t feel like the best fit and it would’ve been farther away from family. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought I don’t know that I really want to uproot right now and go somewhere into a pretty intensive one-year internship away from my support network. And it was really hard because there was pressure for me to take that Seattle internship and I ended up sticking to my guns. And actually, I don’t really like that metaphor. I ended up just following my instincts and going with the Chicago internship and staying close to my network of friends and my support network and my family. And ugh, it wasn’t the easiest thing to do to like navigate those other agendas.
Sam Hobson:
Yes, I can only imagine. Kirsten, I’m super proud of you. That’s hard. That no is hard.
Kirsten Elling:
Yes, yes. Especially when there’s power dynamics.
Sam Hobson:
Yeah.
Kirsten Elling:
So yeah, it was a hard no. That’s been a growth edge for me, like the no at various points in my life, so thank you for that. Yeah.
Sam Hobson:
You’re so welcome. Okay. So Kirsten, as the assistant director of graduate student career advancement here at the University of Michigan, what does well-being mean to you?
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah, I love that question. No surprise. As a psychologist, I do have a very holistic view of well-being. I mean, I like the Wolverine Wellness here on campus is a great resource and they think about well-being in eight dimensions, so including professional, but also physical, spiritual, social, emotional, financial, etc. I think they’re all interrelated. And so, it can be if you’re not taking care of your physical well-being, it can be hard to function professionally, right? So it’s all connected.
And I guess the other thing when I think about well-being is there’s a proactive element to that. So life happens. There’s things beyond our control, but well-being is about we have to have some agency in that. It’s about taking care of ourselves, that we do have agency over. I think it’s the accumulation of intentional caretaking of ourselves. Well-being doesn’t just happen to you, you have to cultivate it.
And also, I say that recognizing that external and systemic forces can be a lot to push against, and also that the playing field isn’t equal, right? People are dealing with different levels of adversity and challenge, but I think the place where you have agency is that you can always be asking well, where do I have agency? What resources do I need? What aspects of my well-being are challenging right now or are being challenged, and how can I seek help for that?
Sam Hobson:
I really like your conceptualization of well-being as it’s something to cultivate, and I like the shift that you made, not necessarily that you made, but that I heard in my mind from like our responsibility to something that we have agency over, that we get to be sort of an active participant and that responsibility feels daunting, but like agency feels really empowering. And the idea that our well-being is within our control and we have agency over how well our being feels.
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah. That means a lot to me that’s landing as empowering with you because I think when I think about just my approach to any counseling work that I do, that’s always like really in the forefront of my mind, is that I want this to be an empowering experience. I want students to leave a session feeling empowered because they have more knowledge or more tools or more support or more resources, whatever it might be.
Sam Hobson:
In our attempts to allow our students listening here to feel a little more empowered in their professional well-being, we don’t often hear necessarily about professional well-being. We spoke about this a little earlier. In the larger well-being narrative, what is professional well-being, and how does it relate to graduate students?
Kirsten Elling:
Certainly some of the key components are job satisfaction and meaningful work, work-life balance, job security, income, also that organizational culture, the relationships you have with your colleagues, those are some key aspects. What’s interesting about sort of professional like well-being for graduate students, I think there’s sort of a two-pronged, it’s about there might be something in a given job that you have. So say, you’re an intern for a semester or a year. So there’s things about that and your relationship with your supervisor and the work and the workload and all of that particular experience, so that’s part of it. But there’s also this just sense, and this is why I enjoy talking with grad students so much about this, but there’s also this like setting yourself up for what comes after graduate school. So there’s a bit of maybe with the grad school, there’s kind of a short-term, long-term game.
Sam Hobson:
What I hear from you is this need for strategy. Not only a short-term, long-term game, but also we are likely in at least two different sort of professional spaces concurrently, right? We are graduate students and that is a professional space that is leading us to a different professional space, but also like you said, GSIs, GSRAs, et cetera, and that is also a different professional space that we also have to navigate and keep in mind. And it feels a little like a lot.
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah.
Sam Hobson:
The short-term, long-term, the multiple spaces at once.
Kirsten Elling:
Yes.
Sam Hobson:
And also with all of the other work that we have to do. And so, what do you recommend? I know we’ll get into more here are the tips and tricks. But just to make it so it seems a little less daunting right now as we continue on with our conversation, how can we make professional well-being a little more easeful with sort of all of the multiple components that it seems to require of graduate students?
Kirsten Elling:
I think one, you’re right, it is a lot. It’s a lot, and I have big empathy for that. I think one thing is, even though there is the short-term, long-term that I talked about, you need to get through the moment, right? And so, I think about now looking retrospectively at some of my experiences in graduate school, and I wasn’t always or I didn’t always have the capacity to think about long-term, but I think that there were lessons that I learned even in the short-term, right? What do I like in a supervisor? What’s more challenging? How do I communicate to a supervisor about what I need out of an experience or when I have questions or when I have support or when I have an idea?
I think that if you with each experience, pause and reflect, and I think this is part of well-being is reflecting, but the end of a semester or the end of the year, pause and reflect about what worked for me about that experience. Gosh, I had a great relationship with that supervisor. What was it about that? Oh, we had a personal connection. We had really regular communication. It was safe to go when I had a question, like I knew I would be supported, and that can help you know like, well, what am I looking for in the future? And so, I guess there’s an iterative nature to it, that if you reflect, you’ll then be really positioned to make the next decision and have it be a good one because it’s a series of decisions, right? Like not like you have to have your whole strategy figured out right away, but if you reflect, I think then you can make those decisions that are good for you, whatever the next decision might be.
Sam Hobson:
Hmm, I really appreciate your emphasis on the iterative nature of it. What I’m hearing is that we have the opportunity, instead of treating this as sort of a daunting I need to know everything right now, but instead experiencing this as an opportunity for data collection where we get to learn more about ourselves and this opportunity here. And if anything, this is a really special moment in our lives that the majority of the population does not get to have access to this amount of data collection where we get to learn so much about ourselves in these multiple different realms with a short-term, long-term game as well. And so, just to put a different spin on it in a way that makes it seem really fruitful and abundant instead of maybe like a daunting sort of task to overtake.
Kirsten Elling:
I love that framing of data collection, and you’re right, and it is, it’s this abundance of experiences. That’s a wonderful reframe. But yeah, data collection, that’s a great way of putting it. Also, as you were talking, it reminded me of another kind of pressure point that I see with grad students, and that’s kind of at end of degree when students are looking for a job, whether it be tenure track or beyond the professoriate. But I think part of like in a PhD program, you see your professors who’ve been in often at an institution for a very long time. And I think this can put a pressure of like, I need to find like the perfect forever job out of grad school.
Sam Hobson:
Right.
Kirsten Elling:
I see that, and I think you can sort of buy into that without even thinking about it, but that’s a lot of pressure. And the truth of matter is that people often have multiple jobs, especially early in their career. So maybe you do a postdoc or maybe you don’t, but you had an internship that you really loved so then you go into a similar organization and you try that out for a couple of years. And it is iterative, and that’s okay. Like you can sign up for a job, take that job, try it for a couple years, learn a lot from it, and maybe you learn that you want to continue in that direction or maybe you learn that you want to do something else. But I think that can be very freeing. And so, there might also be like a job that it’s not perfect, but there’s a lot of really good elements and gosh, I could learn X, Y, and Z from this and thinking of jobs as stepping stones, too.
Sam Hobson:
Okay, okay. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Kirsten Elling:
Yes.
Sam Hobson:
This is a journey and not an outcome that we’re seeking.
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah.
Sam Hobson:
I like that. Okay. Kirsten, you have a PhD yourself. And so, we spoke about this a little earlier, you know that there’s an ethos around being a grad student that sends the message that our work should be our entire lives. I remember getting to grad school and there seemed to be this energy that we’re all just supposed to be too busy. There’s always work to be doing, research to be researching, going to brown bags, presenting our papers, attending conferences, thinking about our work when we’re not doing our work. How does this unspoken expectation affect our professional well-being?
Kirsten Elling:
I remember the culture really well, and there would be like even a competition of like who’s the most stressed and who-
Sam Hobson:
Right.
Kirsten Elling:
[inaudible 00:17:32] next week. And yeah, it’s not healthy. And I think this culture, it neglects that like whole person reality. And I think eventually when you do that, you’re not as effective as a professional if you haven’t been nurturing other aspects of yourself.
Sam Hobson:
Mm-hmm. What can we do about this expectation? It comes from all sides, from our colleagues, from professors, from family thousands of miles away. Grad school’s hard. We’re supposed to be working all of the time, right?
Kirsten Elling:
I was thinking of my own experience. I did buy into that culture. I showed up, I was like, “Oh, this is graduate school. This is a whole nother year compared to undergrad.” And I just remember stacks and stacks of reading, and I just thought, okay, well, I just Friday I come home and I need to just start with all the reading, and I just need to work all weekend. That’s what I need to do to keep up. That did not go very well for me. I think I tried that for the first month or two, and I was not happy and I was not well. And then I was really fortunate, there was a friend of mine and he said, “You know, let’s start doing like Friday dinners together. Anyone who wants to come to my house, do a potluck.” And so, I think I didn’t go to the first one or two because I was like, “Oh, no, I got to start my reading.”
But what I was realizing after trying that for a little while, was that like I could not absorb anything else on a Friday night after like a really busy week of all kinds of things. I would try and read and just nothing would stick. It was really inefficient, and I didn’t have a community, I was homesick, like it was not a good thing. So I started going, and those dinners were just what I needed. It was connecting with people. We just shared good food. We just talked about other things besides graduate school and got to know each other. And I found that I was then much more able Saturday morning to work. I was like, “Okay, I’ve connected. I’ve nourished some aspects of myself, and now I can read and absorb what I’m reading and think more clearly.”
Sam Hobson:
I think maybe that’s just a rite of passage it seems that we need to go through. I went through the same thing in terms of like, yeah, working all the time and then just like, this is utterly unsustainable. I cannot do this. I will not do this.
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam Hobson:
And so, maybe there’s no sort of magic bullet, as people say, of ridding yourself of this expectation besides going through it and experiencing the unsustainability that this expectation places onto us, and then just learning to let it go.
Kirsten Elling:
So I had said yes to those dinners because of that like social connection and sharing food. But what happened is in our cohort, so we became more of a team, right? And we all had different strengths. One person was better at statistics and someone else was better at assessment and someone else was really great at research methodology. And so, then we started to say, “Okay, we’ve got a big stats test coming up, like let’s study together.” And so because we were starting to connect on that personal level, we just started relying on each other to get through the program. And looking back, I think those relationships were so important to getting through the program, and it was part of ultimately related to professional well-being because we learned a lot from each other. So it’s always interesting to me how taking care of like one aspect of your well-being can influence others.
So something else that I did that it felt kind of radical at the time because, so I’ve always made art and been an artist. And in undergrad, I really nourished that and took art classes and stuff, and then I got to grad school and I just sort of felt like it would be seen as maybe frivolous by my professors, or I just didn’t really broadcast that was something that I did, and I really didn’t create any time for it. And then I realized, again, that was not really good for my functioning, and so I found a way to keep writing and keep making art, even if it was just a little bit of time, like I kept in touch with that. At the moment, it was sort of part of survival and well-being, but it actually helped me get my first job.
And so for my story, and everyone is going to be a little bit unique, but for me, it was I was applying for a job at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the counseling service. And I knew that one of the things that would set me apart was the fact that I had a great understanding and respect for the creative process and for what it is like to make art and put it out there. So that’s not something I usually talked about in my other interviews for other places, but for the Art Institute, I did, like it was in my application materials. I talked about it in my interview, and I got that job. And I have seen that in other people’s lives as well. So maybe it’s like a social issue that you care about or in affinity group that you’re part of, and then you end up getting leadership roles because you’re involved in that and you care about it, and then later, it helps you get a job because you now have some skills that set you apart.
Sam Hobson:
Hmm, I love that. That is very inspiring. What I’m hearing is just simply trust and know that there are no negatives to really honoring yourself pouring into all of you.
Kirsten Elling:
I like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam Hobson:
Yeah. Okay. Kirsten, with all that we’ve chatted regarding professional well-being, you work for the University Career Center.
Kirsten Elling:
Yes.
Sam Hobson:
What are the specific ways that the Career Center can support grad students’ professional well-being?
Kirsten Elling:
I think one thing that’s really important, and I certainly hear from students, how valuable it is, that we provide in our one-on-one coaching appointments, just a safe, confidential space to talk about your career aspirations, questions about networking, concerns about work-life balance. I hear from students that it’s so powerful to talk to someone who doesn’t have an agenda, like we were talking about earlier, like no agenda about what your career trajectory should be that other people in your life may. So you can talk really freely about, “Oh, I like the research, but I don’t love this.” And I think for professional well-being, to be able to really get in touch with you and your values and your work-life balance needs, like that’s so important. So that’s something also related to what I just said, but just helping students articulate their values and their work-life balance needs and how those may have shifted and evolved over time.
And sometimes maybe it’s just a, “Gosh, what setting do I want to work in?” But I’ve also talked with a lot of students, there’s something about their life circumstance that’s changed. So maybe as far as like being partnered or having a family and didn’t when they started grad school and now they do. So all of that I think it can be very vulnerable to talk about, but it’s very important to talk about, so that’s a key thing for how we can support students’ professional well-being.
And then I think some more concrete things too, just helping break down like things like a job search. What are the resources? How can we help at each step along the way? What are the next steps? What’s a good way to organize your plan? Answering questions about the timeline, right? So students come in usually with a pretty clear idea of like, okay, for an academic job, they know what the timeline would be, but for industry, it can really vary. And so just answering those questions, demystifying, helping you like formulate a plan, that can be, again, like a relief and also I think empowering. So then students leave feeling like, okay, I know what to do and here’s my first step, and then after my first step, if I want to come back and have another appointment, I absolutely can because it’s data gathering, right?
And then also just related to that too, sort of the options, like we were talking about just that, like often grad students come in, especially doctoral students, thinking about there’s just a very narrow career path and the professoriate and not being really aware of what else there is. Like I’ll listen to someone’s experiences and their skillsets and what they have liked and not liked about graduate school. And it always gives me ideas of, hmm, have you thought about this setting or that setting? Or some people come in with some clear ideas of some options and others, just they don’t know, and that’s okay. Open up what are the options, I think can feel very yeah, relief and empowering.
There was a PhD Connections Conference, which I co-chair, and the purpose of that conference is really to show what are the different options, right? So we always bring in PhD alumni from different fields and have them talk about their career trajectory and their jobs. And again and again, I hear from students, they’re like, “Wow, I just didn’t realize that there were so many options.” And it makes me so happy when I hear those comments. And so again, just feeling like you have possibilities and options, that’s just I think, really important for professional well-being.
Sam Hobson:
Hmm, that’s wonderful. I wish I had known about your one-on-one counseling as I was going through my existential crisis of I guess this isn’t what I wanted to do. What do I do now that went on for years, and I’m currently still on the tail end of, if I’m being honest.
Kirsten Elling:
Well, we’re here for you, so-
Sam Hobson:
Thank you. I will be setting up an appointment.
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah.
Sam Hobson:
And I hope that others who are listening, if they have the need, or even what I really appreciate about what you said is just the space for exploration. Like you don’t have to know. You don’t have to have any set, determined outlook or trajectory or know what you want to do or even know what you like. This is just a space for an outside perspective, to be able to someone who’s not so close to the data, to look in and say, “Well, maybe this or maybe that.” I hope our students listening will be able to take away sort of just like the abundance and possibility that it seems like the Career Center can offer.
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah. I hope so.
Sam Hobson:
Kirsten, when I was doing research on professional well-being for graduate students, a lot came up about our relationship with our advisors. How do you think that relationship plays into grad students’ professional well-being?
Kirsten Elling:
I think this is one of those examples where I would say be really aware of the resources and find agency where you can. So Rackham has great programs to help grad students get their relationship with their advisors off to a good start. So the Mentoring Others Results in Excellence, that program they have, they’re educating faculty, they’re educating students. There’s a lot of tools to help the advisor and the student talk together, so there’s a lot of support for that. And so I think part of it is about like knowing where those supports are, and then being proactive in like you deserve to have a healthy relationship and a productive one. And so, like what does that mean for you? What do you need from your advisor? And the more that you can talk about that and articulate that, the better. There are tools and supports for that because I know that’s easy to say, but it can be intimidating, but there are ways to get support in that.
And then I also think that I always like to let students know about the Graduate Student and Program Consultation Services, GSPCS. If there are issues that are challenging that students are trying to navigate, you don’t have to do that alone. There are supports, there are people who have expertise in helping you navigate those relationships. Also, I wanted to give a shout-out to the Rackham Doctoral Intern Fellowship Program. There’s advice about how do you talk to your advisor about doing an internship, right? That could feel kind of scary to talk to my advisor, I’m not sure what they’re going to think about it. You don’t have to do that alone. There’s information, there’s people to talk to that can help guide you in that process.
I think when I started grad school, I didn’t really think about the resources that were available to me as a grad student. I guess I sort of thought, well, okay, in undergrad, that was okay for me to take advantage of resources, but now I’m like supposed to be really a grownup now and I should just be able to do all this stuff. And I don’t know where I got that idea, but again, that’s not sustainable. And there’s so many resources at the U of M, and so like tap into those. Reach out if you have questions, reach out if you’re struggling, reach out before you’re struggling, right? So if you have questions, that’s a great time to reach out and then maybe you won’t even get to the point where it’s really a struggle or a challenge.
Sam Hobson:
So we’ve learned a lot about professional well-being, how it can contribute to how we show up as graduate students. What are some small things that us, grad students, can do right now towards improving our professional well-being?
Kirsten Elling:
I would say a small thing that you can do, which can really become like a big thing, is what I was saying earlier about community building and connection. So just like look for those opportunities to build community, whether it’s within your cohort or other places. I think the other thing I wanted to say about just little things that you can do now is the networking piece. And I just say that because I often will work with students and they’re like, “Networking. Like, what is that? I don’t know that I’m any good at it.” Like there’s a certain vibe with that word, and so I always like to reframe it. Networking, it’s really about connecting. It’s about building relationships, and so that’s something that you can do along the way, right? So like, just people that you’re meeting in different settings or across campus or on your internship or alumni that come through the department, these are all people that you can be connecting with, even just for a little bit.
And then keeping track of them. And if someone is maybe doing some interesting work at a nonprofit and you’re thinking, hmm, I’d like to know more about that, you reach out to that person. Those kinds of things. Maybe it’s just a 20-minute conversation, but you can get a lot of information, a lot of inspiration from networking and sort of learning from other people about how did they navigate grad school? How have they navigated their career path? It can be very, very inspiring if you can connect with alumni, like recent alumni especially, and just see how did they navigate it and how did they get from grad school to where they are now? It can give you a lot of ideas about hmm, I hadn’t thought about that.
And I think the other thing too, so that’s one of those, again, it’s a dual purpose thing where if you’re networking and you’re keeping track of people that you meet, you’re getting really great information that may help shape your career decisions, but you’re also creating a support network too. Some of those people you may just talk to once and that’s it. But other times, you end up forming a relationship and now you have someone else in your corner who’s like, “Let me know when you actually start applying. I’m happy to look at your resume,” or, “I’ll let you know if I hear of any jobs.” Like that kind of thing happens.
Sam Hobson:
Yes. Thank you, Kirsten. As a person who was very afraid of networking for a very long time, a switch that I made, just sort of a shift in perspective that has really helped, and I have to thank my partner for this, she’s very good with connecting with others, is because a lot of the time, networking feels like we’re trying to take something from the other person, right? Give me something. Give me your time. Give me your energy. Give me your resources. Give me access somehow. And so my partner gave me the advice of instead shifting it into like what can I give to this person? You don’t have to come up with specifics, although those would be great, but just to offer. Like how can I support you? How can I be of service to you in some way? And it made it feel a lot less daunting and a lot more enjoyable of a process to connect with people and to offer myself. How can I pour it into you in ways that you need? And yeah, it made the networking process just a lot more enjoyable.
Kirsten Elling:
Well, your partner is very wise. I love that framing, and it is. I often hear from students that like worry that it’ll be transactional, I’m asking for something. So yeah, what your partner said is just so true because it’s a good connection and a connection that can grow is going to be mutual. Right?
Sam Hobson:
Right.
Kirsten Elling:
We all have a lot to give each other.
Sam Hobson:
Right.
Kirsten Elling:
It’s easy to feel as a grad student that we don’t have much to give. We’re a student, but it’s like you’re a brilliant student. You have a lot to give. And when you start looking for the way that you can give, you’re right, it feels better. And I think ultimately, it leads to deeper connections.
Sam Hobson:
Yes, yes. I really like what you said about how what we can give to others, A, we may not ever even realize until we sort of put ourselves in that moment, and it can look like so many things. Like do you know how to fix a bike? Do you know what I mean? Or like you said, a recipe, or maybe you know somebody that they would be interested in or you can offer. It doesn’t have to look often at times, I think even, oh, if I have to give to them, it has to be in a very professional setting, in a very sort of professional sort of aspect. Like I need to have a resource or some type of knowledge or some type of connection in a professional way that they can benefit from, otherwise they cannot benefit from knowing me, and it took me a long time to realize or to accept and allow, but like you said, got a lot to give.
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you summed it up really well. It also it reminded me of a grad student that I supervised. She was an intern a couple years ago. We’ve stayed in touch and really enjoyed working with her. Well, she every year, just texts me on my birthday.
Sam Hobson:
Oh.
Kirsten Elling:
It’s so sweet. It’s so sweet. And I’m like, it might seem like a small thing, but it always makes me smile. I’m like, “Oh, she thought of me on my birthday,” like that’s a little gift, right? So it can look many different ways, as you said.
Sam Hobson:
Mm-hmm, yes. I don’t think we give as much honor to the small things, the little things that, especially in this day and age when just relationships are even more difficult to sort of maintain and we think that it needs to be some sort of like very grandiose-type of, what is the word? Gesture.
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah, right.
Sam Hobson:
In order for it to make a difference or for it to be impactful. I know like a text on one’s birthday is so important.
Kirsten Elling:
Absolutely.
Sam Hobson:
So lovely.
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah. Absolutely. These little moments of yeah, like kindness or connection or a shared interest or saw this comic and thought of you. I mean, you know, like yeah, for sure.
Sam Hobson:
Yeah. Okay, Kirsten, before we part, is there anything else you’d like to share with our community about professional well-being or just well-being in general for grad students?
Kirsten Elling:
Don’t lose sight of what gives you joy or energy. Don’t stop thinking about that, what makes you feel nourished. There’s so many other parts of ourselves, and so it’s going to look different for everyone, but is it interacting with nature? Is it making art? Is it playing Frisbee with friends? Is it gaming? Is it knitting? Is it cooking? Is it dancing? Is it reading poetry? Like, what is it? Some of these things might be something you do on your own and others might be more community building, but I know how busy the life of a PhD student is. But if you find just a little bit of time to do something that brings you joy or energy or centers you or just helps you breathe, it can make a huge difference. And just that, like you have put it so well, but just that honoring, right, of the we are all multifaceted people and continuing to honor that you are multidimensional, multifaceted, and you need to nurture all the facets.
And even if you can’t nurture a facet as much as you would like to, just like at least a little bit like keep that part of you alive. I think that’s really important. The more you’re a whole person, the more you’re feeling balanced and nurtured physically and socially and spiritually, like the more you’ll be able to perform at your best in your academic and work endeavors. And I think also, it’s interesting because having been on the hiring side of things many times, employers will end up with a slate of very qualified people in their final interviews. But what makes you stand out? Like it’s often those other facets that you’ve nourished. So just honoring that whole person that you are, I think that’s something that will feed all aspects of well-being and certainly will enhance your professional well-being.
Sam Hobson:
Thank you, Kirsten. Oh, that resonates with me deeply. Thank you for sharing that.
Kirsten Elling:
Yeah. Well, thanks for all your great questions. I’ve really enjoyed talking with you. I was looking forward to this, and it’s been an absolute pleasure.
Sam Hobson:
Yes. Thank you so much for your time, so much for your wisdom, for your presence with us today. I’m really, truly grateful. It has been a joy. It really has.
Kirsten Elling:
Likewise, likewise. Thank you.
Sam Hobson:
Okay, I have a few takeaways and something small that you can do right now, all of which I linked under this episode’s resources on our website. One, check out the Career Center’s one-on-one coaching where you can explore your professional potential in a space where nobody has any stakes in your career decisions. Two, check out all the resources created to help make your relationship with your advisor the best that it can be. And three, don’t forget that your professional well-being is connected to the other dimensions of your well-being. So make a little space for your intellectual, your emotional, your social well-being in support of your professional wellness.
And something small that you can do right now for your professional well-being is to create an account on Rackham Connect, an online community where you get matched with Rackham alumni. It can help you step up your networking game in a really easeful way. You can find all of these links and more at rackham.umich.edu/gradwell. And please email us with any questions at [email protected]. Make sure to join us next time when I chat with Amanda Healy from the Ginsberg Center about social well-being. See you then.
Hey, hardworking grad student. Thank you for tuning into GradWell. I hope you can take something away from this episode with you. If you like what you heard, be sure to write a review, like, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, check us out on social @umichgradschool.
