Mentoring, law-school version

I think in my last post, I mentioned having a meeting with a prof. It wasn't actually about coursework; instead it looks like I will be RAing for this prof next semester. There will be grunt work (cite-checking! rapture!), but actually, I think that will be a nice change from wringing my brain out learning constitutional and criminal law and whatnot. And there will also probably be some more interesting stuff.

Anyway, I really enjoyed our meeting, in which we chatted about a lot of stuff about law school, much only tangentially related to the RA job. I'm scared I'll jinx things just by saying this aloud writing this down, but I think there's a chance that maybe, perhaps, this prof could turn out to be a mentor-type person?

That said, I surprised myself by the degree to which I was (am) waiting for the other shoe to drop.

See, this meeting reminded me a lot of meetings with my honors thesis advisor in college. Thesis Advisor was great to work with; we'd meet once a week, when we'd spend an hour discussing my thesis, and then another hour discussing grad school, academia, teaching, and the like. Thesis Advisor was incredibly helpful with the grad school application process, and with beginning my socialization into academia. I think she singlehandedly got me into grad school, and prepared me for the Ph.D. more than anything else about my college experience. Despite a lot of crap in her own life, that support has continued since I graduated - when I was looking for housing for my pre-Rural Utopia adjunct gig, she invited me to stay with her, despite us not having been in touch for about 8 years!

Now, it's not like I haven't known/worked with a lot of professors since then. So it's funny to me that my meeting today brought me back to college, not more recent contexts. And that, together with my suspicion that this very pleasant meeting masked deeper problems, made me realize how fraught so many of my relationships with ostensible mentor-types were, throughout grad school and since.

I know I've talked about my grad advisor here, sometimes quite critically. Grad Advisor had a lot of wonderful qualities, and since finishing my Ph.D. and teaching I've gained a greater appreciation for my own weaknesses as a student and irritating nature as a mentee. So I want to own that. With that out of the way, my very first meeting with Grad Advisor scared the crap out of me, and it was really hard ever to get past that. The terrible insecurities and anxieties of grad school somehow got in the way of a lot of functional relationships. At Rural Utopia, I don't think most people thought I needed a mentor; and at Formal College - well, I'd argue that mentoring is one of the things they do particularly badly.

So it was really funny to have this meeting and think, "Oh, yeah, I remember what this was like, so very long ago."

And it's funny, too, because you could say that the difference now is all in me - that I've come to law school as a fully-adult adult (whereas I wouldn't say that was the case when I began grad school), and that my experience and background allow me to interact with profs here more effectively than in grad school. Which, on the one hand, is true. But on the other hand, I'm also a complete newbie at law. And on the third hand it would be helpful to have sometimes, the other great mentoring experience I can remember was from when I was an undergrad, so presumably more immature and unprepared even than I was in grad school.

Anyway, it is far too early to draw any conclusions about the effectiveness of mentoring/healthiness of atmosphere/support found in law school versus grad school versus undergrad, or whether the failures and successes of mentoring in whichever setting were systemic or accidents of personality. But it was, nonetheless, interesting to realize what time in my life this meeting brought me back to. And a little sad to realize how much I didn't trust it.

Comments

[squadratomagico]

That's a really interesting reflection, and it prompts me to wonder: Have you yourself ever mentored someone extensively? What was your style?

I ask because I find myself attempting to replicate my own mentor/mentee relationship, from grad. school, with my own graduate student now -- only I'm occupying the other term in the relationship. I wonder if others do the same? In this case, however, I'm not sure it's working.

I was a very independent grad. student: I met with my advisor every couple of months, at which time we hashed everything out for a couple of hours; then I disappeared again. I liked it that way. But my own, very first graduate student is, well, much more needy than that. I tend to assume that every grad. student wants to be independent, but I'm generalizing from my own preferences and experience, and perhaps letting hir down in the process.

>sigh<

"The terrible insecurities and anxieties of grad school somehow got in the way of a lot of functional relationships."

well said; I definitely relate to that at this point in my academic career. One example (there are several): it typically takes me about twenty minutes to write a professor an email--sometimes I even save a draft and come back to it later, to make sure its tone and content are appropriately personal and yet scholarly.

[Amy]

So, you and I have had this conversation before... but I'll throw it out for the internets.

I do think it has much more to do with individual experiences and expectations. You felt like you had been really prepared for grad school so to face Grad Advisor and have her make you feel unprepared got you both off on the wrong foot. I came in knowing nada--and she knew that--so it was easy for me when I felt stupid around her. I never had much trouble saying to her, "I have no clue what you mean". Now, this didn't always get me more info... and I do recall on more than one occasion clearly exasperating her... but since I didn't know any better, it didn't really affect my overall approach to her.

Of course, now I'm horrified at how little I knew... so I never contact her unless it's absolutely necessary!! Though perhaps she's due one of those "Hey, here's what I'm up to" emails.

[Susan]

I think it's really interesting to think about how you've been mentored. My undergrad advisor (retired, very eminent etc) was terrific, but basically let me run. I became very close to my grad advisor, so by the time I was working on my diss., we were intellectual colleagues and friends as much as mentor/mentee -- I was getting him thinking about new things just as he was pushing me.

However, when I hear you talk about yourself as an undergrad, it occurs to me that your undergrad experience may have been easier because your undergrad advisor did not expect students to be anything other than "immature and ill-prepared", and grad school advisor expected them to be adults? Now that you feel adult it could be easier because what you're learning is not how to be a professional -- you got that -- but how to be a lawyer. And that's a bit more straightforward.

Anyway, let's hope this turns out well. A friend who teaches law school describes law school education as a process of formation, just the way monasteries talk about formation. It may be that this socialization into the culture of the law is well understood, so the general conversation is not inappropriate. Whereas some grad advisors don't want to deal with anything other than the intellectual. And of course, if you can write a diss, you'd be an awesome RA.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

squadrato - you know, I've only mentored undergrads, which I think is quite different from grad mentoring (for a while, when it still seemed a possibility that I would ever work with grad students, I tried to keep track of things I wouldn't do/would want to do, and how best to be a graduate mentor, but I gave up on that a while ago). I think (or like to think) that for undergrads I was a bit like Thesis Advisor was - so yeah, I probably did emulate what I knew - but I think it depended a lot on the student, too. Some, I could talk to the way that Thesis Advisor talked to me, and some needed a kick in the pants. (I wasn't as good at delivering those as I should have been, I think, but I got better.)

My anecdata suggest that people either emulate their advisors, or try to be the complete opposite!

I think, too, that generational differences may be starting to creep in between you and your grad student - which is not meant to suggest you're old! ;-D It's just that I think you and I probably went through undergrad a bit prior to the real advent of helicopter parents (and consequent developments in undergrad edu. culture), and your grad student may have come through a real hand-holding undergrad culture (my own experience was kind of half-and-half - Thesis Advisor was obviously amazingly supportive, but I had a lot of old school hands-off types, too).

Amy and Susan - yeah, I think it does have a lot to do with individual experiences and expectations, and Susan, I thought of what you said about the expectations for undergrads being different than for grad students - but I have to contest that a little, because one of the things I finally let myself do last year was stop taking all the blame for the failures (such as they were) of my relationship with my grad advisor. Because while I had my issues and was doubtless frustrating (though this was something that was worst when I was in the throes of dissertating, not at the beginning of grad school), I also think it's indisputable that Grad Advisor is, frankly, a difficult person (for students) to talk to. And sure, it may be that she expected an adult whereas my undergrad advisor didn't, but if you're going to accept students straight from undergrad, I think there has to be some effort to meet them where they are. (Because for someone straight from college, I think I was pretty damn mature and qualified.) I mean, isn't a mentor supposed to be helpful to the student who's there, not the one they wish they had?

Which isn't to say that Grad Advisor was not helpful - she was, and actually, Susan, she was very very good about the socialization into the culture of academia; in fact, I found her professional guidance clearer and more helpful than some of her intellectual guidance.

Anyway, I have no evidence that the kind of mentoring I've received in undergrad/grad school/law school (maybe) is at all tied to the kinds of institutions rather than to the randomness of individual interests/abilities, but I do still think, even though yes, I brought different qualities to the table each time, that there are qualitative differences between grad school and the other experiences.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

(and anon, I still do that kind of thing when drafting e-mails to former professors!)