Bad research mentorship?

[BrainStormer]

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Edit: deleted for confidentiality

 

[summerbabe]

A couple of questions/thoughts:
- What year are you? You mentioned interest in possible academic related careers so building a research focused CV is more relevant for you than somebody only interested in clinical work.
- Is your program pure mentorship model (eg PI is solely responsible for their students)? Or does it operate with looser mentoring affiliations? Would it be possible to join another research lab? Are you doing research located outside of your program or could?
- How does thesis and dissertation mentoring work in your program? It sucks to have a hands off mentor that reduces pub options but if you aren’t getting guidance on thesis and dissertation, you may be spending extra in school.
- It is uncommon for your training director to write a LOR since they are required to provide a statement in your internship application speaking to your strengths and weaknesses already (unless the TD is also your mentor).
- It would be a red flag to not have any LORs from your program for internship IMO since these people know you longer than single prac supervisors.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

I'd second the suggestion to consider reaching out to other faculty to collaborate on cross-discipline/cross-interest projects, if that's something your mentor is okay with. You just may have to set it up so that it involves minimal work from your mentor.

I also agree with summerbabe that: a) it's generally unusual to have a LOR from your training director or department chair unless they know you in some other capacity; and b) it's even more unusual, and a pretty big red flag, to not have a letter from your mentor.

Edit to correct a typo: it's generally unusual to have a LOR from your TD

 

[cara susanna]

My research mentor wasn't very productive, so I ended up collaborating with other faculty members on projects and, later on, even switched to another lab when we hired a new faculty member whose interests aligned with mine (but my program was more flexible when it came to the mentor model, so I realize YMMV on that one). My biggest number of publications actually came from working with a faculty member who wasn't even in the clinical program, but was a total GOAT when it came to getting multiple papers out of a dataset.

 

[futureapppsy2]

You can also collaborate with faculty from other universities. I did that a good bit—you can even collaborate with other students if you have a faculty member willing to sign the IRB.

 

[Shiori]

I agree with the suggestions given so far. Also, one of the most effective strategies I have found for being productive in these kinds of situation has been to ask for access to data and just write 80-90% of the paper. I would send it along for feedback to the PI and they were always happy to help at that point. They were way more likely to sign on after most of the extra tedious parts were over.

 

[futureapppsy2]

I also think it sounds like your mentor may be burnt out on research from their time at research powerhouse and took a position at a more clinically focused program to try and ameliorate that.

 

[Ollie123]

Agree with the above - pursuing opportunities with other groups is reasonable (and can have other advantages too!).

That said "hands off" is not necessarily a bad thing if you have data. People's graduate school experiences vary and students need different things, but my mentor was exceedingly hands off by most standards. I'm not sure I got much feedback beyond a few grammatical corrections and the word "good" at the bottom on a single thing I wrote in graduate school. He was also incredibly generous and I basically had open access to like 20 years of data he "hadn't gotten around to yet" and between that and collaboration with others was able to crank out something like 15 pubs in grad school. I know folks with "hands on" mentors who had vastly fewer because their mentor was effectively micromanaging every nuance of the work.

Long story short, a grad student with ambition and a mentor providing freedom aren't necessarily the worst combo. If they are actively blocking you from other opportunities though, that is a big problem.

 

[BrainStormer]

A couple of questions/thoughts:
- What year are you? You mentioned interest in possible academic related careers so building a research focused CV is more relevant for you than somebody only interested in clinical work.
- Is your program pure mentorship model (eg PI is solely responsible for their students)? Or does it operate with looser mentoring affiliations? Would it be possible to join another research lab? Are you doing research located outside of your program or could?
- How does thesis and dissertation mentoring work in your program? It sucks to have a hands off mentor that reduces pub options but if you aren’t getting guidance on thesis and dissertation, you may be spending extra in school.
- It is uncommon for your training director to write a LOR since they are required to provide a statement in your internship application speaking to your strengths and weaknesses already (unless the TD is also your mentor).
- It would be a red flag to not have any LORs from your program for internship IMO since these people know you longer than single prac supervisors.

I'm going into year 4 out of 6. Mentorship is somewhat loose but variable within my program and partly dependent on faculty (e.g., my PI is MIA half the time whereas others work very closely with students and give them opportunities for conferences and pubs every year). Other labs are not even closely related to my research interests and my PI is the only neuropsych on faculty, so I feel like I'm stuck with them. My program does not have a neuro track either, so its tough enough for those of us pursing neuro. I am doing research outside of my program, which I am so grateful for, and this is where I've received any opportunities thus far.

 

[BrainStormer]

it's even more unusual, and a pretty big red flag, to not have a letter from your mentor.

Tough...but good to know. Really didn't want to ask for LOR from this person but if it's seen as a red flag for apps, I'll ask.

 

[BrainStormer]

Agree with the above - pursuing opportunities with other groups is reasonable (and can have other advantages too!).

That said "hands off" is not necessarily a bad thing if you have data. People's graduate school experiences vary and students need different things, but my mentor was exceedingly hands off by most standards. I'm not sure I got much feedback beyond a few grammatical corrections and the word "good" at the bottom on a single thing I wrote in graduate school. He was also incredibly generous and I basically had open access to like 20 years of data he "hadn't gotten around to yet" and between that and collaboration with others was able to crank out something like 15 pubs in grad school. I know folks with "hands on" mentors who had vastly fewer because their mentor was effectively micromanaging every nuance of the work.

Long story short, a grad student with ambition and a mentor providing freedom aren't necessarily the worst combo. If they are actively blocking you from other opportunities though, that is a big problem.

15 pubs in grad school is insane and something I could only dream of lol. I'm collecting in-person data and it is a very slow and tedious process. A couple barriers with me is that I do not have open access to data and collabs are far and few because most students are not doing neuro and not interested in taking on extra projects.

My mentor does not actively block opportunities (hopefully); it's more the disinterest in anything research related, which leads me to feel very unsupported and behind on research output. I should have a few pubs by the time I apply to internship but not anywhere close to where I want to be.

 

[niceman]

I went through something similar; though my advisor appeared to be invested in research, it would take them months to give me feedback which was mainly useless. I ended up graduating a year later because of them and related delays. I initially wanted to become research faculty but the whole process just burned me out. I did collaborate with faculty outside of my institution and got a few publications with them (more than I did with my advisor). Some of them may welcome grad students who are motivated to publish using their untouched datasets so this is one way of approaching it.

My advisor was also an awful LOR writer (I read it before internship because I asked them for one for practica before). My DCT offered supports for all LOR writers for internship and provided feedback based on "what internship sites look for". I let my DCT know the problems with my advisor's LOR and reminded my advisor to let my DCT read their letter before submission, and they ended up making changes based on my DCT's feedback (so their letter went from awful to ok). I only submitted their letter to some of the internship sites and some of the more research-focused postdocs (I ended up going to one). I later transitioned from a research postdoc to clinical neuro postdoc without submitting my advisor's letter. I agree with others that it can be a red flag if you don't submit your advisor's letter to more research-heavy sites , but you can always ask and choose what sites you send their letter to, depending on site-specific requirements. It is important to consider whether having a bad/lukewarm LOR from your advisor would actually help your applications or not. It would also be great if you could get more pubs before then to let your research products speak for you.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Tough...but good to know. Really didn't want to ask for LOR from this person but if it's seen as a red flag for apps, I'll ask.

It's not unrecoverable, but if your advisor is the only neuropsych faculty and you don't have a LOR from a neuropsychologist while also stating you're interested in/have gained experience in neuropsych, it's probably going to look strange to the application reviewers.

But if you have a few publications by the time you apply, which it sounds like you will, it may not matter. Double so if you do work with faculty outside your institution who are neuropsychologists and get a LOR from them.

 

[Ollie123]

15 pubs in grad school is insane and something I could only dream of lol. I'm collecting in-person data and it is a very slow and tedious process. A couple barriers with me is that I do not have open access to data and collabs are far and few because most students are not doing neuro and not interested in taking on extra projects.

My mentor does not actively block opportunities (hopefully); it's more the disinterest in anything research related, which leads me to feel very unsupported and behind on research output. I should have a few pubs by the time I apply to internship but not anywhere close to where I want to be.

We did all in-person data collection for our projects (nature of being a "lab" guy), but there was a lot of collaboration, co-authorship and the larger grant-funded faculty projects could usually generate at least 3-4 publications each (if not more).

Depending on how statistically savvy you are, consider mining public use datasets. That's kind of what I meant by the mentor not actively obstructing...."I don't have data" is never a good excuse anymore. I could write 50 papers/year without ever collecting a drop of data myself for the rest of my career (but ew).

I don't know what your focus is within neuro but:
ABCD/HBCD
Human Connectome
UK Biobank
Health and Retirement Study

Just off the top of my head datasets I know that are publicly available, are either free to access or cost so little even a tiny departmental/student could likely cover it and cover at least some neuropsych-related topics/variables. I'm sure there are tons of others out there, I'm just more "neuroscience" than "neuropsychology" so I don't know what is out there.

For whatever reason, the large datasets gets under-utilized in a lot of graduate programs, including psychology. I lectured on this in a nursing PhD program and people's heads nearly exploded when they realized there were studies with 50,000 people and every variable they could want to consider just sitting around out there to be used in dissertations. Cozy up to your friendly neighborhood epidemiologist if you need help - they pretty rarely gather their own data.

 

[BrainStormer]

I went through something similar; though my advisor appeared to be invested in research, it would take them months to give me feedback which was mainly useless. I ended up graduating a year later because of them and related delays. I initially wanted to become research faculty but the whole process just burned me out. I did collaborate with faculty outside of my institution and got a few publications with them (more than I did with my advisor). Some of them may welcome grad students who are motivated to publish using their untouched datasets so this is one way of approaching it.

My advisor was also an awful LOR writer (I read it before internship because I asked them for one for practica before). My DCT offered supports for all LOR writers for internship and provided feedback based on "what internship sites look for". I let my DCT know the problems with my advisor's LOR and reminded my advisor to let my DCT read their letter before submission, and they ended up making changes based on my DCT's feedback (so their letter went from awful to ok). I only submitted their letter to some of the internship sites and some of the more research-focused postdocs (I ended up going to one). I later transitioned from a research postdoc to clinical neuro postdoc without submitting my advisor's letter. I agree with others that it can be a red flag if you don't submit your advisor's letter to more research-heavy sites , but you can always ask and choose what sites you send their letter to, depending on site-specific requirements. It is important to consider whether having a bad/lukewarm LOR from your advisor would actually help your applications or not. It would also be great if you could get more pubs before then to let your research products speak for you.

Thanks for sharing your story. My advisor is also a terrible letter writer (grammar errors, late submissions, etc). That’s good to hear you were able to land a research-focused postdoc despite the challenges with your advisor.

 

[BrainStormer]

It's not unrecoverable, but if your advisor is the only neuropsych faculty and you don't have a LOR from a neuropsychologist while also stating you're interested in/have gained experience in neuropsych, it's probably going to look strange to the application reviewers.

But if you have a few publications by the time you apply, which it sounds like you will, it may not matter. Double so if you do work with faculty outside your institution who are neuropsychologists and get a LOR from them.

I’ll have two strong letters coming from clinical neuropsychs from my practica. Then I can either ask my advisor or ask the faculty neuropsych that I’m doing research with, with the ladder being the more preferable option because I know they would write me a strong one. Just wasn’t sure if my advisors letter would hold more weight or be more desirable since they have known me longer and are from my home institution. I would hate for something in my app to raise any concerns or red flags.

 

[BrainStormer]

For whatever reason, the large datasets gets under-utilized in a lot of graduate programs, including psychology. I lectured on this in a nursing PhD program and people's heads nearly exploded when they realized there were studies with 50,000 people and every variable they could want to consider just sitting around out there to be used in dissertations. Cozy up to your friendly neighborhood epidemiologist if you need help - they pretty rarely gather their own data.

For some reason, I didn’t even consider that this could be an option for me. I was searching some public data sets and found something recent that is a perfect fit for my interests and absolutely massive with tons of variables. I’m shocked and wish I found this 3 years ago!!

 

[beantownpsych]

’ll have two strong letters coming from clinical neuropsychs from my practica. Then I can either ask my advisor or ask the faculty neuropsych that I’m doing research with, with the ladder being the more preferable option because I know they would write me a strong one. Just wasn’t sure if my advisors letter would hold more weight or be more desirable since they have known me longer and are from my home institution. I would hate for something in my app to raise any concerns or red flags

Fmr internship training director here. There typically needs to be a major reason for not having a PI (research advisor/dissertation chair) letter as one of the three required by internship sites. Typically, the missingness is addressed by the DCT in their letter (typical reasons: the mentor passed away or is otherwise incapacitated, the mentor left the instituition/academia). Unfortunately not having a letter from your research mentor will be seen as a red flag by many sites, particularly if the DCT doesn't provide additional context.