Graduate Student Shoots Himself in Professor’s Office [On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess]
About 20 minutes ago I was sitting in my office, having a discussion with our local undergraduate and graduate program advisor. She was probing me to see if I would be willing to accept new students into the laboratory. As we chatted, I glanced at my email and saw a link to this from MRU's administration:
ASU Graduate Student Shoots Himself in Professor's Office
I'm left pretty speechless.
I had a conversation with a mentor of mine last night over dinner where I shared with him that I feel like I have not yet figured out how to manage the laboratory "right." I seem completely unable to find the balance between giving people so much freedom that they don't have enough guidance to succeed and being so in their business that they feel micromanaged and overwhelmed. I hope to someday be the kind of person who inspires people to succeed independently -- to be like the people who inspired me.
Graduate school is hard. I think that graduate school should be hard, and I learned so many lessons because I had to struggle with things. Probably the most important lesson I learned as a student was to solve my own problems. I want my students to struggle with things and to learn to be self-sufficient. But I think this stuns me because it reminds me that I am learning these people management lessons potentially at the expense of others.
How will I know when my students feel hopeless, versus knowing that they are dealing with a healthy amount of discomfort?
I've got no answers right now and I'm not even sure that I am completely mentally processing this. All I can do, I suppose, is to keep all of the parties involved in my prayers and remember to tell the people in the lab tomorrow that I am proud of them.