IHPCSS Mentoring: Introduction for Mentors

Elsa Gonsiorowski

July 19, 2022

Created: 2022-06-19 Sun 18:06

1 Announcements

1.1 Vaccine Status

Will be checked at the reception

1.2 Staff Lanyard

Make sure you have GREEN lanyard

2 Mentoring at the Summer School

2.1 Committee

  • Scott Callaghan (lead)
  • Weronkia Filinger
  • Elsa Gonsiorowski
  • Ilya Zhukov

2.2 Mentoring Program

  • Each student is assigned a mentor; mentors have 2-3 students
  • There are 5 returning mentors, students from previous years who were selected to attend
  • We have a number of mentoring sessions planned throughout the week (schedule included later)
  • Sign up to help!

2.3 Session Help Opportunities

  • Monday morning: parallel programming hands on
  • Tuesday morning: parallel programming hands on
  • Tuesday afternoon: Mentoring Resource Fair
  • Wednesday morning: HPC python / performance analysis hands on
  • Friday morning: Deep learning hands on

2.4 Mentoring Program Success

  • Students consistently rate the mentoring program as the most valuable and distinctive part of the summer school
  • You have something to offer every student
  • Matching is a best guess based on the surveys
    • Not just matched on technical topics
    • If not a good match, that's ok; students can request a change
    • Students will have opportunities to talk with other staff

3 What is Mentoring?

3.1 Mentoring Basics

  • Partnership between 2 people
  • Give support, guidance, maybe advice
    • Listen, understand, validate
    • Favor guiding over telling
  • Based on mutual trust and respect
  • Ask questions and challenge, but be encouraging

3.2 Topics for Mentoring

  • Not just technical topics
  • Students are interested in hearing about:
    • Career progression
    • Work-life balance
    • Dealing with tough advisors
    • Future of HPC
  • You may need to bring up these topics
  • Ultimately, these conversations can have a huge influence on their career paths

4 Mentoring at the Summer School

4.1 Mentors

staff-bios.pdf

4.2 Mentoring Schedule

Time Session
Sunday Evening Introduction to Mentoring
Monday 10:00 Staff & Returning Mentors Introduction
Monday lunch Lunch in mentor groups, goal setting
Tuesday 16:30 Resource Fair
Wednesday 16:30 Career Breakout Sessions
Thursday 11:30 One-on-ones with Mentors
Friday 13:30 Returning mentor lightning talks
After Stay in touch on email, slack, etc.

4.3 Monday 10:00 – Staff & Returning Mentors Introductions

  • Brief staff introductions
  • Returning mentors will give 2 minute lightning talks on their research area

4.4 Monday Lunch – Mentor groups & Goal Setting

  • Please sit with your mentor group
  • Play the ice-breaker game if you haven't yet
  • Can sit with another mentoring group and play the game cross-group
  • Discuss goal for the week, what do the students hope to get out of the summer school?
  • Start getting your mentees to think about career paths and what they might want to discuss during Thursday's one-on-ones

4.5 Tuesday 16:30 – Resource Fair

  • Please sign up for a topic
  • Opportunity for students to discuss non-technical topics
  • Break out into small, informal groups for discussion
  • Work/life balance
  • Switching departments
  • Diversifying your research; growing beyond your advisor
  • 2-body problem
  • Power dynamics in academia; how to deal with your advisor
  • Working at a national lab
  • Microagressions
  • Starting a family
  • Working remote
  • How to avoid people
  • Careers in academia
  • Impostor syndrome

Future trends in HPC Interviewing tips Pursuing a career in a new country Science Policy Networking (with people) skills Working at an HPC center Fantastic theses & how to design them Working at an undergraduate-focused institution Dealing with hostile audience members How do I change fields? Things I wished I hand appreciated/known while attending my first (or second) SIAM or CSE conference. Best minor thing/process I did as an early career researcher that has had a surprisingly long effect throughout my career. Work life balance – balancing demands of work, family, and health. Combining career with children – balancing a research career with demands of parenthood and childcare. Adviser-advisee relationships – how to navigate the sometimes tricky relationship with your advisor Impostor syndrome – tips and guidance for dealing with imposter syndrome and the feeling that you may not belong Landing a postdoc Landing a faculty position Grant writing in your early career Time management – tips and tricks fro maintaining productivity and effective time management Applying for graduate school Funding graduate school Finding a research topic

4.6 Wednesday 16:30 – Career Breakout Sessions

  • Brief introduction to career paths
  • Breakouts:
    • Resume Review
    • Presentation Skills
    • Networking & Elevator Pitch
    • Interview tips

4.7 Thursday 11:30 – One-on-ones with Mentors

  • 20 minutes to talk with each mentee in your group
  • Your opportunity to really connect and do some mentoring
  • Hopefully they have gotten to know you throughout the week and trust you enough to have some deep conversations

4.8 Friday 13:30 – Returning Mentor Lightning Talks

  • 2 minute talks to review their career paths since leaving the summer school

5 Final Words

5.1 Impostor Syndrome

  • Students feel like frauds and like they don't deserve to be here, or in research in general
  • Doesn't matter what others tell them: success dismissed as luck, timing, not real, or deception
  • May look like lacking ambition or claiming lack of expertise

5.2 Impostor Syndrome: Ways to Help

  • Share that these thoughts of common and don't mean students don't belong
    • 70% of academics at some point; 40% of academics right now
  • Help students become more aware of thought patterns: feeling like a failure does not make it true
  • Ask students what they would tell someone in their position
  • Some of you have personal experience with impostor syndrome – your perspective is powerful

5.3 Ask for Help

  • It can be really powerful to tell your mentee that you don't have all the answers
  • Use your network (everyone here) to help your mentee with things you don't know how to address
  • Please don't hesitate to reach out to the mentoring committee, in person, on slack, or over email
    • Elsa Gonsiorowski <gonsie@me.com>
    • Scott Callaghan <scottcal@usc.edu>
    • Weronika Filinger <w.filinger@epcc.ed.ac.uk>
    • Ilya Zhukov <i.zhukov@fz-juelich.de>.

6 Credits

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