What do I look for in students and volunteers?
Apart from all the typical stuff you might expect (intelligent, works well with others, enthusiastic), here are some other traits that are important to me when evaluating potential new members of my lab.
#1 Personal effectiveness
Personal effectiveness is extremely important, and not just in grad school. It’s shorthand for being a person who gets stuff done. Personally effective people:
#2 Computer programming skills
Some experience with computer programming is a significant plus for any undergraduate volunteer or graduate student. Nearly all behavioural work requires a working knowledge of variables, if/then or for/next loops, counters, and basic variable manipulations. If you are interested in neuroimaging work, then programming is doubly important. It is difficult to complete an imaging project during a Master’s thesis without some programming knowledge from the beginning or acquired early on. Acquire it as soon as possible. The specific language with which you are familiar is not so important, but Python is a good place to start, and in my lab Matlab would be handy. There are huge numbers of online tutorials to get you started.
#3 Applications to funding: USRA (undergrad) or OGS/NSERC/CIHR (grad) or other programs
Of course it’s easier for me to take a risk on someone who is self-funded, and the award will look good on your CV and help you get future funding. BUT, what really pleases me about seeing an application to external funding is the demonstration of personal effectiveness (see above). You are taking responsibility for your future, and organized enough to take a step that requires significant advance planning (deadlines are often in September, 1 yr prior to your graduate degree starting). This funding is not a requirement, by any means, but it's a significant plus.
#4 Knowledge of the literature
Make sure you’ve read at least one of the papers from my lab. Don’t just tell me that you’re interested in ‘music and the brain’ or ‘why music has such a powerful effect on us’. I understand the sentiment, but it suggests that you don’t really know what research is going on in my lab, or even in the field. If you are genuinely interested, read scientific papers on the topic (not just blogs and news articles). People that follow up their interest with scholarly action are the ones that I want to work with.
#1 Personal effectiveness
Personal effectiveness is extremely important, and not just in grad school. It’s shorthand for being a person who gets stuff done. Personally effective people:
- Get it done on time. Personally effective people work on final projects prior to the night before they’re due, so that even if their computer crashes and their grandma dies and they get the flu, the project is still in, on time. Even if they are procrastinators and start the night before and everything goes wrong, the project is STILL in on time, because they are goal-oriented, not excuse-oriented. It may not be to the standard they wanted, but it gets finished. They meet their responsibility. Of course, everyone needs a break once in a while. But do you ask for extensions, or come to meetings with your contribution unfinished, or send emails that you just ‘won’t be able to make it today’ on a weekly basis? Termly basis? Yearly? Or Never? The excuse is largely irrelevant--the point of personal effectiveness is that you work around problems, not explain why it’s not your fault you failed to achieve.
- Take the next steps without needing to be asked. Don’t be satisfied with only having achieved the step you said you would by the meeting or deadline. If you finish a step early, work out (or find out) what the next step is and do it. Because most steps take longer than expected, you will fall behind if you don’t make up time when you can. Looking ahead is not just about small steps--there are big picture aspects, too. If you want to do a PhD, don’t just look at what your peer Master’s students are doing; look at what the PhD students and postdocs are doing. See which steps of theirs you can take. Look at the conferences your senior colleagues go to and mark the abstract submission deadlines in your own calendar. Find out whether you can attend if you finish your project well in time. Then finish it well in time. Are senior lab members attending colloquium talks? Join them. Are they talking about their research with each other, or with professors informally or at the pub after the colloquium talks? Maybe that's something to try. Look beyond the immediate future and your comfort zone.
- Try logical problem-solving steps BEFORE contacting me. Ask around the lab to see if anyone has had this problem before. Plug the error message into Google and at least show that you’ve tried to figure it out yourself. You’ve just found out about a last-minute application deadline? Come in with a concrete plan to get it done instead of letting it pass you by. Call the coordinator and see if they may accept a late application.
#2 Computer programming skills
Some experience with computer programming is a significant plus for any undergraduate volunteer or graduate student. Nearly all behavioural work requires a working knowledge of variables, if/then or for/next loops, counters, and basic variable manipulations. If you are interested in neuroimaging work, then programming is doubly important. It is difficult to complete an imaging project during a Master’s thesis without some programming knowledge from the beginning or acquired early on. Acquire it as soon as possible. The specific language with which you are familiar is not so important, but Python is a good place to start, and in my lab Matlab would be handy. There are huge numbers of online tutorials to get you started.
#3 Applications to funding: USRA (undergrad) or OGS/NSERC/CIHR (grad) or other programs
Of course it’s easier for me to take a risk on someone who is self-funded, and the award will look good on your CV and help you get future funding. BUT, what really pleases me about seeing an application to external funding is the demonstration of personal effectiveness (see above). You are taking responsibility for your future, and organized enough to take a step that requires significant advance planning (deadlines are often in September, 1 yr prior to your graduate degree starting). This funding is not a requirement, by any means, but it's a significant plus.
#4 Knowledge of the literature
Make sure you’ve read at least one of the papers from my lab. Don’t just tell me that you’re interested in ‘music and the brain’ or ‘why music has such a powerful effect on us’. I understand the sentiment, but it suggests that you don’t really know what research is going on in my lab, or even in the field. If you are genuinely interested, read scientific papers on the topic (not just blogs and news articles). People that follow up their interest with scholarly action are the ones that I want to work with.