#SfN14 Day 1: Tackling Difficult Mentor/Mentee Discussions

This post is part of my series on the 2014 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting. You can read other posts in this series here. I’m also live-tweeting some sessions @GainesOnBrains. Join the conversation at #SfN14.

Wearing lots of hats—er, ribbons—at this meeting.

Greetings from D.C.! It’s nearly midnight on Saturday and my stomach is exploding from this chocolate torte I decided would be a good idea after a giant plate full of ravioli.

It wasn’t a good idea, though. It was a GREAT idea.

This afternoon, I attended life coach Dr. Samantha Sutton’s interactive talk called "Mentor-Mentee Interaction: How to Have a Difficult Conversation." In the past, Dr. Sutton has presented this as a 10-week, 4-credit course at Stanford. I was pleasantly surprised to see what I believe were an equal number of students, postdocs, and professors in attendance.

When I typically think of preparing for a tough talk, a student approaching a professor comes to mind. My preparation strategy for things like this is usually: 1. Prepare what you’ll say; 2. Be disappointed by mentor’s response; and 3. Not know how to respond because I didn’t prepare for this response, and because I lack tact and self-confidence. Knowing I’m not alone, and that PIs struggle with this too, was reassuring to me.

Kudos to everyone for realizing that relationships in the workplace—and especially among extremely competitive and career-driven scientists—are really, really complex.

Why you should give thanks this Thursday—and always

Sometimes our world can be pretty crappy.

There's violence and crazy people. Maybe your candidate didn't win the election. Perhaps you hate your job, and that—on top of life's other personal, familial, and financial burdens—is wearing you down. Maybe you got to your morning coffee after it went cold, and that set off a bad tone for the rest of your day.

If you're celebrating Thanksgiving this Thursday, don't forget the true meaning of the holiday between the stressful hubbub of cooking, shopping, planning, and appeasing Great Aunt Gertie: giving thanks.

As it turns out, expressing gratitude is more than just a nice idea—it's beneficial to your health and happiness.

Bad Christmas gifts: A neuroscientific gifting guide

This article can now be found over at Brain Blogger as of today (12/25), so please check it out there. Merry Christmas, neuroscient-astic readers!