Dr. Isis has a very interesting post up over at her new place on how and if one should relate personally to one’s students. In reply, Stephanie has posted a beautiful story of her own. And JLK posted some quite excellent comments. Both of these posts made me think a lot, which is probably the only reason you will catch me blogging on a weekend. Being a grad student, weekends are the time when I catch up on all the crazy work that I didn’t manage to get done during the week. Yeah, no life. I know.
How do you relate to your profs? How are you supposed to? When I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed little undergrad on my first day of orientation, there were lots of warm words spoken to the effect of “get to know your professors and get them to know you”. This is not just to give you warm fuzzies inside or get yourself invited over to professorial houses for home-made dinners (a thing I heard of, which, alas, never happened to me). Getting to know your professors can have a profound impact on whether or not you get that precious reference to grad/med school. And it can make the difference between a college (or grad school) experience that was “you know, college”, and one that was intellectually stimulating, challenging, and the kind of college experience that every young geek dreams about when they’re stuck in some sort of “rocks for jocks” in high school.
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