Another decade has passed, and accordingly, another new edition (the third!) of The Portable Mentor is here. I began working on this volume in my first few years as an assistant professor. At the time, a few of my colleagues told me not to work on this project. It would not earn me academic credit and it would take valuable time away from my empirical work, they explained. I thus vowed to work on this volume only on evenings and weekends (not recommended), and did so with the conviction that much of what we need to know to succeed – and to be happy in a psychology career – was not taught in graduate school. That may be for good reason; gaining broad exposure to an entire discipline, completing daunting milestone tasks (i.e., theses, comprehensive exams, and a dissertation), and becoming an expert in a particular area of scholarship takes a remarkable amount of time and investment from an entire program of dedicated training faculty. There just isn’t time to cover everything.
But most students in graduate school have questions that extend well beyond the formal curriculum. How do I adjust to graduate school, learn to teach a class, present a paper, write a grant, get a postdoc, decide what career I want to pursue, or stay true to my own identity/values while managing the enormous challenges and peculiar culture of a doctoral program?
If we’re lucky, we have a mentor who takes the time to help us answer these questions in the moments between their edits to our paper drafts, or between their classes. I was one of the lucky ones; I had an outstanding mentor during four years in graduate school, Dr. Annette La Greca, and an equally terrific mentor during my three years as a predoctoral intern and postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Tony Spirito. I also had amazing professional “aunts and uncles,” including Drs. Audrey Zakriski, Michael Roberts, Wendy Silverman, and later Alan Kazdin, who each gave their time so selflessly to answer my questions, help me find resources, and constantly put their students’ needs, including mine, above their own. It was their inspiration that led me to develop this resource and continue working on it for the past 20 years.
But many may not be so fortunate. Opportunities are not offered equally to everyone, and in many cases, learning opportunities are denied in systematic ways. This not only hurts students, but also weakens our field. Until everyone has an equal chance to succeed, and to be happy, we will continue to reify disparities, and deny our field the perspectives we need to truly understand all of human behavior. This volume was designed with these issues in mind. These chapters will not resolve systemic inequities, of course, but it is my hope that they will offer everyone outstanding professional and personal advice. I am forever indebted to the many contributors – now over 70 who have dedicated their own time and effort to selflessly share their wisdom with the next generation of psychology trainees. Together, they provide outstanding expert advice on a wide array of professional development topics. Each was selected based on their enormous expertise and generous commitment to professional development, serving as the “field’s mentor” for everyone.
As in prior editions of this book, the material here is indeed candid, honest, and practical in its use. This is advice to answer the questions that may be hard to ask your professors, but important for you to consider as you pursue your degree. Authors were asked to share the wisdom they would share with their own students, and do so in a way that is easy to read and helpful for generating discussion among your peers.
As the years have passed, the world has changed. So has this volume. Students still have many questions that are not answered in most graduate curricula and the need for additional professional development resources remains strong. But some of the inquiries have changed. Many students entering the field today still desire a traditional career in academia, contributing to the knowledge base that guides policy, practice, outreach, and science implementation. But many students yearn for greater impact than can be achieved by publishing only in journals. Today’s students have grown up in a world facing enormous problems they have inherited from prior generations, such as climate crises, discrimination and systemic inequities, violence, terror, health disparities, political strife and division, and a worldwide pandemic. These same students also have been raised in a culture with unprecedented opportunities, including the ability to communicate with a worldwide audience at the click of a button, hordes of data available on lifestyle devices in most humans’ pockets, unprecedented computing power, and watershed moments of reckoning that offer the potential for unity. Our discipline is unique in its ability to address all of these issues, leverage each of these advances, and make an impact through our science. Students today want their work to make that impact, and that means using their talents in a wide range of careers that can help translate science into action.
Thus, this edition of The Portable Mentor offers several new chapters to help students consider unique and exciting careers. In addition, every chapter has been substantially revised to consider how the competencies you will learn in graduate school can be used to make broad and meaningful change.
This edition also includes several new chapters to celebrate diversity in psychology, yet recognize that while the field increases representation of students from historically minoritized racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender groups, not all programs have created a climate yet to allow those from underrepresented backgrounds to feel safe and valued. These are very real and potentially painful challenges that can add to the stress of graduate school. In this edition, a frank discussion of these issues is offered, along with practical advice to survive and thrive in our discipline.
New chapters also have been included to discuss the experiences of those who identify as female in psychology – now about 75 percent of all doctoral graduates in our field. Despite this enormous change in the gender distribution of the discipline over the past half-century, the field continues to reflect a climate created by men, and disparities experienced disproportionally by women. These chapters are meant to be of practical use to those who personally identify with the issues reviewed, and as a useful source for information for allies.
I hope this volume is useful to students considering graduate school, to those who are in the throes of graduate training, to those beginning a career when support is still needed, and to more senior mentors who also need support or are looking for lessons to assist their trainees. I also hope this book is a helpful resource to the growing number of professional development courses offered in graduate training programs within the US and abroad. I believe as mentors, it is our duty not only to train our students to understand psychology, but also how to use their strengths to enrich our discipline throughout their lives. Last, I hope this volume is a useful tool in fostering a psychology workforce that values happiness as a valid career goal. Psychological science offers so much to benefit the world around us, and we also can serve as an exemplar discipline that values wellness, encourages balance, and demonstrates equity, justice, diversity, and inclusion among its members. To do this, we need to train students not only to develop expertise in research skills, but also equip trainees with confidence to feel good about themselves, and the practical support to succeed through all of the unique challenges and opportunities a career in psychology can offer.
Good luck to everyone!
Open access