Blinded by the skills.

OK, I’m just gonna come right out and say it: I ain’t got no skills. I can’t code in R. I can’t run a PCR. I can’t do a Bayesian analysis. I can’t develop novel symbolic math. I can’t implement computer simulations. I don't have a clue how to do bioinformatics. I simply can’t teach you these things.

So why would anyone want to work with me as a graduate supervisor. After all, that’s what you go to graduate school for, right – SKILLS in all capitals. You want to be an R-hero. You want to be a genomics whiz. You want to build the best individual-based simulations. You want to be able to have these things so you can get a job, right? So clearly your supervisor should be teaching you these skills, yeah?

I most definitely cannot teach you how to code this Christmas tree in R. Fortunately, you can find it here. 

I will admit that sometimes I feel a bit of angst about my lack of hard skills. Students want to analyze their data in a particular way and I can’t tell them how. “I am sure you can do that in R,” I say. Or they want to do genomic analysis and I say “Well, I have some great collaborators.” I can’t check their code. I can’t check their lab work. I can’t check their math.

Given this angst, I could take either of two approaches. I could get off my ass and take the time and effort to learn some skills, damn it. Alternatively, I might find a way to justify my lack of skills. I have decided to take the latter route.

I think your graduate supervisor should be helping you in ways that you can’t get help for otherwise. Hence, my new catch-phrase is: “If there is an online tutorial for it, then I won't be teaching it to you.” Or, I might as well say: “If a technician can teach it to you, I won't be.” Now it might seem that I am either trying to get out of doing the hard stuff or that I consider myself above such things. Neither is the case - as evidenced by the above-noted angst. Instead, I think that the skills I can – and should be – offering to my graduate students are those one can’t find in an online tutorial and that can’t be taught by a technician.

Check out these crazy-ass impressive equations from my 2001 Am Nat paper. (My coauthor Troy Day figured them out.) 

I should be helping students to come up with interesting questions. I should be putting them in contact with people who have real skills. I should be helping them make connections and forge collaborations. I should be helping them write their proposals and their papers. I should be giving them – or helping them get for themselves – the resources they need to do their work. I should be challenging them, encouraging them, pushing them in new directions with new ideas. These are the things that can’t be found in an online tutorial; the things that a technician can’t teach them. In short, I should be providing added value beyond what they can find elsewhere.

Hey, in 1992, my genetic skills weren't bad - although, to be honest, my allozyme gels usually weren't this pretty. 

You might say I could, and should, do both – teach hard skills and do all the extra “soft” stuff just noted. Indeed, some of my friends and colleagues are outstanding at teaching hard skills and also at the “soft” skills I am touting. However, certainly for me personally, and – I expect – even for my polymath colleagues, there is a trade-off between teaching hard skills and doing the soft stuff. If a supervisor is an R whiz, then the student will sit back and watch (and learn) the R skills. The supervisor will have less time for the other aspects of supervision, the student will rely on the supervisor for the skills, the student might not take the initiative to learn the skills on their own, and the student might not experience the confidence-building boost of “figuring it out for themselves.”

Beyond my personal shortcomings when it comes to hard skills, it is important to recognize that graduate school is not about learning skills. Yes, hard skills come in handy and are often necessary. Certainly, skills look good on the CV – as long as they are reflected in publications. But, really, graduate school is not about technical aspects, it is about ideas (and, yes, data). PhDs aren’t (or shouldn’t be anyway) about learning bioinformatics or statistics – those are things that happen along the way, they aren’t the things that make you a Doctor of Philosophy. Most research universities don’t hire people with skills, they hire people with ideas. (I realize there are exceptions here – but that is another post.)

So, don’t come to me for skills. Don't come to any supervisor for skills. Come to us for ideas and enthusiasm. Come to us for arguments and challenges. Come to us for big ideas, stupid ideas, crazy ideas, and even a few good ideas. Come to us expecting us to expect you to learn your own skills – and to help point you to the place you can find them. We will tell you who has the skills. You will learn them on your own. 

We supervisors will help you with the things you can’t find on your own.

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Notes:

1. I have mad field-work skills - come to me for those!

2. Max respect to my colleagues who do actually have real skills.
3. Sometimes skills ARE the research/ideas, such as development of new methodologies.
4. Thanks to Fred Guichard (with Steph Weber and Simon Reader) for the "blinded by the skills" title - suggested during our weekly "periodic table" at McGill.

OK, so I do have a few some skills I can actually teach my students. I can catch guppies better than most.