The Manage Up Series

Manage Up is a series of workshops that will help you develop the skills and savvy to successfully navigate professional situations both during your time at UCSF and in your future, including important decisions, challenging conversations, and the power differentials that exist in scientific training. Workshops are intended for students and postdocs at different stages, as indicated. Effectively managing up could include avoiding difficult situations and navigating it skillfully.

Choosing opportunities wisely

Conducting Successful Rotations

Using your rotation effectively is the best thing you can do to set yourself up for finding your dissertation lab. What does it mean to assess whether a lab is a good fit, and how do you do that when the rotation is virtual? Use our webpage and videos to learn what you can do before, during, and after your rotations to set yourself up for success.

Choosing a Thesis Lab

Choosing a thesis lab is a big decision. Come to this workshop to figure it out! You’ll brainstorm with peers about your goals, your options and important criteria to help you choose a lab that is a good fit for you.

Choosing a Postdoc Position (This workshop is under construction!)

Finding the right postdoc - the one where the science and the professional relationships will help you position yourself for your career - can be a challenge. Come to this workshop to figure it out! You’ll brainstorm with peers about your goals, discuss how to identify your options and important criteria to help you choose the lab that is right for you!

Using the Interview to Avoid a Bad Fit

How can you frame questions and assess a workplace, lab, clinical setting or workplace to help you determine if a job, postdoc or residency is a bad fit for you or toxic? How can you get accurate information when current staff might not be motivated to be candid with you? In this interactive workshop, we'll show you how to use your interview effectively!

Positioning yourself for success

Finding Your Five Mentors and a Sponsor

Everyone says you need mentors, but do you know how to find them? In this interactive workshop, we'll discuss the types of mentors there are, and you'll identify which ones you currently need as a student or postdoc. We'll also discuss how students/postdocs establish a mentorship relationship, resources like ucsfconnect.com, and you'll begin to brainstorm a plan to build the community you need for success.

Managing Your Relationship With Your Research Mentor

While there is a lot of information about the importance of mentoring and finding a mentor, this workshop focuses on the skills to maintain a functional relationship with your research mentor. We'll define a mentorship relationship and the stages of a mentoring relationship, identify criteria to evaluate your mentor and the 'health' of your relationship, and discuss strategies to proactively respond when you find your relationship is off track.

Having a Career Conversation With Your Research Mentor

A career conversation with your research mentor is essentially a negotiation. Students and postdocs are seeking support to conduct work and engage in opportunities that will position them for their future goals. For a research mentor, it's a time to clarify and confirm your career path, what types of support they are willing and able to offer, and the level of productivity they'll need to see. In this workshop, you'll use best practices from Harvard's Negotiation Project to prepare for and engage in this conversation for a successful outcome. First, you'll learn how to assess where you are in your career exploration, your research mentor's position, and what a successful outcome from this conversation looks like for you. Then we'll give you strategies for starting, having, and ending the conversation and go over common troubleshooting issues.

Managing Power Differentials in Research Collaborations

Have you ever wondered how to navigate a collaboration as a junior member of the team? In this interactive workshop, we identify criteria to assess the health of your collaboration, red flags in collaborations, proactive strategies to address issues, resources to support you if you have concerns and ways to skillfully seek help from resources and mentors.