Reaching Out for What You Want Posted on January 20, 2009 Reaching out to mentors is vital, says Hilda M. Pantin (bio).

When I was a graduate student, which was a long time ago, again I looked among the faculty, and I said, "Okay, among the faculty who's here, who publishes the most? Who is somebody who would make a good mentor for me, who's in an area that I'm interested in?"

And so I reached out to that person as well, and I really believe that young people need to do that, because now that I'm in a mentor position I tell people this all the time, "People are there and they're willing to help, but you have to ask, and you have to reach out."

So I really do believe that having, reaching out to successful senior people who are willing to mentor you is what is needed in order to succeed.

I was very fortunate because I did have people that I could reach out to and in working at the center has been a great experience for me because I've worked under the mentorship of Dr. Szapocznik, who is one of the leading investigators in family-based interventions for adolescents.

As a graduate student you can ask faculty that you respect what they would advise, but you have to take the initiative because if not, there will be other people who will take the initiative.

And it doesn't mean you have to know exactly what you want, but you can have someone help you brainstorm and try to figure out what would be the best thing for you now.

The other thing is, one thing that I think that happens often with graduate students and early career people is that they think they have to make a decision for the rest of their lives, and definitely in my life I have moved from really doing predominantly clinical work to really doing predominantly research.

And so everything that you do along the way serves as a foundation for what you will do later on, so I think that's another very important thing.