10 Satirical Ways to Be a Terrible Graduate Mentor (And What to Do Instead)

Mentoring graduate students has evolved significantly. The traditional apprenticeship model—where students spent endless hours on tasks like pipetting or grading with minimal pay—is outdated. Today's graduate students expect mentoring to include career development, mental health support, and respect for their lives outside academia. What was once seen as "enforcing academic rigor" might now be viewed as "creating a hostile environment."

But let's be honest: You need publications, grants, and talks to secure tenure and promotions. Do you really have time to foster equitable expectations and work-life balance? Here are 10 satirical tips to help you focus on the most important person in the mentoring relationship—you!

1. Let Doctoral Students Progress at Their Own Pace

Avoid scheduling regular meetings. Wait for students to reach out with deliverables, then tell them you're too busy. Alternatively, impose unyielding deadlines, especially near critical milestones. Assume they have no outside responsibilities like families, jobs, or mental health issues. After all, you didn't get flexibility from your mentor, and look how you turned out!

When you do receive work, take weeks or months to respond. Offer vague feedback like "the discussion is too long" without specifics. Or delete 75% of the text, forgetting that you suggested those additions in previous drafts.

2. Task Graduate Students with Creating Individual Development Plans Alone

Instruct students to draft their own Individual Development Plans (IDPs) without guidance or examples. Don't clarify your role as a mentor—they should instinctively know you'll help with CVs, grant letters, and career networking. Mutual expectations are overrated; just say, "I have high expectations and demand scientific rigor." Let them figure out what that means.

2.1 Completely Ignore the IDP

For extra credit, never mention the IDP again after it's created. Regular re-evaluations waste your precious time.

3. Take Credit for Everything

Always list yourself as first author on manuscripts, even if the student conceived the idea, collected data, analyzed results, and wrote the paper with little oversight. Justify it by noting your final edits or grant funding. This is "paying their dues," a model they can pass on.

Dismiss achievements that don't benefit you, like teaching awards, as signs they're neglecting research. Conversely, whenever a successful former student is mentioned, boast that you trained them—even after they become professors or society presidents.

4. Informal Tasks Don't Merit Acknowledgment or Pay

Don't credit students for mentoring undergraduates or teaching classes. Have them review manuscripts and grants for you, framing it as training. Use their words verbatim in your reviews without discussion or attribution.

5. Focus Training Solely on Lab Work

Skip lessons on time management, organization, networking, interviewing, or negotiation. Discourage teaching opportunities and limit seminar speakers to academics. Never include industry or nonprofit scientists on panels or Ph.D. committees.

6. Build Bonds by Using Students as Personal Assistants

Assign tasks like pet-sitting, childcare, landscaping, or bartending at your parties. If they hesitate, remind them this is their chance to bond with you.

7. Don't Support Student Travel to Conferences

Insist students present at national conferences but refuse to help with funding. Expect them to cover $1,500+ for registration, travel, and meals. After all, you have your own expenses, like that new Michelin-star restaurant.

8. Pack Thesis Committees with Your Friends

Have students propose committee members, then reject all their choices. Fill the committee with your pals, regardless of expertise. You deserve to work with people you enjoy.

9. Remind Students How Easy They Have It and Use Shame

Frequently compare their cushy lives to your student days—low pay, lab-floor sleeping, and expired rat chow diets. Before a conference talk, whisper, "Don't embarrass the department." In lab meetings, publicly ridicule minor mistakes. Pit students against each other and show favoritism to "set high standards."

10. Assume Students Want to Be Like You

Model zero work-life balance by working relentlessly, complaining about academia, and sharing your stress. Be shocked when they avoid academic careers. Label those in nonacademic jobs as failures and avoid teaching transferable skills. Maintain that leaving academia is a stigma.

Note: No graduate students were harmed in this essay. Resemblances to real mentors are coincidental, not because these practices are common. For serious mentoring advice, check out this article.

Barry Braun is a professor in the Department of Health and Exercise Science at Colorado State University.

Lisa Chasan-Taber is a professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.