How do you get close to professors?

[Guest bigbuffblackboy]

I hear people saying we should get closer to professors and make "friends" with them to get reference letters and such. I feel I'm kind of shy and I'm wondering how you guys have forged relationships with profs.

 

Thanks a lot.

[Guest daryn]

You get close because you want

 

a) extra help, and/or;

 

to ask more questions about their field because you are interested in it

[Guest bigbuffblackboy]

Alright I'll try that. I guess I should go in for more of their office hours.

 

Thanks.

[Guest celeria]

You can really get to know your profs by taking upper level classes with less than 20 in them or by becoming a research assistant. I got my first job as a research assistant by just knocking on doors and introducing myself.

 

I know what it feels like to be shy, but just force yourself to be a little more outgoing and you will have a lot of fun meeting/networking with people, trust me.

[Guest dopetown]

work for them either in research or teaching

[Guest Kooman]

Go drinking with them.

[Guest bigbuffblackboy]

Hmmm..Research assistant makes sense. Thanks celeria and dopetown. (y)

[Guest SandglassSMD]

I'm in the same boat Bigbuffblackboy. While some other first year friends have already gotten to know some profs or TAs, I haven't because I've been shy and sometimes I just don't have questions to ask/talk to them. But we have to try getting closer to them in some way. I'm thinking of being a research assistant too. Good luck.

[Guest bigbuffblackboy]

Thanks. Yeah I think being a research assistant makes a lot of sense. Success to you as well (y).

[Guest RoseSmurfette]

Take courses that have fewer people in them (this usually happens naturally in your upper level courses). You can also get a better sense of what kind of people they are that way BEFORE you decide to work for them. (Nothing feels like a wasted summer more than working with a supervisor you don't get along well with!).

[Guest piratefan]

Take seminar courses!!! It's pretty hard to go unnoticed when there are less then 20 people in your class (as other posters have attested to). Also, just sitting near the front and asking the occasional question will make yours a familiar face, which certainly helps when you go knocking on doors for a research assistant position.

 

If you're having a hard time finding med/biological sci courses with few people (almost impossible at McGill for instance, until you reach fourth year... which makes it sort of late to start finding references), look for courses in other faculties that you're interested in. Most Ontario schools don't specify who your references must be, and I'm guessing that a really strong letter of reference from, say, a medical humanites prof would be just as (or more) impressive than a letter from that second-year physiology course that you took with two hundred other students. But that's just my guess.

 

Good luck,

 

~pf