Shubha Tole on the PhD journey - from learning to ask questions to finding mentors
“A PhD is a journey in which you develop the confidence to NOT know things and learn to find out the answers” - Shubha Tole, PhD
Every PhD aspirant has their own perception of what doing a PhD will or should be like for them. How it actually turns out can depend on several factors, most importantly, on their ability to deal with the unexpected outcomes and learnings that a PhD journey can offer.
Good mentorship and guidance can make this journey a less stressful and more rewarding experience—scientifically and personally. But how can PhD students find this guidance? And what can mentors do to support them?
When I reflected on this subject, one of the first people who came to mind to reach out to for answers was Shubha Tole. She is a not only a distinguished scientist and science communicator but a vocal advocate for providing PhD students and postdocs good mentorship and career guidance.
Shubha Tole obtained her BSc in Life Sciences and Biochemistry from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, and her MSc and PhD from Caltech, USA. She worked at the University of Chicago as a post-doctoral fellow, and joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai as a faculty member in 1999.
She has, to her name, several prestigious accolades: the Bernice Grafstein award for outstanding accomplishments in mentorship from the Society for Neuroscience (2022); the Infosys Science Foundation Award for Life sciences (2014); the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award (2010); the Research Award for Innovation in Neurosciences (RAIN) from the Society for Neuroscience (2008); the National Woman Bioscientist award from the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India (2008); the Swarnajayanti Fellowship awarded by the Department of Science in Technology, Govt. of India (2005); and the Wellcome Trust Senior International Fellowship (1999).
She is a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, the Indian Academy of Science, and the National Academy of Science; a member of the Board of Directors of the ALBA Network; and a member of the DANA Alliance for Brain Initiatives. She served as Chair of the Women in Science panel and as a member of the panel on Scientific Values of the Indian Academy of Sciences from 2019 to 2022.
Doing a PhD and pursuing academic research beyond the degree is an exciting but arduous journey. Often, the formal training and supervision or official support PhD students receive may not be adequate to help them learn, progress, and grow. What are some key learning milestones of this journey from your perspective?
I think a PhD journey is most misunderstood in that people think they’re in the lab to learn techniques and do experiments, but what they are actually there for is to train their mind how to ask questions. And this sounds very lofty, because finally, you want to pipette or whatever, and do experiments. But it’s a journey in which you develop the confidence to not know things and learn to find out the answers. Now, this is very counterintuitive because you want to know more and more during a PhD, but it’s developing the confidence to say, “This is what I want to know more about, and I want to learn the tools to ask questions.”
Now, this sounds very simple, but what interferes with this process is actually self-doubt. It’s a good trait for a scientist to always question themselves; overconfidence is not useful. But self-doubt often ends up with you spiraling down to “I’m inadequate. Everybody else is better than I am. Everybody else seems to know what they’re doing.”
A friend said one of the most useful things to me when I was in my first year of PhD. I was struggling because our Introduction to Neuroscience class used to take up all our time, and experiments were not working. And my friend said, “You know, Shubha, it’s supposed to be hard. This is not an easy path. And the fact that we’re struggling simply means that we are normal. Because we’re trying something incredibly difficult.” And this was something that reassured me. I realized that unlike my undergraduate years when I felt (mostly) on top of my studies, in graduate school, I was swimming in waters where I wasn’t sure I could keep afloat, but that this was actually normal and I wasn’t an inadequate person.
Students in PhD programs should feel a sense of satisfaction that they’re amongst the privileged who can swim around in deep waters and not know what’s going on! You have to find a way to enjoy this. This transformation of mindset is the hardest part.
How can students overcome the feeling of inadequacy and start this transformation in their PhD?
I think you need two types of groups to help you achieve this: you need a support group, which is a self-affirming, comfortable space. But you also need a group of people who will challenge you. That’s the only way you can get out of the feelings of inadequacy.
In your personal life, you make friends with people who are like you, whose ideas resonate with you, and so on. In the scientific profession, it actually helps to associate with people who make you uncomfortable—scientifically, professionally—someone who continuously challenges you, and says, “Okay, you found this or that particular paper, but I found some other paper. How do they both gel?” It’s going to make you feel uncomfortable thinking, “Oh my God, I didn’t read this paper properly,” or “I didn’t read three more,” or “This person knows so much more than I do!” But this is the path to learning to swim, to grow in your scientific and analytical abilities.
I find that new students often rely on their batchmates—they avoid the very senior students because they’re scared of them. “They know so much!” And this is counterproductive.
I’ve tried to encourage new students to cultivate these connections, but sometimes not succeeded, because finally, people have to do it for themselves.
So, maybe do it with a friend or do it as a group. If you are a group of people who are new, feeling inadequate, and are fumbling around, you need to find seniors who can offer some way out of this situation through their stories, since they are people who undertook this journey before you. You don’t have to follow their path. But just seeing that there are 20 different paths that were possible, you will try the 21st and 22nd paths yourself.
Talk to people who are most unlike you, most different from you—as many of them as possible. Talking to somebody and trying to see their story from their point of view is helpful. It doesn’t have to be your story. But knowing it will help you.
As you said, in times of uncertainty or when we are not sure about ourselves, we tend to find affinity with those who are similar to us. So, when factors like cultural differences or personality differences exist, some students may struggle to take initiatives like reaching out to those they would like to but may not feel comfortable approaching. What advice would you share for them?
I have something counterintuitive to suggest: Sit outside yourself and look at yourself, analyze yourself, and see what’s happening. Analyze the behavior of this individual. You might ask questions like “Could this individual have made the lab meeting that just happened a learning experience?” or “Could this individual have used the afternoon to make whatever it was they were doing more rewarding, even if the experiment failed at the end?”
It’s a worthwhile exercise. You actually have the answers inside you, but you’re just not listening to yourself.
What can the people around PhD students—their seniors, supervisors, or mentors—do to assist them in this journey?
By making themselves more approachable by continuously telling younger/junior individuals that they’ve all been there. People have different ways of dealing with younger/junior people. Saying things like “Why didn’t you do this?” or “Why don’t you do that?” can be a little off-putting. But instead, they could say, “When I was at the stage you’re in, nobody told me this was how you should read papers! Let me show you how you can read papers much faster.” This is a much better way to engage with them.
A PhD student two years ahead of me taught me how to read papers because I would get stuck in the methods etc. She said, “First read the abstract and, next, go through all the figures and their legends, so you have some idea of what’s in the paper. Then read the introduction and discussion.” This gave me a roadmap.
So, my advice to seniors and mentors is to always remember what it was like to be at that earlier stage of their careers.
And make people feel welcome.
When I joined my PhD program, a senior student realized I was feeling lost in the lab. So, he drew a little cartoon layout of the whole lab…benches, equipment, etc. I don’t remember the exact content of this drawing, but I do remember how this made me feel. I could have walked around and found out where things were myself, but it was just nice to know that here in this lab, people will draw maps for you!
This conversation left me with a lot of food for thought, as I’m sure it will you. If you’d like to read more from Shubha on mentorship and support for students, do read this piece she published in Nature Cell Biology and go through the list of resources and advice from her on her lab’s website. You can also find her on X (formerly Twitter) @shubhatole.
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