The Grad Student 3-In-1: Scientist, Student, Teacher

Worried about teaching your first class as a graduate student? Here’s how to hack it.

AsianScientist (Nov. 22, 2016) – As a graduate student, most of your time is probably spent in the lab poring over protocols, mixing reagents, analyzing data and frowning at the experiment outcome. As if this isn’t enough to keep you busy, you have exams coming up at the end of the semester and undergraduate students to babysit!

I’ll admit, it isn’t easy being a scientist, a student and a teacher all at once. Some days, your personal anthem becomes “Please help; despairing!”, accompanied by the drumbeat of your panicking heart. Having said this, stepping into the shoes of an educator can really be quite an eye-opening experience.

While the nurturing of young minds is not everyone’s cup of tea, the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next is a noble responsibility, and somehow the mantle has been laid upon your shoulders. You’ve got a quota of teaching hours to meet, so you’d better get started.

  1. Prepare yourself!
  2. If you’re going to speak in front of an audience that looks up to you as a subject matter expert, you’d better be ready to walk the talk. Undergraduate tutorials are like that. Eager and impressionable freshmen had to pry their lethargic bodies from bed to copy down your answers bask in the aura of your intelligence. The biggest letdown would be for you to appear clueless about the teaching content.

    Unfortunately, you will not always teach what you are familiar with. Fortunately, not every student in the room is paying attention—some are just there for the attendance. Neither of the above points should deter you from conducting a meaningful tutorial. By making it a point to read up on the lecture material (as a graduate student you should be able to gather depth and insight relatively quickly), you’ll fill the shoes of the educator that the undergraduate students always thought you were.

    Even better, share some tips that helped you quickly grasp important concepts that were initially foreign to you. Know that there could always be a handful of students who may be taking their fledgling steps toward becoming a future scientist, and your example could either inspire or exasperate.

  3. Encourage chatter
  4. A tutorial is supposed to be a discussion. The tutorial questions provided by professors were meant to encourage further exploration of the subject matter. In my experience, though, there is usually some inertia among undergraduate students when it comes to question and answer; perhaps they don’t know what they don’t know, or they’re shy to share their thoughts. Because of this, the awkward silence that transpires after you pose a question to them can sometimes be downright depressing.

    A tutor who just wants to get things over and done with may fall into the habit of spoon feeding—rattling off answers or having students copy off a presentation slide, with little or no intellectual engagement whatsoever. Some undergraduate students actually prefer this style of learning, if only because they may not have experienced something better.

    But pause for a moment and imagine a classroom where students are encouraged (read as ‘coerced’ or ‘forced’) to share their responses to tutorial questions with one another. A more competent student may pounce at the opportunity to showcase his or her brilliance, thus illuminating the classroom for all others who may be shrouded in doubts. Conversely, an incorrect answer by a weaker student can be used to highlight misconceptions, a trial-and-error of sorts in real-time that eventually distills a clear solution. Wouldn’t this style of tutorial be more engaging for everyone involved? Sure, it might take a bit longer to get through the tutorial, but if students leave the classroom feeling like they really understood something, then it can only be time well spent.


Jeremy received his PhD from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he studied the role of the tumor microenvironment in cancer progression.

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