As a trained scientist, I had a fantastic research mentor. We talked about my research project, which experiments to prioritize and what the data meant, and we even sometimes discussed personal things like family and ties to home. When I joined his lab, I was open with my mentor about my interest in a teaching career and my desire to run a small research program working primarily with undergraduates.
However, my career aspirations evolved over the course of my graduate training, and I found myself hesitant to share my new career goals. Though I recognized that my interactions with my mentor were quite positive and supportive, I still feared that sharing my non–academic scientist aspirations would somehow disappoint him, or worse, that I wouldn’t get the fullest support for my research training.
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