78: What Faculty Think and Say about Grad Students with Dr. Ester Trujillo

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Welcome, everyone. I am here today with another guest speaker. This guest speaker is going to be talking to us about what faculty think and say about students. I can't help but laugh, because I'm like oof. What's she gonna say? Our guest today is Dr. Ester Trujillo, who happens to be a good friend of mine. I'll go ahead and get started by reading her bio.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Dr. Trujillo is an assistant professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at DePaul University in Chicago. She obtained a PhD in Chicano Studies from UC Santa Barbara. She's also a former visiting faculty at the Center for Study of Race and Ethnicity at Brown University and Woodrow Wilson fellow. Dr. Trujillo has also been published in the Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies, Aztlan, Latino Studies, and Camino Real. Welcome to the podcast.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Thanks for inviting me.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Of course. The first thing, I know it's gonna be- it feels a little weird for me to ask you because I know you. But the folks who listen to this podcast don't or may not know you. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself, your background? Basically, everything that led up to where you are today, like what led to you pursuing a PhD, and now your current position at DePaul?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Yeah, so I'm a professor at DePaul. I teach Latin American and Latino studies. But I come from a working class background. My parents are immigrants. My dad is from Michoacan, Mexico, and my mom is from San Salvador, El Salvador. Witnessing their difficulties, from being undocumented to becoming US citizens, and everything that that took, really inspired me to investigate in more detail- what exactly is it that immigrants go through? And how do they overcome all of these challenges with what seems like joy? My research surrounds this question of what is the trauma that folks have gone through? But how do they explain it to themselves, and narrativize it in ways that makes sense for their experiences? So my work focuses mostly on children of immigrants who are from El Salvador who left during the Salvadorean civil war in the 80s. It comes directly from my personal experience, because my mom was a wartime migrant.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

And I grew up in a multicultural household. I was born in the US, but I didn't speak English until second grade. And then, things kind of happened for me quickly. Somebody decided to put me on a gifted and talented track early on, and they just kept me on that track. I know now that I pretty much got lucky. There wasn't anything about me that was necessarily more meritorious than anyone else. And I was selected on this track up until college. So I was able to go from high school directly into a four year college, UCLA, where I studied Chicano Studies. When I was there, I learned about research. I learned that research can be a career. I didn't know what a PhD was. I didn't know that people who looked like me could have it. And I entered into the Mellon Mays undergraduate Fellowship Program, which is where we met.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I know. Well, technically, we met in FSP. But I think we really actually met each other.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

We knew each other. But really got to know each other in the Mellon Mays program. In that program, they really encourage you and in many ways push you into academia. So that's what I did. I went into a Ph.D program- MA slash Ph. D program, which grants an MA on the way- directly after graduating. This is not a traditional track. I know some of your listeners may be wondering if this is how it's supposed to be. No, we all carve our own path. But for whatever reason, my path was to go straight through from high school to college to the PhD.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

In my PhD, I studied under Professor Horacio Roque Ramirez, and then under Professor Ralph Armbruster- Sandoval. And I studied the experiences of Salvadorean youth. I've always been really deeply immersed in Chicano Studies. My three degrees are in Chicana and Chicano studies. Now, my research focuses mostly on- how do we define ethnicity and race? And what are the relationships between ethnicity and race for Latinos in the US? What does it have to do with migration? My work is interdisciplinary.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

There's not a lot of professors who are of Central American heritage. So because of that, I get approached by graduate students from all around the country for content, guidance. Your PhD committees or the professors who support you, some of them for sure have to be from your degree granting program. But you can also ask people who are not from your university to support you. I am on committees for people who do not study where I teach, and I informally advise dozens of graduate students who were drawn to me because of our shared content area expertise. I don't know if I've mentioned everything you want me to talk about, but that's who I am.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

It was a big question. We could have gone on and on and on with just that question. But yeah, I feel like you answered it, and segued us into the topic of graduate school and graduate students. I know when I was an undergrad, I would constantly wonder, am I doing this right? What do professors do? Am I asking for too much? Am I bugging them? And what do they think about this process of applying? I would love to hear from your perspective as someone who is working with several graduate students, and even more undergraduates, what do you think? Or what has been your experience? What have you observed being among other faculty about how they review and view the grad school application process?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Yeah, so I'll start by saying that I'm a tenure track professor, which is an interesting situation to be in because I don't have tenure yet. But I'm on tenure track. Most faculty of color at the University are not on tenure track. They're contract term faculty, adjunct faculty. So for graduate students, I think it's important to know that when you're asking for help from a faculty member, they may not be in the best situation to support you all the time. We like to support you. We would like to have more time to support you. But for people who are on these various timelines, it can be really challenging to balance what is expected of us and what we need to do for our own livelihood, and also being able to help the students who we know- they need that content support. As a tenure track professor, I have to get tenure soon. That's my primary focus. So one of the interesting, I think, moments for the podcast idea today was- what do professors think of graduate students? We actually, we don't think about grad students very much.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Saying it like it is.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Because we have a lot of things to do. Maybe that's my personal perspective, because in my department, we don't have a Master's program or a Ph.D program. So we don't have graduate students around us all the time. We have a Master's program that is connected. We have a critical ethnic studies Master's. So those students are in and out of our courses, petitioning graduate credit. And we support - of course- students across the university. But when graduate students have a need, they need to make it known. Otherwise, we go about our day with our other 10,000 things that we have to do. We don't stop to think, oh, where's the draft of the proposal that so and so was supposed to send me?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

I had an experience recently where there was a dissertation proposal defense. I had it on my calendar, so I saw it that week. I thought, how is there a defense and I haven't gotten a draft? The last time I heard from this student was months ago. And it didn't occur to me to check in on on them. When I was a student, my perspective on this was, why are they- did they forget me? Why are they ignoring me? Do they hate me? Does my professor hate me? It's like, no, we don't hate you. We just have other things that we have to do, that have more pressing visible deadlines. I think students can benefit from knowing that. Make yourself known in a courteous way, so that we don't forget about your milestones and your timetable.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

One thing that you're reminding me of when you're telling me that - well, one thing is you have so many things to do that the first thing on your mind is not necessarily the graduate students or individuals that are reaching out to you. Sometimes people will personalize it and think, oh, I'm a terrible person. I missed this deadline. They're ignoring me. Like you said, the person hates me. But in actuality, you're saying, actually, it's helpful to make your needs known.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But I'm wondering, for students who maybe aren't working with you directly, or for students- right now, it's still around the time that folks who are interested in applying to grad school are trying to reach out to professors who they'd like to work with, or who they look up to, or who they want to collaborate with in some way, shape or form in the future. What's your take on that? Because I know that your time is very limited. You've got so many things to do. Then on top of the people who you have made a commitment to work with, and to be on their committees, there's also an endless amount of people who could at any point reach out to you because they want to work with you in the future. How do you deal with that? What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Yeah. My subfield- Central American Studies- it's very small. There's not a lot of faculty who specialize in it. So we do get a lot of students. It feels like sometimes, out of nowhere, they reach out. Hi, you don't know me, but I study at here and here. I came across your work on X topic. Then the ask, right? There's always an ask. There's something they want. One thing that's been helpful for me is when people write what they want in the subject line. Request for meeting from grad student at Yale, for example. I can see that headline. I mentally prepare to open that email. And there's a couple of things they're going to ask in a meeting.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

It's always a good idea to ask for a meeting if you are trying to ask for something more than just a meeting. You shouldn't reach out to someone you don't know to read any of your work. You shouldn't reach out to them- if you don't know them- to make big requests of their time. You can ask for a thirty minute meeting, get to know them. Then say, would you be open to reading something for me? I've read about your work, and I'm wondering how open you are to serving on my committee for my Master's or my PhD. That's a big ask. When people ask us to be on their committee, it's not just the committee. We are committing to writing you letters of recommendation for your entire career.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I don't think people realize this. I didn't even realize this when I asked my committee members to be on my committee. Yeah.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Yeah. So it's not just oh, you'll be a third or fourth reader, which-

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Which is how they always make it seem.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

When you're a student, that's what you think, right?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Yeah.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Then after you are- or when you're close to being done with writing, you're applying to let's say, postdocs, tenure track jobs, or just any job. You need references. You could say, well, who knows me the best? Let's see, these three people from my committee. You ask, hey, can you write me a letter? I'm applying to DePaul, or I'm applying to the UC president's postdoc. And they will write you different letters- one for a job, one for a postdoc. In my case, I got a job. You would think that it's over. But then you're applying for funding opportunities, fellowships. You're applying for special programs or for awards. Those are the people who may still be writing you letters. You should expand your network, but they're gonna write you letters well into your career.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

The experts in your field are also the people who will review your book. They're also the people who will review your articles. They're also the people who are going to be potentially writing you letters for tenure - for your tenure cases and for your promotion cases. If you decide that you don't like your job and you're going to leave, you're going to call them up again. They're gonna write for you again, five, six, seven years after you graduate. So it's a long commitment when a student says- can you be on my committee? It's not that simple for a faculty member to agree or to decide to stop being on your committee. It's not this light thing that we just- oh yeah, sure. Or oh no, nevermind. We really grapple with it. Am I really going to commit to mentoring this student?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

When folks reach out to us, it comes in stages. When you're an undergraduate, we expect you to not know the proper approaches. So instead, what we typically do- at least in my subfield- is that folks will reach out- folks who I know, my peers. They'll say, I have a student who's working on a senior thesis or a paper about this subject, and I've asked them to contact you. Expect an email from them.. Then when I see the email- sometimes much later, because students get nervous. They'll say, hi, I'm a student at wherever, and I studied with professor so and so. Something clicks in my brain that oh, I was expecting this email, and it's here now. A lot of the times students don't know that we set them up to connect with our colleagues, and we prepare our colleagues, We tell them that email is coming.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

If it doesn't come, then we start to wonder- hey, what happened to your student? That starts from the undergraduate level. When students are preparing to apply to graduate school, we also have conversations about it. People will say, I have this brilliant undergraduate, and they're looking at programs. For instance, one colleague said to me, I applied to graduate school a really long time ago, like two decades ago. You're closer to that. Can you talk to them? So we introduce our students to each other before anything even happens, before any applications come through, before any conferences talks are given. We already have an idea of kind of like who's coming in.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

These are the conversations, these are the things that students don't know about. They're not aware that their faculty mentors are initiating these dialogues with other professors. All they think about is like, okay, my faculty mentor is helping me by reviewing my paper, doing X, Y, and Z. But there's so much that goes on behind the scenes. I can imagine it's a big commitment to work with graduate students, to take them on, to have them enroll. So what are your thoughts about how faculty view grad students- not just when they're first applying, but once they're officially enrolled? I guess I'm saying, expand a little bit more on what you've been saying about how faculty work with students and how it's this very long term commitment?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Yeah. How people talk about graduate students behind the scenes is really fascinating. There's an excitement about graduate students coming. There's a competition about which institution is going to get a certain applicant to their program that's really cool and exciting.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Do you think about it as exciting, having that competition?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Yeah. I think about- for instance, my degree is in Chicana and Chicano studies, and now there are two well established programs. And the two departments, I am familiar with a lot of faculty in both of the departments. So I hear sometimes like, oh, can you help us recruit so and so? Because I went to both- one for undergrad and one for graduate school. They say, oh, you're one of our success stories. Can you help us recruit so and so to come here?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

On both ends?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Yeah. I usually, I mean, I defer to my PhD program.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Yeah.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Because I was there longer and I like to support faculty. But once in a while, I hear the excitement from the faculty there. They say, man, we got such a great crop of applicants. I wish that we could admit everyone.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Right.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

So the excitement is like, students are excited to go. But faculty are excited to have students, because what that means is that there's this intellectual injection of vibrant energy. People are coming with new ideas. Students often are better read than faculty. When students read something new and tell us about it, we're like, where did you find that? Where's the article? Who's the author of that book? So we grow in our intellectual strengths because of grad students.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Anyway, there's this really interesting thing that happens. When the application arrives, faculty kind of sit around and they pick. They pick who they want to advise based on what the application says. If an application says, I would like to work with Professor Trujillo, the faculty will say, well, are you available to take a student? And if I'm not available- let's say, I have a really in depth research project that does not allow me to. You know, I'm at capacity. I may have to say no, even if that student is very promising, and I know them, and I like them. Or if I'm going on leave, if I'm not going to be around for a year or two, it may not be responsible for me to take on the student, because I won't be present for them. These are some of the background things, why students should always list more than one faculty member in the department. One person may be a good fit on paper, but they may not be available to take you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Right. That's why I tell the students to reach out in advance if they can, and to ask if they're taking any new students this year, because you never know. Maybe, you're gonna go on leave, or that professor is gonna go on leave. They have that 30 minute meeting with them, and they find out. And they're like, okay, if I had not done this, I would have applied and not gotten in. So it's really helpful.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I'm thinking though- you're saying there's this excitement with having the new grad students. I'm thinking about the graduate students who have been there, and how with each year that you stay in graduate school, there's less and less excitement and more of that push to finish. Sometimes, as folks are on their way out, some people don't finish, or some people are on their way out and decide to go a different path or realize they no longer wanna become a professor. Can you talk a little bit more about that, about how faculty view individuals who either leave their program early, or pursue a non academic career, or just do something other than kind of the normative pathway for PhDs?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Yeah. Unlike other career tracks, academia is founded on this notion of apprenticeship. I take you on. I train you in my likeness. It's a very egocentric practice. We want to make a ton of little mini me's. And the other thing that also factors into it is that when students succeed, we list those successes as successes of our own.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Can you say a little bit more about that? Because I...

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Well, I used to laugh with my PhD advisor because he was promoted right when I was about to file. It was very exciting, and everyone was saying congratulations. And I joked with him- I said, well, you're welcome. Because everything that we do, every step that we achieve, looks well on them. As a faculty member, we have an area in our CV, where we list active and previous mentorship, whether they're formal or informal. We actually put the names of our students and what stage they're in.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

So if I mentor McNair students, it's on my CV. If I mentor a PhD student, and I'm the Chair, I write that I'm the chair, or that I'm an external reader, or whatever I might be. Then a lot of faculty keep metrics on how many letters of recommendation they complete, and they list that under their service. So part of what we are paid to do is to mentor students. And we list it, every single one. When students are achieving candidacy, it matters to us, because you go from being just a graduate student to a PhD candidate. It looks good for us. If you file and you complete, we can put the date of completion next to your degree, and that shows our productivity.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

I think one of the frustrating things for faculty is that graduate school is challenging. As students go through the years, things get more difficult- emotionally, intellectually. The questions that you ask get more complicated. The dynamics among people in the program get more complicated. There's sometimes feelings of feeling discouraged, feeling disgruntled, feeling attacked by other people as a student. Then as a faculty member, you're kind of a little removed from that, from the actual violence that graduate school enacts on peoples' psyche. So what we see sometimes is - why is the student not achieving the milestone that they were supposed to achieve? What's going on here? A responsive faculty member would say, we're a couple months past due of this benchmark. What's going on?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

But a lot of faculty, like I said, we're busy. We may not even remember that there was a benchmark, unless there's a structure in the department- a graduate advisor, or somebody who says, here are the students that are not at benchmark. So if the students start to disappear, or if they're not showing up, or if they're not responding to emails, we kind of move on. We have things to do, right? And I know that you're bringing me on here because I'm a little blunt.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Yes.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

There are things we have to do. So unfortunately, it's not part- we're not trained to support students emotionally. Perhaps we should be, perhaps we should be.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

It doesn't seem like you're trained to support students in pursuing any other routes either, because like you said, it's an apprenticeship model.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

It's very difficult, because the benchmarks don't measure alternatives to academia. And can be really challenging. Some of my history- you know that I wanted to leave academia. I was already applying to jobs in government. I was applying to think tanks, and all these kind of non government organizations as well. And it surprised my advisor. My PhD advisor said, wait, why? What? But you're gonna apply to be a professor though, right? I said, no. He said, why not? You should at least try that. I said, alright, I'll try. And it worked out- which is also not a typical story. A lot of people try for many, many years. I guess that my area of expertise matched with the market one of that year. There's no way to know. There's no way that my work is in any shape or way better than anyone elses. It was just, it fit. It was the right time. I got lucky.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

But I was ready to apply to non academic positions as well, because I was keeping an eye out on what was happening outside of academia. I was positioning myself professionally by working in student affairs jobs as my part time jobs. And I was able to negotiate longer working hours than what was allowed in our TA contract. I TA'd- because I had to- but I also got 10 hours working for the graduate division. Or I also worked as the vice president for the grad student association. So I was in direct contact with directors, deans, folks at the administrative level. When I saw what their jobs were, I thought that's a possible track for me too.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

I wasn't completely 100% set on academia, and revealing that to my committee was challenging because they were like, no, no, no, no. But I will say this- now that I'm on the other side, professors don't just list the student they mentored and their graduation date and their university placement. We also say that all of our students are placed, all of our students are employed in some way, to boost those numbers in the reports that we have to send to the college. So whatever you end up doing, we hear about it. We know about it. We talk about it. People are very interested in that as well. They'll say, oh, isn't so and so a dean somewhere? Or isn't so and so an IT tech person at a large corporation? Yeah, they are. It would be great to have an alumni panel, you know, to bring students back and see the diversity of what's possible with a degree in this from here. But yeah, there's definitely not a culture that has trained us in any way to support students leaving academia, because all we know is what we've done.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Yeah. One thing I have told students- current graduate students- that have asked me for advice, who say I don't think I want to become a professor anymore, but I think I want to get a job in student affairs or in the academic affairs, or do what you do. What do you recommend? I usually say, you know what I did was what you were just saying. I had my part time jobs. I had basically, one foot in one door, and another foot in another. But I kept those two things very separate. I didn't really communicate that with my advisor, because I did not have a positive experience, especially with my first advisor who was very toxic, and who discouraged anything that wasn't research. It was all a waste of time according to that individual.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So I tell them, depending on the culture of your department, if it's discouraged, you may want to keep it to yourself. And I hate having to say things like that, because I don't like encouraging people to have to hide anything or to not be themselves in any spaces. But it's true. In some cases, it may further complicate things. In my experience, when I told my second advisor who was more supportive about me leaving academia and no longer pursuing tenure track jobs, he was unwilling to write me recommendation letters for anything other than tenure track jobs. So it's interesting to hear you say that in other departments, at least, they do have this investment of following up with people who have completed a PhD to see where they are and what kind of careers they pursued.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But I'm wondering, is that still true about folks that have left? Is there any investment whatsoever? Do you just completely move on if a student leaves the program early? Because I am hearing about some people who are debating whether or not to stay in grad school and considering leaving- and leaving perhaps with a Master's, or leaving once they've obtained their candidacy. They're no longer interested or invested in finishing.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

One thing that I like to always say is that the language that I prefer to use when people leave a program is that they separate. They separated from the program. Because I feel like leaving still implies that there's something there that was worthwhile, and you're leaving it. But separating is like I've seen my choices, and I'm making the choice to separate. Definitely, a lot of people separate from programs. I wouldn't say that there's the same level of investment in following up. I think there's more investment in the people who completed it, because those are the metrics that the college tracks.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

When it comes to curiosity, individuals who cared about you when you were there, they will continue to care about you when you're separated. It's about your individual relationships with those people. In terms of whether you should keep it secret or not that you're pursuing these types of job hunting activities, it's up to you. But I will say that it is necessary to build networks outside of your academic network that are separate networks.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Definitely.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

One thing that I did, I approached my College Alumni Association- which is a very strong alumni association- at UCLA. And I started going to networking events and meeting as many people as I could to see what kind of jobs they had. One thing that I learned early on is that it's easier for you to get a job in any field - especially in STEM fields- but in any field if you know somebody who works there already. They recommend you. Sometimes they even get a bonus if you are hired. So you need to meet as many people as you can. And it's hard, I know. I'm extroverted, so it's not that hard for me. But for introverts, it's really hard.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

I love that you just put it out there.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

It's not hard for me, but I know it takes time. And I've seen, I've coached my students through it. So I've seen how hard it is. But one thing you can do is if you meet somebody, and they seem like they have a career that you would love, ask them for their card or ask to connect with them on LinkedIn. That's all you have to do in the interaction. Listen to them and just ask for their contact. When you go home - that same day or within 24 hours- email them. Send them a message and say it was great to meet you. I'm really interested in what it took for you to get to where you are. Do you have time for an informational meeting- 15 minutes, 20 minutes- just to tell me about how you got there. Then it becomes one on one, so it's less intimidating than in a large network setting.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

I did this with someone who I met, who worked in a Student Affairs position, who I met at an event. I emailed them right away. I got an informational meeting with them the next day. And at the meeting, this person who had been trained in networking, printed out the web profiles of three people I should talk to. Gave me the profiles and said, here's their email. Make sure you contact them this week. And it was the same type of thing. Once I've contacted those people- they knew that I was going to contact them because I was already set up. They had heard of me. They said, oh, yeah, so and so said that you'd be getting in touch. How can I help you? What would you like to know?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

People are very friendly and willing to talk about what they're passionate about. So I felt very confident that I had enough connections in student affairs in LA that I could- if I needed to- transition into a job there. Just because of the people that you meet, and learning how they did it- it's very possible. I also learned that if you have a few years of graduate school under your belt, even if you didn't finish a degree, it counts toward work experience in higher education. I think you probably know about that more than me- what it counts toward. They pay you more when you start.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Yeah, depending on your education level, your experience, that's where you start on the scale too. Yeah. Wow, this is all really insightful. I love how you used the term separating rather than leaving, because I'm still using- I've been using the term. My last episode was on leaving higher ed, as opposed to separating from higher ed- although when you say the word separate, I can't help but think of it as the toxic relationship that I'm breaking up with, separating from. I make that association with that term as well.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I'm wondering if there's anything else that maybe we didn't get to talk about today, with regard to what you wish students knew - both undergrad and grad students- about professors, about what it is that you're all juggling, and how to best interact and work with professors?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Well, I have two things. One is the things that professors say to each other about students, depending on how they're feeling about their students, is usually a reflection of how they're feeling about themselves and what they were doing at that same point in their training. So they might be comparing their students to what they think they should be doing based on what their experience was, right? It was very difficult for me, once I became a professor, to have my professors- my former professors- talking to me about graduate students, because these were my friends. These students were my friends. I would hear them say, I'm not sure so and so is going to finish. I'm not sure whether they're fully committed. And I'm not sure whether - all of these kind of negative feelings about students.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

I started thinking about it, and I realized, well, I wonder if this student has communicated recently with their faculty to explain what's going on and what's coming next? Because it's very difficult to get into a habit of showing up for yourself and letting your faculty know- hey, I'm late on this benchmark. But within six months, I'll be there. Because as faculty, then, you get a frame of reference of like, okay, they know where they're at. We can move forward now. That is opposed to- I don't know anything about where they are. They disappeared. Have they given up? You don't want negative feelings to form around where you are. So locate yourself and be accountable about where you are with your committee, at least. At the end of the day, to get your degree, you just need three signatures. Those are the signatures that matter.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

The other thing that I'll mention is that faculty are people with lives, and illnesses, and families, and financial problems and a lot of different problems. Sometimes, especially when we see our high functioning faculty who are superstars and they seem to have it all together and know everything. Everybody has issues. Everybody has insecurities, things they're dealing with that people don't know about. So often, your challenges are not just about you. Our relationship with students are not just about the students' shortcomings or whatever. It might be about us and what we're going through. Maybe I feel like today, going to graduate school was a mistake. Why am I a professor? This sucks.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

You know, I'm getting violence from committees at the university and violence from maybe my department chair- which I don't experience, by the way, thankfully. But maybe I'm getting violence from the institution. And now I'm projecting it onto my students, because I haven't developed a healthy way of coping with that. Sometimes it's about our personal challenges being projected and not about how meritorious the students are. I think that that is really difficult to come face to face with.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

After I finished my degree, I started learning about certain faculty who had a variety of different health challenges. It was really difficult for me because I felt guilty. I thought, oh, I was talking back to my professor or I was being too demanding on their time. And I had no idea that all of this was going on in the background, until I graduated and they revealed a little bit more about their personal lives. Because with students, we do maintain a level of professional separation, which I think is necessary. But the relationship evolves over time, as well.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

What am I trying to say? You said so much. I heard the part about communicating with faculty and humanizing faculty, and you saying that faculty have their own lives. But at the same time, sometimes there's this disconnect between the students and the faculty. The students not saying what's going on with them, not advocating for themselves. Then they go missing, and you think the worst about them. And vice versa- students not thinking about the faculty and their lives, and assuming that they're available at all hours, or personalizing something that the faculty member said to them, but it's really it's about the faculty member.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But then I also heard you say professional separation. So I think there's this fine line of making sure that you communicate, making sure that you advocate for yourself, trying your best to not personalize things. And at the same time, not do the opposite of over communicating and over sharing and getting too personal either. I don't even know how to give advice to students other than to say, just make sure you're always advocating for yourself. No matter what, make sure you're advocating for yourself. Make sure that you try your best to communicate, so that you don't let other people kind of speak for you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

This is really, really helpful and insightful. I think that a lot of the students or listeners will gain a lot from your conversation, from everything that you've share from your experience. If they're interested in reaching out to you, if they resonated with something that you said, if they're one of the folks who are part of your specialization, or if they're a Central American student who was just was inspired by you- how can they reach you? Is there a way for them to reach you or follow you?

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Yeah, people can follow me on Twitter @entrujillo. My inbox- my work email- is also open. One of the advice takeaways that I would give people is be communicative with goals. If you're entering into a situation where there's gonna be a challenge for you- maybe you're behind. Maybe you feel like your professor hates you, or you feel like you're going to drop out or something. That's okay. But just communicate some kind of timetable to us. Maybe you haven't shown up. I definitely hid from my advisor for about two years after my proposal defense, because I really wanted to leave. I really wanted to leave. I filled out the paperwork to withdraw from my Ph. D. program and everything.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

When I showed up with the withdrawal paperwork, my advisor was like, where is this coming from? I said, you haven't talked to me in two years. And he said, you haven't talked to me in two years. I was like, well, why should I talk to you? Why don't you talk to me? So there's this miscommunication. And at that point, he said, let's give it six months. Let's work on a monthly basis. That timetable worked. I emailed him after we talked. I said, here's what I need from you in the next six months to feel like I can stay. And he was responsive. He said, here's what I promise to do, that I haven't done. And in the next six months, we'll have another conversation.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

If you reach out to faculty about you want to come to our grad program, just say- can I meet with you on Zoom for 20 minutes? And give us a date. Give us two times- put the time. Put the time in, put the benchmark in. That way we know you're more serious. That way we can start to schedule you in. That way we know at what point we have to check in with you about whether you're going to drop out or stay or turn in your exam or if you need a letter of rec. We need to know with time, because the schedule- at least for me- the schedule is the master. So yeah, if people want to reach out to me, you can do that. But ask me for a specific time.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Be specific and to the point. Focus on your goals. Don't waste people's time. I think that wraps up today's episode. Thank you so much, Ester, I always learn something from you. Good or bad, I always learned something from you.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

Glad to have this frank conversation. But you know, I said we don't think about grad students. We do. We think about them sometimes.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Sometimes.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

It's usually good things.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Yeah.

Dr. Ester Trujillo

I think most grad students don't realize that. But we're usually very proud to say that we have grad students.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

That's awesome. Thank you again.