Unlock the Power of eSignature Legality for Supervision in Canada with airSlate SignNow

How to eSign a document: e-signature legality for Supervision in Canada

i'm an associate professor of pediatrics at university of british columbia my primary area of research is in nutrition what is the best way to contact a professor they send them an email they will call them they will use linkedin or do we just look for the graduate students in the lab and tell them to help me talk to the professionals you make sure that you keep your email to your key strengths who are you what is your background what what can you what can you offer um hi everyone welcome again to my channel my name is pitaya sessele i'm a phd student at the university of alberta today i have the pleasure of having with me dr alango i'm a professor at the university of british columbia this is the first time i'm having a professor come to share you know he's on side of the story of terms of coming to school in canada so we met in the conference the canada nigerian society conference in ottawa and then i spoke with him and he generously agreed to come share his own side of the story so in just a few ways about yourself okay so i'm an associate professor of pediatrics at university of british columbia uh my primary area of research is in nutrition uh specifically on protein and amino acids uh through the life cycle so i do study children and pregnant and lactating mothers a lot but i do have studies across a life cycle which starts uh as as you all know from pregnancy which is conception and then all the way through to aging elderly people as well a newborn than any anybody who's in between every young men young women so we kind of do the entire life spectrum and uh so yeah i've been i'm an associate professor so i've been here in canada for i don't know 20 25 years plus a wow that's a long long time right okay i really enjoyed your presentation in the cns conference it was very fantastic on protein powder i just paid close attention it was really great okay so um there are a couple of uh questions that some of my viewers have been i've done some videos on it but they've also i wanted to see professional side of it and the biggest part you know one of the videos i have the biggest review on my channel is really how to contact professors and how to secure a supervisor so one of the first questions i get asked peter what is the best way to contact a professor do we send them an email they will call them do we use linkedin or do we just look for the graduate students in the lab and tell them to help me talk to the professors so if you are contacting supervisors from outside the country then of course you know the the best way to do it i would be i would suggest is to send an email an email is more professional that way you can you can make your case make sure that the email is addressed properly i think it's very important to start the email properly and addressing the professor by their correct name uh and calling them professor so and so doctor so i think it's very important because it sets the stage for us as professors when we read the email that a person is writing it's almost like a i'm a bit old-fashioned um i grew up in the time when internet was even not there so and we used to even write letters so i think it's the email is the in the form of a letter um of course uh make sure that the email is at the right length it cannot be too short it cannot be too long you want to keep it so that the professor has just enough time to take a quick look at it and make a decision on whether they want to reach back to you make sure that you keep your email to your key strengths who are you what is your background what what can you what can you offer for science in general and and where do you want to go in your career so again be be as clear and simple as possible and of course i'm by no means not saying you shouldn't be contacting via linkedin and all those other social media aspects uh do uh use all those various different avenues but for the most part i think professors still do rely on an email and you don't need to you can attach a resume or a cv okay because a lot of people do look at it because if you like the email then i'm looking for okay what else can i get so it does help to have a clear uh and a crisp resume or a cv attached to it right off the bat so we can make some quick responses right away okay i'm sorry that's fantastic and then you you mentioned about contents of email so some someone also asked me um can i just maybe you know the way you send like a resume to uh recruiters can you just do it in form of a cover letter you know or just you know like a mention just put it in the body of the image sort of attaching the email as a cover letter do you have preference for that yeah i think um in in today's world i think there is a lot of concern about opening documents so i would suggest that whatever you need to say put it right in the email and if you want to attach a detailed cover letter please do so but make sure that the email is your front main content delivery because opening the email itself you know we all usually tend to have a bit of apprehension so right over off the back you know you can see what we can see and if you're interested we will then open the attachments absolutely absolutely and then it do kind of also pay preference to looking at a transcript right away when you look at their email and their their cv uh i yeah i mean it really depends on if it is a strong candidate and or i should say a candidate who can actually fit in with the work that i'm doing then the transcript comes second so i look at the cd first or the resume first uh and then i do i mean of course you know that can it's not a make or a break deal you can always make a note in your email saying that i can attach a copy of the transcripts if you are interested and that way i know that you know you can give it to me if i'm interested in it absolutely thank you so much and then another question um people have also said oh i i sent email to a particular professor and you know i haven't heard back from that professor so um so is it that maybe there is no funding or you know the professors are not interested or the email is not well written what are some of the things that will you know make like professors not to respond to an email yeah all of what you just mentioned uh so keep in mind that at least in canada and this probably applies to the united states and perhaps a few european countries as well a lot of us who have a research lab are restricted by the amount of funding that we have at that moment that might change from month to month from year to year and based on funding is how we can even accept students it might be the best student in the world but we may not have the funding to accept them so that could be one of the reason some professors do respond back saying that i'm not taking any students this year but also keep in mind that you are not the only student requesting a position um we do get quite a lot of emails and and a lot of us tend to and again if you're interested we will get back to you right away and if we do not hear from them my suggestion is to reach out one more time or maybe two more times um after that i would suggest that you step away because even after three contacts if they haven't responded back it clearly shows that they either don't have the time or they or the funding uh or perhaps you know they are not taking students so you can assume all of that absolutely that is such a fantastic experience and i have a very um another question that you know some students have also asked um can they send email at any time maybe you know especially considering time differences you know sending an email maybe when a professor might be sleeping on the weekends you know in the evening so are there any consideration of that or maybe when you open your email on monday you know you just if you have time to look at back stock emails you just look at them or yeah i mean i guess that depends on each individual person and i think with the global world that we live in now i don't think that time necessarily matters because when it is 2 a.m somewhere it's 2 p.m somewhere else absolutely so i don't think i would worry too much about the timing of the day perhaps but i think the the dates work um so in terms of uh as a student coming in from international you probably have deadlines to get into university and as long as you can time yourself work your way back from that and then you know ideally prefer to send an email uh at the beginning of the week okay yeah because it it it can't happen that monday morning when i come in if my email is like 300 emails deep and if you sent me an email on friday you know you're probably way back in the lineup that's right that's right uh so maybe send it on a tuesday morning that way you have cleared the email on mondays and then they're fresh on tuesday so okay that is very useful that is very useful i remember when i was sending emails i i put that into consideration as well um just to make sure it's like you know on it maybe when they come early in the morning your email is just like at the top so that way you easily found and discover so one of the last questions um some i've also mentioned that when they um look at you know sometimes maybe when they want to describe like the professor's research area maybe they want to include like recent you know publications and like sometimes i know people really find it difficult to know you know is this like a just sad project that the professor just did like a little collaboration on or this is like a main project that they have like prospects to kind of continue in the lab so there you know any preference or if if your students say they are interested in the maybe your recent publication and it's like a far far maybe just like a you know a little collaboration that you did so at the end of or advice on that um yeah i think that that really depends on a case-by-case basis sometimes faculty have a clear stream of research which might all be in the same direction and if it happened to be something that you're interested in then of course make a comment about it but my general suggestion in health sciences is be a little bit more open when you write the email don't tell me that you're interested only in this i have a you know i have an interest in this because you never know they might even be writing a grant at that moment for something which is completely different from what you're interested in but they might be able to take students on that front and you you as an international student can then be exposed to that new you know new area and maybe you might find that exciting too right so leave yourself a little bit more room um don't be so specific the fact that you read one of their recent papers is good to know but it's not like we are going to be hugely convinced by you know you reading one of our papers right so the overall area you can mention but also keep yourself a little bit more open to new avenues okay that is such a fantastic response so uh just the very last one last question about this so in terms of experience so some have also reached out to me that they apply for masters they don't have any publication or like core research experience apart from their undergraduate research and then some people that are also coming for phd probably they did like a course based masters and they maybe they don't have the chance of getting a publication so i know how do you kind of put those into consideration in terms of their required skills yeah i think you know i mean everybody likes to see somebody who has a bit of experience for sure so my suggestion is to if you do have a research-based masters under you already make sure you comment on that make sure that you describe the work in brief sentences and the and the methods that you learned from that and the techniques that you might be able to work on that i think it does help because that tells us that you learn something from your masters and you want to move on using those skills if you're applying for a master's and of course you wouldn't have that much experience but if you have been in as a volunteer in some laboratory with some exposure to methods then make a comment about that i think speaking about yourself you are the best advocate for yourself so make sure you talk about what skills you have so that you know the the the professor is not imagining anything but rather seeing oh this person has x y and z and leave it at that again you you may end up using those methods in the new lab or you may not but having that experience is just a fact and just leave it at that absolutely absolutely thank you so much for really helping to address this first part of the conversation really appreciate the time that you've taken to talk about tips on how to get supervisors and approach professors so i believe this is going to be very helpful to my audience so i wish them all the best and you know looking for prospective supervisor