While much is written about various approaches and activities grad students can use to keep engaged and motivated and to succeed (such as wonderful advice provided here, here, here, here, and in many other articles and posts), one particular useful activity that is often overlooked is mentoring junior students.
Nearly always, there are undergrads (and professional Masters students) looking for research experience. Nearly always, a graduate student can define a research project within their own larger-scale research that is perfectly suitable for an undergrad to play with. A graduate student that takes on this challenge does a lot of good not only for the undergraduates, PIs, school (and the society in general), they also stand to gain much from it themselves.
There are many obvious benefits to mentoring students: Continue reading
