My PhD student is stuck. How do I teach them perseverance and problem solving?

Email Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Whatsapp X Find a new job Illustration: David Parkins The problem Dear Nature , I’m a new principal investigator (PI) with my own laboratory at a prestigious university. The PhD students who make it into our programme have already achieved a lot academically. But, sometimes, that masks their inexperience with the challenges of scientific research, which requires them to be independent decision makers and problem solvers. From my own graduate work, I know that it’s only when you hit an experimental roadblock that you get to refine your hypothesis and hone your technical skills. But my new graduate students feel like they’ve failed when their first experiments don’t work as planned. It takes a special kind of perseverance to be an independent researcher, and I see this lack of confidence in many of my students. However, I want to avoid ‘swooping in’ to solve my students’ problems for them. Is there a good recipe for developing the ‘perseverance muscle’ in my PhD students? — A non-helicopter PI The advice You’re experiencing a normal phenomenon — one that you clearly remember from your own training. Still, it can be hard to know how to proceed when you’re on the other side of the lab bench. How to train early-career scientists to weather failure