How to foster a positive relationship with my team in a PhD program when I am older and have work experience?

Question

I recently joined a PhD program after accumulating nine years of work experience. My decision to pursue this program was driven by personal ambition, aiming to refine my skills and engage with academia. However, sometimes, I sense a potential misunderstanding (i.e., being overqualified) from the team regarding my experience compared to my peers in the group (nothing negative here at all; I am learning from all of them). While my supervisor and team are very supportive and kind, I want to ensure our relationship remains positive and constructive and they don't assume I know more than required, to not lose any opportunity to learn from them. How can I navigate this situation effectively, ensuring my contributions are valued without causing any sense of insecurity?

Edit After some answers, I have updated the question to avoid misunderstandings due to language barriers, as English is not my first language.

Answer 1

I would start by worrying a lot less about imagined insecurities in others and get to work.

Don't treat others like you're superior to them; if you do, it won't be their insecurities that are the problem, it will be that they think you're a jerk.

Nine years in a job is something but not that impressive. Most people accumulate 40 or so years of work by the time they retire if they're lucky enough to do so, and a lot of innovation comes from people with no experience at all until they had an idea.

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The answer above was written for a previous version of the question. My guidance for the new version would be in the same direction, but perhaps softened a bit.

I would start by staying humble and realizing that your experience, valuable as it may be to you, is not going to apply in all ways to a different context. In some ways, experience can hurt rather than help, because you're used to patterns and expectations that you need to un-learn to be successful in the new environment.

I do not think your new colleagues will assume that you know things you don't, but if they do, this is probably not anything specific to your expertise. It's more typical for people to assume everyone else knows what they know themselves. If you need more guidance in a specific situation, like someone assumes you are familiar with a particular machine or software tool or database but you are not, say so. You do not need to refer to your past experience when asking for clarification, you only need to be honest about what you do and do not know as it comes up.

I would caution against putting too much focus on your experience. If you bring it up, even if you have good intentions, I think that people will assume you're bringing it up as a humblebrag and it will produce the opposite effect that you are intending. I think most of us have met at least one person in their professional career that seemingly could not help starting each of their sentences with something like, "well, when I was at (famous university)/FAANG/(the White House)..." as if their primary personality trait was a particular job they held in the past. That's not a great way to make friends but is a great way to annoy everyone around you.

Answer 2

Looking back over the decades...

My incoming graduate class had both fresh university graduates and those who had worked (mainly in engineering positions at, say, IBM or GE) for a while (including more than 9 years). Broadly speaking, those who had worked for a while struggled more with coursework because they were out of practice with the whole lectures/problem sets/exam routine. On the other hand, they knew why they were going to grad school better than the fresh graduates - after all they had given up a well-paying job to go back to school.

On the research side, well, there we were all equal - we all had to learn what it was about, how to do it, and actually get things done. We all struggled at the beginning, even the experienced engineers. Doing PhD research is not doing a regular engineering job.

I will say, aside a few outliers, the experienced folks graduated a bit earlier. This mainly goes back to them knowing why they were in grad school. Particularly those with families focused more on getting to the end versus enjoying the ride so to speak. For example, I knew one student (married, 4 kids) who went home at 5pm every day to have the evening with their family. After the kids went to bed he went and sat in his car in the apartment parking lot to do more work. That way he didn't waste time driving back to the lab, didn't bother the kids trying to sleep, and was close by if there were any issues needing another parent.

Over the years I've hired a number of folks with PhDs or Masters to work in a national lab. Some went straight through, some didn't. I can't say that either experience makes a difference in how they came up to speed on the research requirements. About the only differentiating factor is those with real work experience are initially better at interacting with everyone across all positions. By that I mean working well with the techs and other support staff to get more done. Any difference there does not last long.

So, congratulations, you currently have a good relationship with your advisor. Don't screw it up. Your advisor is likely happy to have somebody with a proven track work of being able to work. But this work (PhD research) is different, and you will have to show you can actually do it.

As an aside, the other students have much to bring to the table as well - you will all struggle at times and the support they can give you (and you give them) will be invaluable. So, don't screw that up either.

Answer 3

I want to ensure our relationship remains positive and constructive and they don't assume I know more than required, to not lose any opportunity to learn from them.

It depends on the field of course, but the presumption more often encountered is that work experience does not impart specific knowledge or methods that is to be found in the academic study of a topic.

What work experience should offer is higher efficiency in

• a) combining productively whatever information and knowledge comes your way
• b) actually collaborating, even with people that you would never choose as your friends, and you are thankful that they are not your relatives
• c) delivering, come hell or high water.

I undertook my PhD after 20 years of professional experience. To begin with, you can imagine the age difference and the generation gap. There was a certain dissonance, because I was as much a student as everybody else was (meaning I had to study equally hard), but the age (meaning the obvious wrinkles and the heavier eyes), as well as a more self-confident and assertive way of discussing things (due to a) above) created an unavoidable distance. So I let everybody understand that whatever "advantage" (if any) I had, I was willing to share with anybody that asked for it, but I never tried to bridge said distance in a forced "gift-bringing" way, but only bringing questions, declaring (truthfully) my incomplete knowledge, that at the same time signaled a more equal footing.

It worked, at least for me.

Answer 4

Well I believe with such extensive experience, your concerns should not only be the perceived insecurities of your advisor, but also the chair of the department and dean. Ideally, you should set up a meeting with all of them and explain that while you are so very experienced, you are also willing to be humble, and humor them by allowing them to pretend they have something to teach you. That way nobody feels offended that they cannot possibly have anything to offer to someone of your heightened status.