I Learned How to Think Posted on March 1, 2006 Joe Price (bio) explains how his mentors were key to his career development.

I think for both of [my mentors], it was interest in their students, interest in their students developing in a career way. Also with that, both of them had real intent on discovering truth, truth about human behavior. That was their motivation, and that was one of the things I liked about Gary and Ken is that they were interested in science to know, to discover as opposed to 'How can I further my career? How can I look good?'

They were interested in really understanding kids and families, and they had this way of relating to people to say, 'Here's this path I'm on to learn about children and families and development. Do you want to join me? I want to help show you how to do that, but I have a certain level of expectations.' Both of them did. 'If you're going to come along, here is what you're going to need to do, but here are some things you need to do.' I think for both of them that I felt they helped me grow into that kind of colleague role. They didn't keep me in that student role, graduate student role.

As I matured, they said, 'Great. Come on in as a colleague.' I felt like that. I felt like I could learn from them in doing that, and they're both great thinkers. That's something I really learned from them was how to think.

« Back to Article