112. Mentorship with Assistant Professor of Athletic Training Kate Jochimsen

112. Mentorship with Assistant Professor of Athletic Training Kate Jochimsen

Introducing Kate Jochimsen

Today I’m talking to Assistant Professor of Athletic Training Dr. Kate Jochimsen about mentorship.

Her Career Journey

Kate earned her BA in human biology at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay before getting her MS in athletic training from Florida International University. She returned to Wisconin and began working clinically. Driven by the question of why two patients who look the same on paper can have wildly different outcomes following surgery, Kate went on to get her PhD in rehabilitation sciences at the University of Kentucky and complete a post-doc in biomechanics from Ohio State. She is now an assistant professor and the director of research for the division of athletic training at West Virginia University.

Mentorship

Kate attributes a lot of her success to the mentorship she had through her PhD and post-doc, as well as her hard work. For Kate, the reward wasn’t just the doors that opened for her professionally but also watching that relationship morph from mentor-mentee to collaborator. She advises everyone to pick a mentor based on who they are as a person and stay teachable through the process to continue learning and stay open-minded to all of the possibilities.

Inside this episode:

    • Kate talks about the extra challenges she faced as a first-gen college student, never knowing exactly what the next steps would be causing her to be reactive rather than proactive.
    • Kate faces a challenge, both as an academic and as a person, to remain open-minded and not become too enmeshed in her beliefs, admitting that she’s working off the best evidence she has right now.
    • Setting boundaries can be hard for academics who work not just to meet deadlines, but because of a deep personal interest in the topic that they’re researching.
    • Kate works with her students and mentees about reframing choices in our careers as opportunities that are neither good or bad, but just different.
    • She talks about the grant she recently received that helps protect her time for her use in her own development. Kate also opens up about the resubmission process behind successes like these. 
    • Kate describes how being a successful academic means becoming comfortable with failure and learning to separate your worth from your work. 
    • She describes the challenges of being an introvert in a profession that depends on your ability to communicate and how she takes time to recharge.

Resources

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