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Workshop Facilitator: Jake Livingood, Senior Assistant Director of Graduate Student Career Services at MIT's Global Education and Career Development office. He is also a graduate of the Improv Asylum Training Center in the North End of Boston. Jake has offered numerous improv workshop for a variety of groups at MIT and beyond.
Workshop Desciption: The 90-minute workshop is highly interactive and participatory. The workshop begins with improv warm-up activities that emphasize verbal, vocal and visual forms of communication and speaking with confidence in an uncertain environment. Participants continue to prepare for the unexpected by drawing a slip of paper describing a workplace scenario from a bowl and role-playing how they would respond to it.
Jake will lead the group in role-play exercises designed to help postdocs:
- Prepare for the unexpected during enounters with colleagues or employers
- Increase your ability to work in teams by evaluating your reactions to stressful situations
- Confidently respond to difficult situations in the lab, workplace or in an interview
Jake has developed the EXPERT method for reacting to unexpected questions:
- Expect that an unexpected question or situation will arise. This puts you in the mindset to expect uncomfortable situations and leads to a greater chance of adapting when circumstances arise.
- Prepare ahead of time for those potential situations. This can include reflection about how to handle common scenarios or practicing through improv activities.
- Evaluate the uncomfortable situation. How does this situation make you feel? Do you change facial expressions or body posture? Does your communication convey doubt?
- Respond to the student with confidence. Be comfortable with what you know and what you don't know.
- Talk with a trusted person (peer, advisor, others). It is important to process uncomfortable classroom experiences with trusted mentors and colleagues. This provides an opportunity for growth as a colleague or mentor/mentee.
