Last week a student asked me, “What’s the best career move right now?”
My instinct was to jump straight into a list of prescriptions, a problem-solving mode: strengthen your network, learn Python, build a mentorship team. But I’ve learned to pause whenever that system-one urge to advise kicks in. After all, advice often says more about the giver’s past than the listener’s future. The most effective mentorship acts more like a mirror than a manual.
Instead of providing direct instructions, I asked questions and shared some of my own mistakes. For an hour, we explored what excited him, what scared him, and what small experiment he could try next week. I offered no “secrets of success”; I simply held the questions and space. By the end, his plan felt entirely his own, and therefore, sustainable.
This conversation reminded me why I prefer this approach. 1) Ownership beats imitation. Strategies born from personal insight endure, whereas borrowed plans quickly fade when circumstances shift. 2) Questions age well. Job markets evolve, today it’s AI, tomorrow something completely unexpected, but the practice of structured self-inquiry remains timeless. 3) Confidence grows through action. A self-designed pilot project is worth far more than a shelf full of untouched webinars.
Two experiences from my early career illustrate this clearly.
At the end of medical school, my professor of internal and emergency medicine, a respected figure in our university, was disappointed when I chose public-health medicine over a clinical sub-specialty. During one of my final exams, she actually said to me, ‘You’re throwing away your future.’ The path she dismissed now allows me to spend my days engaged in such a diverse range of activities, some of which would have been unthinkable for me just a few years ago: mentoring enthusiastic young scientists, analysing large and complex data, meeting incredible people, and perhaps even nurturing the illusion that our work can truly make a difference in society. I still collaborate with clinicians, but from a viewpoint that suits my passions and strengths.
Not long after, during my public-health residency, I expressed interest in sub-specialising in epidemiology. The programme director shook his head, saying, “You’ll never find a job.” A decade later, a once-in-a-century pandemic emerged. Today, I might describe myself as a health-data scientist rather than an epidemiologist, but the analytical skills I fought to gain remain central to my professional identity.
Both mentors meant well. Both spoke from the labour markets and scientific frameworks of their own formative years. Yet, the world rapidly outpaced their advice. We now operate in an era shaped by rapid AI integration, accelerating climate change, and growing political uncertainty. Under such conditions, prescriptive guidance quickly becomes outdated.
What remains useful is the habit of asking sharper questions, both of ourselves and those we guide. I encourage students to test ideas about their interests, conduct small experiments, and interpret the results like researchers. In other words, I mentor as I analyse data: observe, question, iterate.
I still hear echoes of those early warnings. They remind me that well-intentioned advice can be sincere yet mistaken and can sometimes dampen motivation. Ultimately, the best compass is curiosity driven by evidence, not someone else’s map.
/June 2025
