It was the winter of 2003 and I was having lunch with my advisor – which was something we grabbed together often when I was in graduate school – when I asked him what questions I should add to a household income survey that my wife was compiling for a study in Peninsular Malaysia that spring. At the time, I was studying personal goals, but asking indigenous farmers about their current life goals was not pragmatic. I remember that Dan thought for about 30 seconds and said, "Add the Satisfaction with Life Scale. You will have a lot of income data and it should be worth seeing if it is strongly correlated with life satisfaction." It was something I would never have thought of. As we had barely begun our lunch and the task I wanted to accomplish was checked-off, we turned our attention to the upcoming baseball season, discussing whether the Yankees could recover from a recent World Series loss to the Marlins—it seems they still haven’t.

 

In many ways this story encapsulates much about my experience at UC Riverside, where I was a graduate student from 2000 to 2005.

 

First, all of my mentors were willing to meet with me anytime they could, to talk about my research and what I should be doing to prepare for the next study, and how I could improve my program of research at every step. Countless times Dan Ozer, Bob Rosenthal, David Funder, and Sonja Lybromirski (just to name a few) would open their doors and help me to answer questions I was struggling with. I received invaluable advice during these meetings, and now I find myself saying some of the exact same statements to my own advisees when they come to me with questions. I cannot count the number of times I have said "There are two types of data: bad data and no data – which do you want?"

 

Second, I felt confident that I was free to explore the questions I was interested in. Dan was excited to talk about my chance to go to Malaysia, collect data on people who had never held a pencil, much less filled-out a survey, and to dialog about the types of data that would be most interesting given the nature of the project. It was never expected that I would only pursue the research interests of my department or advisor, only that I would conduct research that was interesting and worthwhile. Today, I can look back on that single conversation with Dan at lunch and honestly say that my two most important and exciting papers, and my entire research agenda is a direct result of Dan suggesting to include the Satisfaction With Life Scale on the Malaysia survey.

 

Finally, I appreciated that the mentors I had at UC Riverside cared about more than just my research career. We also shared other interests. Sometimes we would talk about baseball, or politics, or meet with a group of anthropologist to talk about the direction of health care. Life at UC Riverside was more than just collecting data and writing papers. It was also about becoming a good consumer of information (both inside and outside of Psychology).

 

As is true of all graduate students, my experience at UC Riverside led directly to my first job, and ultimately, to my current job at San Francisco State University. And for that I will always be grateful. But it was how that journey was lived that brings my fondest memories.

 

Ryan Howell

San Francisco State University