Looking to build your experience in a new field? Consider taking on a fellowship!
Fellowships are temporary project or job assignments that fall outside of your normal duties or direct area of expertise. You typically complete a fellowship with a hosting team other than your own.
Fellowships offer a unique opportunity to learn through experience and mentorship. They help you acknowledge and build on your transferable skills. They also help you uncover focus areas that enable growth into new spaces. They connect you with new colleagues, new audiences, and new projects. And it’s not one-sided! Host teams also benefit from the unique perspective that people on fellowship assignments (fellows) can bring to their team.
One of my former employers offered a company-wide rotational fellowship program. Under their employment, I hosted several instructional design fellows and held three fellowships of my own. Two of my fellowships were with corporate learning teams, and one was with corporate branding. Each experience presented learning opportunities that took me outside of my comfort zone and nurtured my growth.
Over the years, others have sought my advice as they considered their own fellowship experiences. My top advice follows.
Get specific (about everything).
From the outset, get specific about as many aspects of your fellowship as you can. This helps you set goals and boundaries that’ll position you for success.
As a starting point, consider:
- What are the terms of your fellowship? Is it part-time or full-time? Does it have a fixed time frame? Does it align to a specific project or strategic initiative?
- What are your expected contributions and outputs to your fellowship team? For which stakeholders, clients, audiences, and sponsors?
- Who is your “go-to” person on your fellowship team? What is the best way to communicate with them?
- How does your fellowship team plan to measure your impact and success? How are you planning to gauge your own impact and success? How does your perspective compare to your fellowship team’s view?
- Are you splitting your time between a fellowship and your regular job? How will you manage your obligations to each work group? What “regular job” work stays with you, and what gets delegated?
Don’t wait to be invited.
It’s critical to engage your fellowship team proactively. Seize every opportunity to advocate for yourself in contextualizing your fellowship experience.
Don’t assume that they’ll always remember to include you on relevant and important events. If you can’t attend an important discussion, ask for a summary or generate one with a tool like Copilot.
As you ramp up in a new fellowship assignment, be sure to ask your hosting manager:
- What newsletters, sites, and other sources can you follow to stay current on topics that are relevant to your fellowship?
- What recurring meetings are most important to their team? How can you contribute to or take part in these events?
- What is the best way to communicate that I need support from the team for something?
Find comfort in discomfort.
Some people take on fellowships because they’ve become experts in their domains and they’re looking for new challenges. Sometimes, this can mean they’ve become extremely comfortable in their role. Being overly reliant on that comfort can amplify the growing pains that come with stretch assignments and unfamiliar team dynamics.
Fellowships are learning experiences. There’s a certain level of discomfort and conscious incompetence that comes with building new skills. There is no strength without struggle.
If you find yourself feeling some discomfort as you embark on a fellowship, pause and reflect:
- What is the source of my discomfort right now?
- What do I want to be experiencing instead of what I’m feeling right now?
- What do I control about this situation, and what don’t I control?
- What’s one action that I can take to create the experience I want?
- What support do I need from my fellowship team to overcome the challenges outside my control?
