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Next to Becoming Part of
the Research Community; Up to How to Be a Good Thesis
Student.
Advice for Supervisors
In order to be a good supervisor, you have to relate to
your graduate students as individuals, not just as anonymous research assistants
or tickets to tenure and co-authored publications. Work with all of your
graduate students, not just those whom you feel most comfortable with, or who
are interested in the problems you're most excited about. Try to get to know
your students personally and professionally. Help them to identify their
strengths and weaknesses, to build on the former, and to work on overcoming the
latter. Give them honest evaluations of their work and performance: don't just
assume that they know how they're doing and what you think of them.
Read this paper and others like it with an eye towards discovering which
aspects of the graduate experience your students may be having trouble with, or
may not realize the importance of. Try to see the experience from their
perspective, which will be different for each student, because each student has
a different background and different talents and goals.
The roles of an supervisor include:
- Guiding students' research: helping them to select a topic, write a
research proposal, perform the research, evaluate it critically, and write the
thesis.
- Getting them involved in the wider research community: introducing them to
colleagues, collaborating on research projects with them, funding conference
travel, encouraging them to publish papers, nominating them for awards and
prizes.
- Finding financial support: providing research assistantships or helping
them to find fellowships, and other fundedr positions.
- Finding a position after graduation: helping them to find and apply for faculty positions, and/or jobs in industry; supporting
their applications with strong recommendations; and helping them to make
contacts.
Although guiding your students' research is normally viewed as
the central task of an supervisor, the other roles are also critical to their
long-term success. The section on networking contains advice for students on
networking. You can help them in this process by funding and encouraging travel
to conferences and paper publication, and by introducing them and talking about
their research to colleagues.
Especially for a new supervisor, setting the right tone for student interactions is a difficult task.
Different students respond best to different approaches -- and, of course,
different supervisors have different personal styles. Some of the tradeoffs that
have to be made in each supervisor-student relationship are:
- Amount of direction: self-directed/hands-off vs. ``spoon-feeding'' topics
and research projects.
- Personal interactions and psychological support: do they want advice on
career, family, and the like? Are you willing and able to give it, or to find
someone else to advise them?
- Amount and type of criticism: general directions vs. specific suggestions
for improvement.
- Frequency of interaction: daily vs. once a semester.
It helps to establish regular meeting times and to discuss
expectations (both yours and your students') about what can and should be
accomplished during these meetings. Encourage them to develop relationships with
other faculty members, students, and colleagues, to get a different perspective
and to get feedback you may not be able to give.
To improve the atmosphere of your interactions:
- Meet over lunch or coffee to make interactions more relaxed and less
stressful.
- Strive to maintain an open, honest relationship. Respect your students as
colleagues.
- Tell them if you think they're asking for too much or too little time or
guidance.
Supervisors should be aware of both long-term and short-term
needs. What should the student's goals over the next years be? Help your
student identify ways that the two of you -- as a team -- can meet these goals.
Advise the student on the criteria for a successful research project and thesis. Help prepare the student for a future research
career.
In the short term, a good supervisor will work with students to set priorities
and to find a balance between doing research, reading, writing and satisfying
tutoring and marking duties. Although supervisors may not be able to
give advice on all administrative aspects of graduate school, they should at
least know the appropriate people to refer students to for assistance with
degree requirements, funding, and so on.
When you meet with your students, pay attention to them. Try to help them to
identify their interests, concerns, and goals, not just how can they meet what you
see as good interests, concerns, and goals. Know what they're working on,
and what you discussed last time. Take notes during meetings and review them if
you have to.
Give them productive feedback, not just a noncommittal "ok, sure'' or a
destructive "why on earth do you want to do that?'' Remember that your students
are still learning. If you tell them that a problem they're interested in has
already been explored by Professor X, make sure you follow up with a reference
that they have access to, and a discussion as to whether the problem remains a
worthwhile area to work on, or whether there are new open issues raised by
Professor X's work, at the next meeting.
When reviewing a student's paper or proposal, write comments on the paper
itself: verbal comments aren't as useful. Give the feedback promptly, or it
won't be much help. See the section on feedback for suggestions about giving
useful comments. Don't just wait until they hand you something to read: insist
on written drafts of proposals, papers, etc. Help them develop their rough ideas
into publishable papers. Give them specific, concrete suggestions for what to do
next, especially if they seem to be floundering or making little progress.
Supervisor-student relationships can break down if the supervisor is setting goals
that are too high or too low, or if the supervisor is exploiting the student to
meet the supervisor's needs, not the student's. In my opinion, it is never
appropriate to develop an intimate relationship with one of your own students.
If this should happen, you should not continue to supervise them (whether the
relationship continues or not).
Encourage your students to choose a topic that you're "both" interested in
and that you're knowledgeable about (or very interested in learning more about).
Make sure that they have the appropriate background to understand the problem,
and that the methodology and solution they identify are appropriate and
realistic. Give them pointers to useful references and help them find them (this
can be a mysterious, difficult process for graduate students). Make sure they're
aware of other researchers and labs who are doing similar work, and if possible,
arrange for them to visit these labs or meet the researchers at seminars or
conferences.
Next to Becoming Part of
the Research Community.