I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who is in a doctoral program for chemical engineering at Iowa State University. In the course of the conversation I asked him if he had a thesis adviser yet, and if so, whether he was pleased with his adviser. He voiced approval of his adviser, specifically because they get along. From talking with other friends at graduate school, I know that getting an adviser whose well-connected and has research interests that you share is important, so I found his comment a little puzzling (I should mention that they do also share research interests).
He told me that he's talked with other friends in graduate engineering programs and many of them aren't happy with their adviser because:
- They are far too hard on them, or
- They leave them on a long leash and then come down hard on them
I pointed out that those problems were due to poor managerial skills, not the technical skills one needs to attain the positions the advisers hold. My friend then reminded me that academia appealed to him going into graduate school
precisely because he doesn't need to have managerial skills to function in the field.
That left me wondering if professors self-select themselves to be poor managers, despite the fact that they will likely be managing people their entire careers. Have you noticed a lack of managerial skills in the advisers in your graduate studies? Perhaps the selection is field specific, as chemical engineers require chemicals, not people. Is there some other causal factor underlying this imagined correlation that I could be missing?
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My advisors at the University of Ghana prefered not to manage at all. I'm not sure one of them even read my thesis. No one was going to call them to account for not paying enough attention to advisees.
ReplyDeleteI've known a few professors who were master managers, though. HN (often with Matt's assistance) made the trains of Furman's mock trial program run on time.
I agree with Pete. There's no real oversight mechanism for professors who manage/direct a student's work. Thus, no incentive to manage.
ReplyDeleteHowever, my experiences at Furman and CLS have both been very positive.
One other note - I think it's often easy to avoid a professor who doesn't care. Generally, their reputations (at least at CLS) for caring/not caring about managing student work are well known. Obviously, this breaks down when you don't have professors to choose between, like when you're specializing. Then it's just luck of the draw.