Tuesday night, I went to an AWIS event to listen to 4 women speak about how they arrived at the current point of their careers. Before and after the event, I was able to talk with many grad students, post docs, and women from all stages of their career. While comparing notes about our respective doctoral programs, one thing struck me as odd: many students don’t have a single meeting with their thesis committee until they are asking for permission to write. I am enrolled in a PhD program where the committee meetings are treated as semi-annual progress reports – and it is enforced. We can actually receive an incomplete, and ultimately failing, grade for the research conducted that semester if we fail to attend these meetings. Now, I don’t mean that all of them are particularly eventful or helpful. Sometimes, the scientific discussion can be very useful, while other times it leaves something to be desired. At the very least, however, they force me to write up my recent work and set near-term goals. I was surprised to hear that many programs either don’t enforce these semi-annual meetings or even suggest it. Perhaps, in these programs the burden of progress review and goal setting falls solely on the student and PI themselves. I think this could be dangerous, if the advisor is too busy or inattentive, because we graduate students are at the bottom of the food chain in many academic institutions. I view these meetings as a positive experience, not only for monitoring student progress, but also protecting them from possible neglect or abuse by their advisor. It isn’t uncommon for students to be ignored by their mentor or disagree about the completion point of a thesis. The committee is there to act as a sounding board and to help resolve these disputes.
So, I am curious what people think about the necessity of these meetings. Are they essential to the progress of the student? Or are they unnecessary proceedings that waste everyone’s time?