What do you think makes a good supervisor?
Tony Lim
Wednesday, 09 May 2007 04:08 UTC
A question for everyone.
I’m sure everyone has a different take on this. We’re all different afterall, but I am curious to know what others like in supervisors.
What do you think are the best characteristics of a good supervisor??
From my experiences, I think a good characteristic of a supervisor is one that will challenge you and go against your position on purpose every once in a while to push you to defend your reasoning – not in a mean way, but to make you grow.
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Anonymous
I wish I had had the wisdom to think about this in depth before I really dug into my PhD work…
I know now what I would have preferred! I would want someone who started off by giving me assignments at the beginning- like, write the first chapter of your dissertation, or write a review of the topic you think you want to be exploring in your work. And then once I had done that, sat down with me and discussed both the actual writing and the content/analysis. What better way to really get your feet wet and prepare your mind for the upcoming years.
Other important characteristics:
- Acknowledges and embraces humanity and personality (is more than a robot)
- Respects the advisees personal commitments but has expectations about commitment to the work
- Communicates regularly with the student about goals of the research, lab and individual
Really, the key is knowing what you as an individual need to overcome your personal limitations. I have a tendency to slack and focus on deatails as opposed to the “big picture”, and having someone to get on my case once in a while would have been a great help. Instead my supervisor just left me alone and neglected me. It served neither one of us very well!
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Hi Tony,
I think this question is circulated thousands of times and still fresh to answer.
In my point of view, the good supervisor is one who puts a lot of thrust on science obviously but simultaneously groom the student to sharpen other qualities like communication and interpesonal skills and the resoning abilities. The supervisor must consider that he should use his powers to make the people productive and to give a very good impression of the laboratory so that the outgoig student can feel proud on the laboratory as well as the supervisor can say proudly that I trained this student in future. This can not be done easily but needs lot of understanding at both levels. The supervisor has to understand the student abilities and more important the psyche to make a life long cordial relationship. The supervisor should not give an impression that the student should abonden the science just after gardauation but rather he/she should kindle the spark in a student to make them to move forward without deviation. I also think that the under fast technologically changing environment, the supervsiors must also consider themselevs as trainees sometimes in thier career.
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Hi Tony,
Thanks for initiating interesting discussion.
Its really important to have a good supervisor.
I think beside being a good scientist, a supervisor should be able to motivate students, specially at times when things really don’t go as expected.Besides Ph.d degree, he/she should be able to help student in deciding his career prospects positively.
I guess as in the all matters of life, a supervisor should be humane towards the needs and aspirations of the student.
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Anonymous
i hv a supervisor who has two different personalities. on one part, he is good for boosting your morale and he is accessible, but the worst part was that he takes the main credit off his students’ works. His students did the main researching and writing papers, but he put himself as the primary author of his students’ publications. i dont think i can categorize him as a good supervisor.
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Maybe let me tell you how evil my supervisor is, then you will easily equate a good guy, a good supervisor …
My supervisor is a guy who know nothing to my field, poor presentation, poor knowledge and poor logical thinking. The reason that I become his student is that the division head assigned him to me … what a bad luck … I was thinking there may be chance to switch my supervision back to the division head, but it has been nearly three years now, I can do nothing for it. The division head can only at most be my co-supervisor … but knowing nothing of my terrible situation.
When you have good but insufficient data in hands for your thesis, and is planning to work some more before really write up your thesis, he just sucks away your work by asking you to let go of your project, give everything to a new student in lab for continuation of the work. I cannot understand why a supervisor can do this, when a student’s work is not sufficient enough for his/her thesis, this supervisor still force the student to let go of his/her work, but claiming many times that ‘Your work is not enough’. So how can the student works more to get the work enough? Insane.
When he did somethinig wrong in the department, you are the one who are responsible for. Well … that’s fair.
During the past 2.5 years, I have been working all by myself. No support, no supervision, no guidance … But he claims to others that he has been giving ‘good guidance’ for me. I wonder what’s the ‘guidance’ that he’s referring to. The total # of hours that we met in this 2.5 years was counted to be less than 12 hours!
The supervisor never supports you when there is unfairness happening on you … Just like in the department, if you borrowed 2 pipettmans for your own work but forgot to tell the lab manager (there were plenty in the lab so it’s easy to forget to tell), then you’d be punish. The punishment will be: you have to write a letter to this lab manager and the division head, saying how much you are now regreting of your own behavior, and should also apologise and promise to them that you will amend ‘such’ behvaior in the future. I believe it is University, not primary school … Anyway, this supervisor never supports me on issue like that and never talks to the lab manager and asking a stop to ‘such’ behavior.
I know there are quite a number of new faculty whom may read this post, if you are one of them, please please pleae be good to your student, not to do the above. They are just a kid to you and shuold be well protected and educated. Treat them as your own sons or daughters, be fair and be considerate. If you feel you are not knowlegeable to what the studets will be working in, be honest, and if you refuse to be his/her supervisor, he/she will thank you a million later in his/her life.
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