Training research graduate students is a tricky, very tricky business and there is more than one approach. Graduate students are different from research undergraduates because the former depend on the work they do to graduate, the latter, not so. Usually undergrads spend a couple of years in the lab and then leave. Graduate students need to be more focused so they can complete a project so they can earn their degree. That’s the key term in my book; again, they have to earn it.
That presents me with a dilemma; you see, I tend to be friendly, that’s my nature. That does not help when I have to say “NO”, But I say it nonetheless. This is something that I have to do very often, especially with the very best students. In my view a good scientist need to be able to do two seemingly opposite things: to stay focused in their project while at the same time try not to fail to see the forest by looking at the trees. Again, the really good ones like looking at the forest, and that’s great, but my main job is then to try to keep them focused.
Part of that is saying “NO” when I think that they have enough to graduate. “No” to new projects, “no” to further explorations, “no” to ideas for new experiments. All of that goes against the grain of my scientific soul. But, I have to do it nonetheless, as my main duty is to my students. It would be really easy to keep them for longer that they have to; after all, more data usually means more papers. But I cannot bring myself to do that; it would be incredibly selfish of me. So it is a kind of paradox. I look after them by being the proverbial “bad guy”.
This is an acquired trait (don’t write me an email, I don’t mean it like that!). I have been incredibly lucky to have had great advisors who trained me well. Here’s the example of my doctoral advisor, as seen in the post below. He told me once: “…if you have never called me an SOB, I am not doing my job.” I miss George very much!
I KNOW that I have been called an SOB and worse, by some of my students. I just hope that it was called that for the right reasons… (:-)
I feel blessed (or very lucky, depending on your philosophical stance) that I had an advisor who did a great job. Moreover, he did it with my best interests in mind. I’d like to think that I am following his example when I train one of my own research students. Thank you, George.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you want to know more of my scientific research you can click HERE.
If you want to subscribe to my website, just go to the Home page, right hand side.
Comment here or send me a message if you have any questions. My email is: orpagan@yahoo.com.
I am a published author! Click here for my Amazon.com author page.
My Twitter handle is @Baldscientist (Very much active at the moment)
For the customary and very important disclaimers please go to my “About” page.
The US system for grad school seems to be a bit different to here.
From what I understand, it is the same level (After BSc, while studying for MSc), but here, the majority of people who do a BSC go on to do an MSc at the same uni (I think this is due to the 5 years of funding you get, a BSc won’t get you in anywhere really, private sector or academic).
I have just done my BSc paper, which was on Botany, and I was chatting to a professor randomly, when he said “Hey, I am thinking of doing a Masters project to Iceland, as you are doing the course next year, would you be interested in it”, so, rather than have to go and find a supervisor or NGO to do my thesis with, I have ended up doing with a paleobotany/geology one, sometime between Spring 2014 & Spring 2015. (We get 3 semesters for our thesis, in case we need to go somewhere cold ^^, usually it is 2, or 1, depending on how many credits it is for)
I wish you all the best! Here in the US is a little different indeed, but not very much. The main thing is that the MS is not as common as before. Most students go straight to the PhD from the bachelor’s, which can be a disadvantage to some students. I was also a nontraditional student in the sense that I worked for a while after my undergrad, did my MS part time (I did both my undergrad and my MS in Puerto Rico, where I am from), worked for a while after it before going for the PhD in the mainland US.. Doing a research-based master’s first helped me quite a bit; it gave me a much better sense for research that if I had gone directly. Anyhow, again, good luck and keep writing!!!!!