Phd Supervisor Quotes

A PhD student approached me after a writing workshop to recount his tale of woe. “I write these messy, incoherent first drafts,” he lamented. “They’re absolutely awful! Then I have to work on them for hours and hours to bash them into shape. It’s such a frustrating process, and so discouraging. My PhD adviser is a really good writer; she makes it all look so easy. I wish I were more like her.” I didn’t get a chance to interview the student’s supervisor; but if I had, I can guess what she might have told me. Probably something like this: “I write these messy, incoherent first drafts—they’re absolutely awful! Then I have to work on them for hours and hours to bash them into shape. Writing can be a hard and frustrating process, but for the most part, I really enjoy the challenge of honing and polishing my sentences until I get them just right.” Same story, different spin.

Three particularly useful starting points are:   The writers of particularly relevant papers People you saw or met at a conference who had pertinent and interesting things to say People recommended by someone reliable (e.g. your supervisor, or a member of your informal committee)

My wonderful PhD supervisor, Martin Hyland... instilled in me the idea of starting sentences with ‘there is a sense in which…’ because math isn’t about right and wrong, it’s not about absolute truth; it’s about different contexts in which different things can be true, and about different senses in which different things can be valid. Abstraction in mathematics is about making precise which sense we mean, so that instead of having divisive arguments... we can investigate more effectively what is causing certain outcomes to arise.

Finding out about your supervisor's research – surprisingly few students do this, even though their supervisor's research is probably one of the most valuable resources available

One thing which most students never consider is that a good supervisor will be generating ideas about their own research all the time, and discarding the vast majority of them on various grounds. If you expect to have a higher hit rate than your supervisor while you're still an apprentice, then you're being a bit silly.

It's particularly helpful if the supervisor can work through an example with you, rather than just telling you how to do it. A

Have a business card to hand, and perhaps a copy of a summary of your research (previously read and approved by your supervisor).

How do you supervise a student's dissertation when you, as the (PhD) supervisor, can't write or publish a paper?

After Chandavarkar shortlisted a few candidates in 1997, Kiran came in for the final interview. All five shortlisted students already had job offers in hand. The interview lasted forty-five minutes, of which Kiran spoke for forty. She spoke about why she wanted to enter pharmaceuticals and how she wanted the company to grow. That ‘campus-placement experience’ was different for Shreehas Tambe. ‘My offer was from Lupin; I don’t think D.B. Gupta [founder and chairman of Lupin] gave a damn about who was joining the company. A general manager had come from Tarapur and we were all very happy because the salary was nice,’ says Tambe, a hefty man with a sense of humour. On hearing Kiran out, he was impressed that the ‘chairperson’ of the company was explaining to a fresher what the vision was. At twenty-three, the idea of working in a pub city wasn’t bad even though leaving Mumbai was not in his scheme of things. ‘I thought it’d be fun to check out the city for two to three years and then come back to Mumbai,’ he remembers thinking. Kiran said she had spoken to his placement manager; she knew his salary and would match it. She insisted that he say yes to the offer right then. Tambe was anxious. He had not submitted his master’s thesis and his supervisor, J.B. Joshi, generally decided where his students would go, which often was Reliance Industries. Surprisingly, after some intimidating remarks like ‘how could you attend the campus interview without asking me’, Joshi encouraged him to join Biocon. He did not conceal his cautionary advice though: ‘Come back after two years, finish your Ph.D and then we’ll see.