241
votes
How can a TA help a student who is certain she sucks at programming?
When you tell her that she doesn't suck at programming, all she hears is that you don't understand how bad she sucks. The psychology is the important thing here, not pedagogy. If I were in your ...
- 8,032
163
votes
Accepted
How honest should one be with their students when talking about the realities of academia?
I am a student so this is coming from a student's perspective.
I think you should be honest with them regarding what going into graduate school entails. For my case, none of the professors I ...
- 2,441
91
votes
What can I tell a student I am mentoring who claims: "I want to do pure mathematics because it is superior to any other subject in the world"?
I see no real reason to tell him anything. If he’s being an obnoxious or abrasive jerk, you could advise him to knock that off. And of course, you can share your views and experiences if the right ...
- 73.4k
78
votes
How can I supervise a careless student?
I think that doing the calculations yourself and asking the student to proofread them may not have been the best approach. If he can't even spot his own mistakes, what are the chances he would spot ...
- 2,479
69
votes
How to approach a student with bad hygiene?
I think honesty is the best policy.
We had a pupil at school who also had a really bad hygiene issue, his body odor was horrendous. As an example, once another pupil squirted yogurt at him and it got ...
- 689
59
votes
How to hold back from interfering with students' inefficient-but-not-wrong work?
What if you were to write up a list of "general development tips"? Then you can share it with everybody once instead of constantly giving unsolicited advice.
You can also then give it to future ...
- 135k
57
votes
How can a TA help a student who is certain she sucks at programming?
About her not wanting to work with her team mate -- she may have some fears such as:
that she'll feel embarrassed in front of her team mate
that she'll rely too much on the team mate's competence
...
- 39.3k
57
votes
Isn't the PhD supervisor required to teach the student the research subject and prerequisites, in order to save time?
Supervisors train; they don't teach. (Albeit the distinction between terms is rather subtle.)
why can't the supervisor teach at least the prerequisites and the subject of research to some extent?
...
- 41.1k
56
votes
Accepted
I may have to write a bad recommendation for an underperforming student researcher in the Fall. How to avoid this without being exploitative?
Your job as a mentor is not to “maximize the chances of a good outcome”. The problem with that mindset is that your definition of a good outcome won’t be the same as everyone else’s. And an outcome ...
- 202k
55
votes
I may have to write a bad recommendation for an underperforming student researcher in the Fall. How to avoid this without being exploitative?
right now I'm very dissatisfied with him and a sincere letter (which I 100% intend to write) would have to convey this
First, let's cut the student some slack. They are probably exhausted and burnt ...
- 73.4k
49
votes
Was I right to insist I be listed as a co-author if my contribution was to be included?
In general, the rule for who should be an author on a paper is whether they have made a "significant contribution" to the paper. From what you've written here, it sounds like your former ...
- 3,361
42
votes
Accepted
Should I change advisors because mine doesn't object to publishing at MDPI?
MDPI is a bit of a grey area. I personally would never publish there or review for them, but there are researchers I very much respect who do. I wouldn't put much trust in the peer-review at MDPI, but ...
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41
votes
How to approach a student with bad hygiene?
In your position, I wouldn't bring it up.
The only appropriate way to approach a personal issue such as this involves building a personal relationship with the student, which you are trying to avoid....
- 6,096
40
votes
Mentor added his name and alphabetized the author list, putting me last
Speaking from a field where author lists are always alphabetical: This will do you good in the long run! If you follow this convention, you will never have to argue over authorship order - take a look ...
- 13.6k
39
votes
How can I supervise a careless student?
In his Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, von Neumann provided an incorrect proof of the impossibility of a local variable theory of QM that arguably put QM on the wrong track until John ...
- 3,668
37
votes
Can a husband be a corresponding author in a wife's research publication during her Ph.D.?
Yes, a person can be a corresponding author in their spouse's research, even in all of their publications. Whether this occurs during the spouse's PhD studies or not is irrelevant. Who the spouse's ...
- 12.6k
36
votes
How honest should one be with their students when talking about the realities of academia?
While I don't have a definite and complete answer, there are a few points I would like to make.
I consider part of my duty to help students get the right information to choose their path, and in ...
- 14.8k
36
votes
How can a TA help a student who is certain she sucks at programming?
I've had some of these cases over the years, and they always end badly. To me, the "she doesn't ask for help when I go to her" is the worst signal here. A student in that situation cannot get better, ...
- 40.7k
35
votes
How to approach a student with bad hygiene?
How can I bring this issue up while still maintaining my boundary as a female faculty member who doesn’t want her male students following her around and asking her for advice all the time?
I don't ...
- 407
35
votes
Was I right to insist I be listed as a co-author if my contribution was to be included?
I honestly don't understand this. Granted, I come from a different field (biology) and we only have your side of the story, but from what I read, you actually wrote a section of the paper. Your words ...
- 2,931
33
votes
How to spot abusive/incompetent supervisors in advance
After you had your in-person interview with the potential supervisor ask if you could talk to some people in the lab. Maybe go for a coffee with someone and just ask them what they think. Of course ...
- 9,829
32
votes
How honest should one be with their students when talking about the realities of academia?
I think you need to balance brutal honesty with treating students with respect.
If I find a student who will have a difficult time in getting into grad school, I would tell them that I believe they ...
- 175k
31
votes
How honest should one be with their students when talking about the realities of academia?
So, as an educator, it is bad form to be discouraging. But I wonder if it's actually in their interests to really know what's in store. Do you do this? That is, do you tell your weak students with ...
- 138k
31
votes
As a student, can you publish about a hobby project far outside of your major and how does one do that?
Write up the paper. Find a relevant journal. Go to the journal website. Click Submission Guidelines or something like that.
Submit.
A professor might help you find a relevant journal. Or tell you if ...
- 808
30
votes
How to approach a student with bad hygiene?
Normally my advice would be identical to Buffy’s, to simply talk to the student. At least, I would have liked to think that we live in a world where that would be the correct, and obvious, answer to ...
- 202k
29
votes
Accepted
How to hold back from interfering with students' inefficient-but-not-wrong work?
Does your research group have weekly meetings? If so, you could devote 5-10 minutes at the beginning of each meeting to workflow/development hacks that you think would be helpful. If your group does ...
- 1,766
28
votes
Isn't the PhD supervisor required to teach the student the research subject and prerequisites, in order to save time?
Actually, the supervisor is teaching you, or trying to, at least. No, she is not required to teach you as you want to be taught, telling you explicitly what is needed. She has another method in mind ...
- 399k
26
votes
Difficulty mentoring a student after my injury
First of all, sorry that you got injured and now have to go through a painful recovery. Something like that happened to me in grad school and I lost all ability to be productive for about 4 months. In ...
- 8,116
25
votes
Mentor added his name and alphabetized the author list, putting me last
In the first instance, I recommend talking to the professor and respectfully asking the reason why they changed the author ordering. However, unfortunately it is completely conventional in some fields ...
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible