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Professors are managers. They manage projects, classes, and often personnel, many of whom are graduate students. Some advisor/advisee relationships are positive and very productive. Others can be downright destructive.
Unsurprisingly, this variability produces some graduates who are confident critical thinkers, while others have their educations and careers derailed by a shockingly common poor professional relationship. Witnessing wildly different advising experiences while in graduate school, we talked with a dozen university colleagues and friends in North America and Europe to identify common problems as well as potential solutions. Through informal conversations, we gathered viewpoints from current and former graduate students of diverse races, ethnicities, and genders across academic disciplines.
Poor graduate student/advisor experiences can largely be chalked up to one thing: there are few specific expectations or standards for professors when it comes to managing their graduate students. This needs to ...
