“A friend” (cough) had an exploitative advisor. But this friend also learned a tremendous amount doing all the gruntwork, writing the code, writing the papers. Yes, “my friend” did take over six years to graduate, but “my friend” was pushed harder than he’d ever been pushed in his life and probably harder than he’ll ever be pushed again, and he learned the limits of his own abilities, which were far greater than he would have believed otherwise. Overall, he’s glad he did his PhD even if there was a lot of suffering and struggle.
An (actual) close friend of mine had an advisor who had himself been a student of a Nobel laureate. The relationship was primarily of the second type that you describe—lots of cheerleading and encouragement. But there was certainly an element of discernment which I think was passed along. I remember distinctly that my friend was extremely skeptical that his paper would be accepted by Science (the journal) but the advisor instructed him to submit it; the paper was accepted. So now my friend has a publication in Science basically just because his advisor had the judgement to know when something is important enough to submit to Science. This may seem like a small thing, but having a Science publication is not a small thing, I think.
And I realize this is all highly anecdotal, but I can definitely attest that I have neither seen nor experienced any kind of mentoring relationship similar to either of the above since I left Academia.
Yeah, it’s complicated.
“A friend” (cough) had an exploitative advisor. But this friend also learned a tremendous amount doing all the gruntwork, writing the code, writing the papers. Yes, “my friend” did take over six years to graduate, but “my friend” was pushed harder than he’d ever been pushed in his life and probably harder than he’ll ever be pushed again, and he learned the limits of his own abilities, which were far greater than he would have believed otherwise. Overall, he’s glad he did his PhD even if there was a lot of suffering and struggle.
An (actual) close friend of mine had an advisor who had himself been a student of a Nobel laureate. The relationship was primarily of the second type that you describe—lots of cheerleading and encouragement. But there was certainly an element of discernment which I think was passed along. I remember distinctly that my friend was extremely skeptical that his paper would be accepted by Science (the journal) but the advisor instructed him to submit it; the paper was accepted. So now my friend has a publication in Science basically just because his advisor had the judgement to know when something is important enough to submit to Science. This may seem like a small thing, but having a Science publication is not a small thing, I think.
And I realize this is all highly anecdotal, but I can definitely attest that I have neither seen nor experienced any kind of mentoring relationship similar to either of the above since I left Academia.