{"id":555,"date":"2016-01-22T00:05:47","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T00:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/innovscience.com\/wordpress\/?p=555"},"modified":"2016-01-22T00:05:47","modified_gmt":"2016-01-22T00:05:47","slug":"improving-the-sad-state-of-professor-student-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovscience.com\/wordpress\/uncategorized\/improving-the-sad-state-of-professor-student-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving the sad state of professor, student relationships."},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past 3-4 years I\u2019ve been inundated with complaints from numerous students who worked for, or are currently working for very well-known professors in the polymer field.\u00a0 We are talking about institutions such as Carnegie Mellon, U. Akron, Northwestern, and many others.\u00a0 My intention is to not disclose names of the professors or students.\u00a0 Instead it is to draw the reader\u2019s attention to a persistent, growing, and pervasive problem in the sciences today.\u00a0 Doing so may ultimately help to remedy the situation and no doubt will translate to increased scientific discovery and an overall improvement in the quality of work being done.<\/p>\n

It is my observation that the main complaints lodged against these professors by their students boil down to deficiencies of the former.\u00a0 These include:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A lack of integrity (both in terms of scientific reporting and as well as specifying inventorship of the student).<\/li>\n
  2. Absence of respect for the student\u2019s feelings which manifests in all sort of ill-mannerisms, mainly manifesting as verbal abuse.<\/li>\n
  3. Treating students as if they are slaves by demanding way too much in terms of work output.<\/li>\n
  4. Not providing any meaningful guidance whether it be in regards to laboratory technique, design of the project, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    As a result I get comments like: \u201cWe attended Professor X\u2019s birthday party.\u00a0 All his current and former students were there.\u00a0 They spent most of their time discussing how they hate him.\u201d or \u201cI can\u2019t stand to be in the lab when Professor X is around, he always has more work for me.\u00a0 If I run into him anywhere on campus he\u2019ll have me there every day, all day long.\u201d or \u201cProfessor X didn\u2019t invent that, it was his Korean postdoc who still works for him to this day.\u201d\u00a0 Amazingly enough the best comment these students will give me is something to this effect: \u201cWell, Professor X is really good at looking at data and finding a trend.\u201d or \u201cProfessor X can decipher NMR spectra very easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

    During my short stint working with students on research projects I have noticed that many of the things they require from their research advisor are both time consuming and also demand a great deal of patience.\u00a0 Some of these include:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Spending time in the lab to get the student started, including showing them how to do certain manipulations.<\/li>\n
    2. Trying to put everything concerning a student\u2019s work ethic into perspective.\u00a0 Do they have other outside responsibilities, have they ever had to work diligently (ca. 60+ hour work weeks)?\u00a0 Recalling not only your experience as a student but those of other students who went to school with you will help temper your demands.\u00a0 Likewise, in certain instances you will be able to realize when you do need to use the prod.<\/li>\n
    3. It is highly unlikely that you will encounter a student that has the degree of knowledge that you possess in your area of study.\u00a0 Always try to impart that knowledge in a manner that isn\u2019t condescending.\u00a0 I find it useful to bring up many things as digressions during discussions of other topics at hand.\u00a0 Another route is to point out a reference that contains much of what is known about the field of study.<\/li>\n
    4. When student\u2019s make mistakes do not deride them, even if they prove to be costly in terms of lost time or money spent.\u00a0 It is fine to point out the error but at the same time I have found it is best to recognize the fact that we all are prone to mistakes and to let the student know that even you have made them yourself.\u00a0 Even providing a recap of previous mishaps that you have had in the past can be of value to your student.<\/li>\n
    5. One final thing I like to do is make certain that the student understands they get credit for anything they invent and even if they don\u2019t make much of a contribution I always reward them for their efforts in a number of ways.\u00a0 These include small gifts, lunches, and invariably placing them as lead author on the publication they helped with in hopes that it will assist them in future endeavors.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Over the past 3-4 years I\u2019ve been inundated with complaints from numerous students who worked for, or are currently working for very well-known professors in the polymer field.\u00a0 We are talking about institutions such as Carnegie Mellon, U. Akron, Northwestern, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb8bvA-8X","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/innovscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"https:\/\/innovscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}