Students

Students are a mixed blessing really. They arrive so fresh and enthusiastic and it hardly seems fair to subject them to the trials and tribulations of a PhD. Yet they mature before your very eyes and towards the end of their candidature there is such a rewarding feeling; a sense of pride that they've 'made it'.

I am of the opinion that one's ability to complete a PhD is not a measure of intellect but rather of the ability to withstand the onslaught of youth. PhDs typically occur at a time when friends begin to get married, divorced, a few dare to try their hand at child-rearing and an unfortunate few meet an untimely early death. Indeed, a few years back I was asked to speak at a grad student seminar about my experience as a student and life since then. I counted up and the weddings, funerals and so on and was quite amazed at the volatility of my social life.

So in the past few weeks I have experienced a marked contrast between sets of students. On the one hand I have had a student ask to remove me as a supervisor because my response to questions was "unsatisfactory". That this change has been largely orchestrated by the colleague whose emails can best be described as emotive is particularly galling. My professional pride is crushed. On the other hand, however, are my eight other PhD students (yes, way too many) who are working hard, writing papers, preparing drafts and doing really interesting studies. Three of them are on the verge of submitting and I am so excited I'd like to hug them. They each have moments where it's clear they'd rather I never entered their lives, but on the whole they appear sincerely grateful for the effort I put into their academic development and future careers.

I suppose this begs the question of what our responsibilities are as supervisors? Should we have to sell our wares to cynical, spoilt students who expect we will do their thinking for them? My opinion is that if you do a PhD you need to earn it. It is not a free ride and although I know some people would disagree with that, that's just my view. If you're smart enough to get a PhD place then survival is about dealing with what life throws at you, both professionally and personally. My view is that I have a responsibility to train students to be intellectually 'tough'; to cope with dissent; to manage the ups and downs that are inevitable in academia.

So whilst for some reason I feel terribly hurt by a single student's decision and the way the details of that are being transmitted around town, I know that in the long run I'll be better off. You can only work with people who want to work with you, right? Right.