Pros and Cons for having a pushy supervisor for PhD - (May/24/2013 )
Hello,
what are the pros and cons of having a pushy supervisor for PhD?
The supervisor is having good publication record and is doing promising research but the only thing that worries me is that he is too pushy.
So, just wanted to know what are the pros and cons of such a supervisor?
pro: you finish very fast
con: it's stressing
hobglobin on Fri May 24 20:07:44 2013 said:
pro: you finish very fast
con: it's stressing
So, nothing apart from stress. if i can finish fast it is good then
Being too pushy is not good and makes you feel very uncomfortable. If you have already showed that you are highly self-motivated, being pushed is unnecessary.
Depends on you and how you work best. I work best under pressure and I need external deadlines to keep me motivated (I suck at self motivation... perhaps science isn't for me after all??!!...).
I WISH my supervisor had been more "pushy" with me early on, as I feel like I am quite behind and have wasted time faffing about with things that someone should have told me were time wasted. I needed more direction. But, hey, at least I learnt something, right??
The only time I think "pushy" can be bad, is when it is coupled with micro management. It is one thing to expect results and to guide your staff and students towards them, whilst still allowing them autonomy. Quite another to be over their shoulder, second guessing every move they make!
leelee on Sat May 25 04:03:06 2013 said:
Depends on you and how you work best. I work best under pressure and I need external deadlines to keep me motivated (I suck at self motivation... perhaps science isn't for me after all??!!...).
I WISH my supervisor had been more "pushy" with me early on, as I feel like I am quite behind and have wasted time faffing about with things that someone should have told me were time wasted. I needed more direction. But, hey, at least I learnt something, right??
The only time I think "pushy" can be bad, is when it is coupled with micro management. It is one thing to expect results and to guide your staff and students towards them, whilst still allowing them autonomy. Quite another to be over their shoulder, second guessing every move they make!
I work well under pressure as well and who knows by the end of my PhD i would be good with time management and meeting deadlines.
Some additional points i got are:
Doesn't sound good to me - especially points no. 1,2 and 6 really sound worrying... And constant fluctuation of his staff could be an indicator that many people don't get along with him, so leave soon after starting,,,,
Tabaluga on Sun May 26 14:22:33 2013 said:
Doesn't sound good to me - especially points no. 1,2 and 6 really sound worrying... And constant fluctuation of his staff could be an indicator that many people don't get along with him, so leave soon after starting,,,,
What does point no. 1 mean? I didn't understand now as what does it mean by changing focus. Like if am working with diabetes he won't ask me the next day to work with plant biology.
Of course it doesn't mean he changes the entire topic, but rather that he quickly loses interest in a certain aspect you are studying at the moment. So he might be interested in a certain subaspect now but next week he sees/reads something else which and he immediately loses interest in the former thing and tells you to focus on the new thing instead. This is not a good behaviour because you should have a certain steadiness in your project instead of poking around here and there.