,
22 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
20 years ago today (!), I defended my dissertation. To celebrate this anniversary, let me offer up 10 thoughts/opinions about being a PhD student and 10 about being an advisor. #phdlife #AcademicTwiiter #PhdChat 
Student 1/10: Your dissertation is not your life’s work. It is an opportunity to learn and a means to an end. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Graduate.
Student 2/10: Ask for help. You are here to learn, and not all learning happens on your own. Spending 3 months flailing isn’t a learning experience. It’s lost time.
Student 3/10: Don’t isolate yourself. It’s not good for your mental health or for learning. This is an era of team science. Be part of a team. And have a life outside of your PhD.
Student 4/10: Try something new. PhD work is stereotyped as a time of narrowing, but you can step outside of that funnel periodically. More skills makes you more versatile and more marketable.
Student 5/10: Get to know your classmates. They are your support system and your future colleagues. Help them out and ask for their help.
Student 6/10: Learn how to write well (or if you already write well, how to write better). It is worth the time and effort. Expect formal training, and take time to learn when your advisor returns a paper with so many tracked changes that you can’t see the original.
Student 7/10: Learn how to communicate well. This means conference talks, posters, seminars, elevator pitches, and yes, even tweets. Expect formal training, and when you see good examples, follow them.
Student 8/10: If you are planning to go into academia, learn how to teach and how to write a grant. For that matter, learn how to manage a team and how to run a good meeting. Many of the skills you need to be a successful academic aren’t formally taught to you in your PhD.
Student 9/10: Reach out to experts. Most academics love it when a PhD student emails them, says they read their paper, and wants to talk with them about it. You will learn something and build a network.
Student 10/10: Have high expectations of your advisor. Meet regularly. Ask her to introduce you to people at conferences. Ask her to help you land the next job, and the one after that, and the one after that.
Advisor 1/10: Your advisee isn’t your mini-me. She may not make the same choices you would have made. She may not even want your job. Help her figure out what she wants, then help her to reach her goals.
Advisor 2/10: Don’t assume that your advisee knows anything about academia. I enrolled in a PhD program without realizing that most professors do research and don’t just teach. I was relatively privileged but no one in my family had done a PhD before. Ask politely and educate.
Advisor 3/10: Be generous with your time. An hour of intensive work with your advisee could save her a month of effort.
Advisor 4/10: At the same time, don’t just do the work for her. Yes, you can do it faster, but that’s not the point. Don’t let her flail and go down blind alleys indefinitely, but give her the chance to learn and grow.
Advisor 5/10: Let your advisee see that you are a real person with some work-life balance (which hopefully you are!). If you have to leave to pick up your kids, say so. It sets a good tone and sends the message that you can have a life as an academic.
Advisor 6/10: Remember that not every student is above average at everything. This isn’t Lake Wobegon. Reinforce strengths and help address weaknesses. And be generous with your praise and honest with your assessments.
Advisor 7/10: Give opportunities. An extra middle author publication could help a student land a job. Don’t distract from the tasks at hand, but encourage side projects that could yield outsized benefits.
Advisor 8/10: Let your advisee take credit and ownership. Let her talk for herself at conferences, even if you know the answer to the question.
Advisor 9/10: Treat your advisee like a colleague. She knows much less than you about your area of expertise, but she knows more than you about something else. Educate, but don’t patronize, and try to learn something from her too.
Advisor 10/10: Read all 10 tweets giving guidance to students. Act accordingly.
Wow. Floored by the amount of interest in this thread. I hope this helped some people to think about how to make the most of #phdlife. For new followers, I usually tweet about environmental health. But I also make occasional observations about academia. I'll do more of that now.
