I stumbled across an email I sent within the past two years reflecting on my general approach to working with graduate students (context for sending the email not important). I made a few edits to remove names and shorten it a little. Here you go…

I always do my best to let the student know that this is their education and their future, not mine. I have no particular expectations from students for myself; rather, I want to do what I can to help them achieve what they would like to get out of graduate school. If they want to do a lot of research and publish papers, then I support data collection and prioritize writing with them. If they want to do some research but want to focus energies on teaching etc, then I pivot my support accordingly. In more recent years, I have had students interested in using their research and teaching skills in industry or staff (compared to Faculty) positions at Universities. I provide the guidance that I can at the time, and when I lack expertise/knowledge I am ok admitting that to the student and discussing what we can do to find information for their interests.

I try not to get in their way, and I try to provide support when it is needed along the way. I also do my best not to take credit for their work, and promote them when I can (e.g., within the department, to colleagues, on social media by sharing their work and achievements). In other words, let them take centre stage for their work because they need it and deserve it. 

I have had students, sometimes in tears, in my office concerned about never being able to do enough, be good enough, etc compared to all of their peers. First, I simply let them speak and listen to them. I also don’t tell them they are wrong, but rather tell them their feelings are understandable. I discuss the difficulties surrounding their position and the future job market for R1 types of jobs (I use the term “R1” because a lot of people understand that to mean “research focused position at what is considered a top tier University”). Then I usually draw my silly picture of a stick person standing in front of what looks like a big mountain. It is impossible to jump to the top of the mountain (simply a long line in front of my stick person). Then I draw a ramp from the top of the mountain that eventually rests on the ground, and suggest to the student that the best way to the top is to go behind the peak and take the ramp. They will get there, but it takes time. The problem with being in year 1/2 of graduate school is that they only see where they need to get to (top of the mountain), and cannot see the many years of training and great things they will likely accomplish during that training as they reach the top. But they will learn a lot, they will do great things, and they will finally reach the top. What is waiting for them is uncertain, but this is ok. The point is they are allowed to feel stressed about the ultimate goal and reaching the top of that mountain, but for now they need to focus on a series of shorter term goals. For example, in year 2 of our Masters program the goal is to defend their Masters thesis as well as be a part of non-thesis related research. Pretend the defense date is in July. Now we work backwards from there, and drop in milestones that need to be achieved to defend (e.g., final draft to committee, time to write final draft, final date of data collection in order to run planned analyses and write results/discussion, [all the other things here], have idea worked out with advisor and share with committee). At this point, I suggest they only really have to focus on what needs to be done this week, knowing that if they achieve these smaller goals along the way the big goal of defending in July will happen. And part of this process includes, for me at least, dealing with conflicting duties. If I want to do something this week, but I am worried about another task that needs to get done, I simply ask myself what needs to get done first? Once I decide, I tell myself not to worry about the other task anymore unless I plan to drop everything else and work on that task. So, don’t worry about something I know I am not going to do today, knowing that it will get done later, and knowing that I am doing something else important today. 

I also tell students not to compare themselves with their peers (as best they can). I did this all the time of course, but after getting my first tenure track job straight out of grad school (5 years in the program), these comparisons were not good for my self-esteem! (so many ppl with longer programs and then post-docs; eg, some people I knew did 6 years of post-docs before getting a TT position, so I did not want to compare pubs early on with them!). Instead, compare yourself with yourself a year ago. Have you made contributions at a rate that you feel is good for you? Being able to do this has helped me a great deal these past 22 years post PhD. 

Lastly, different people sometimes need/want different approaches to supervising. I remember one student (now a faculty member at a great place) having moments of doubt. On a few occasions we had heart to heart talks about their doubts, with the student wondering if they were good enough. I listened a lot longer in those moments before really digging in with my feedback. But it usually ramped up to me writing down papers they had published, had under review, data they were working with at the moment, papers they were writing, and projects that were planned, etc.. I then counted up stuff that was “accepted”, likely to be “accepted”, and likely to be sent out in the near future (and how I thought it would get published—just a matter of where it will be published and when). I think we did that at least 10 times. Another student that is also a faculty member at a great place was different. This student did not doubt being good enough (and I do NOT mean that in a bad way at all; I simply mean they had healthy self-confidence), but had other concerns that we worked through. 

Long story short, I see my job as helping them achieve to the best of our abilities what they would like to achieve with their graduate education. That’s it and that’s all (cheesy pop culture reference that will not make much sense in the near future, inserted here as evidence that I am an aging Professor).