I think that I'm a fairly laid back person most of the time and about most things (not everything: ask the scum who used to live in the apartments above and below me when we had an apartment in Brisbane City). That was how I originally took to supervision. Really laid back. Possibly because of my own nature, but also because I don't think I had any idea what I was doing, so I didn't really push any particular method or style very hard. I didn't have one to push!
Over the last couple of years, my style has become such that my expectations are a lot more focussed. I'm not so into just "rolling with the flow". This has reached such a point that a few weeks ago when a student wrote to me asking to do a coursework masters project with me (a small project really, 24cp over one semester) I responded with an email that was about 2.5 pages long explicitly outlining not only the project, but my expectations down to the level of when and where we would meet, what we would meet about and at what point of the semester, what I expected in terms of written work submitted, when it should be provided, what I would give back, oral presentation of research at regular intervals, and all of this culminating in submission of a draft of a research paper to submit to a journal following assessment etc.
Needless to say, I'm pretty sure I scared the shit out of this student and they haven't written back since. Not to worry! Obviously this student wasn't really keen on that sort of situation. It's a shame because I guarantee you that this would have given this student a research paper published in a peer reviewed journal - which they probably won't get now as part of this project unit. But that's ok.
Not that I have any reason to believe that this was the case in the above case in particular, but it's probably relevant to say now that sometimes, a student in that situation cares more about a high grade in the unit than something which is probably more useful in the long run. Not just the paper, but the actual research experience, rather than some artificial course pretending to be research.
Anyway, that's bring me to the topic of the interaction between a supervisor and a student. There is so much to this, that I had never really thought of until reasonably recently. I guess I'm a bit naive and a bit optimistic sometimes, but I kind of thought of it in the sense that there's a job to do (the PhD) and it just needs to get done by the relevant people (the student and the supervisor(s)). But it isn't really that simple. There are so many factors at play.
Sometimes, it is that simple. Even though there might be differences in style between the involved parties, sometimes they just work around each other and the job gets done. I think that this was my own experience. Graeme (my PhD supervisor) seems to be much more of a perfectionist than me and he likes to think around problems more than I do. I like to come up with an approach, use it, report on it and move on (provided it works of course). It doesn't have to be the perfect approach in my opinion...that is just scope for future work in my way of doing things. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with either way, but they are certainly different and for the first part of my PhD it caused me problems because I couldn't reconcile the two approaches - I was always trying to satisfy both of us. Eventually, I just satisfied me and wrote a thesis. It wasn't great (in my self-deprecating opinion, it was probably only barely good enough), but it was obviously enough...and that was what I wanted - enough to get me over the line.
Other times, the factors at play can be big problems. One of the things I remember from student days is not really knowing anything about academia. I try to keep that in mind now - I realise that my students don't necessarily know about postdoctoral life, about grants, about jobs, about research projects, about life as an academic. Sometimes they don't know about the drivers that their supervisor has - I think it's important to let students know where they fit into your life plan. The more you communicate the better. I know some people don't think of it that way and think that you should either just know or just find out yourself, but personally I think that's like having a partner and expecting them to know your feelings etc in your relationship...it just doesn't work - you have to talk or communicate in some way, or disaster ensues.
Sometimes disaster still ensues unfortunately....but I guess if it does, at least I'll realise that I wasn't being an ass and I was always trying to make it work out.
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