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by BeetleB
1484 days ago
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> How did your supervisor managed his subordinates so they wound not spend their time in leisure activities? They are not there to babysit, and many want self motivated people. If you spend your time doing leisure activities, you will either spend too much time getting the PhD, or simply not get it. Also, in large enough research groups, the advisor delegates almost everything to postdocs. I knew one guy who, every time he met his advisor, would have to answer the question "So what was your thesis topic again?" |
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It is though very much opposite of what new PhDs expects judging that from my own experience, conversations and confronting my supervisor who eventually frankly said that “academic freedom is not for PhDs”. This created an environment which reinforced itself.
This made me look PhD as a job which I tried to treat as such looking through cost/benefit lense. Probably, if my supervisor would not keep up with regular meetings I would have done less (after being introduced with concept of “academic freedom” for PhDs).
I would not look in that as lack of self motivation. In contrary at the beginning many PhDs were quite curios on what they do and what happens around them. But by the end of it many my colleagues went away from academia to work it in finance because it pays and frankly many have said that PhD is just a job. Thus I would assert that self motivation does not make PhD thesis alone unless if someone cares about it.