[almostgotcaught]

> PhDs excluded

lol you think professors spend time on their phd students? they have postdocs for that...

edit: a typical research lab functions exactly like any other organization in the world: hierarchically. a chief executive/leadership role/head (the prof), his/her direct reports (post docs), their direct reports (phd students), and their direct reports (undergrads). if a phd student is being directly advised by the prof that's simply because the prof currently has no postdocs not because they don't desire some.

[anticensor]

For legal reasons, the thesis supervisor has to be a professor in most unis (a non supervising advisor can be anyone with a doctorate, though), not just a random postdoc fellow.

[almostgotcaught]

> For legal reasons, the thesis supervisor has to be a professor in most unis

you're wrong - eg in my uni (a "top tier" uni) thesis advisor could be a RAP (research associate professor) which was not a full nor tenure track prof and thus not much more than a postdoc.

[dotnet00]

Might be different for other universities, but in my department, as well as all the PhD's I've known in other well known universities, there is no such hierarchy, they all worked directly with their professors.

Mine doesn't even have many postdocs (if any) as far as I'm aware. Similarly, while sometimes promising PhDs might be assigned to handle undergrad researchers, most of us worked directly with the professors back then.

[cherryteastain]

I have a PhD and my supervisor (who was a professor) spent some time on me