Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#81

Post by mattkrause » Sat, Mar 06, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

cge wrote: post #46

I think an important caveat is that, at least in American academia, your advisor should not have the same role as a supervisor, depending on the field and research arrangements. As a PhD student, you are expected to have care and motivation for your own research and situation: as sokoloff points out, the idea is that the student pushes and the advisor guides. You can, and in many cases are expected, to disagree with…

This depends STRONGLY on the field and department.

Friends in math and political science certainly had experiences like the ones you described, but they would be fairly unusual in a wet-lab field, where students (and postdocs) are largely expected to work on an advisor’s grant. This is especially true when the experiments are expensive: a committee member would need to be generous indeed to put up tens of thousands of dollars for (say) an fMRI study.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#82

Post by chriskanan » Sat, Mar 06, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

loceng wrote: post #39

chriskanan wrote: post #23

I'm a professor and have worked in industry. Let me break down the issues a bit on the education side, first. Almost always by year 4+ most PhD students are fatigued and starting to get very weary. I was definitely one of them, and at times I did feel like my supervisor wasn't helping my career development or giving me enough mentoring. He is a wonderful, kind, and creative person and he spent 1-2 hours per week with…

Is 1-2 hours per week really that much? I suppose they also spend additional time reading what you've written, along with revisions, etc?

That's certainly true, but it isn't every week a student has something for me to read.

What professors at research universities do:

1. Mentor PhD students (and often also MS and BS students)

2. Write papers and edit student papers

3. Write grant proposals

4. Deal with a lot of administrative issues

5. University service committees - some are on multiple some are on none (admissions, COVID response, undergraduate program, graduate program, etc.)

6. Review papers from others

7. Teach one or more courses

8. Develop new courses (takes 1-2 days to make a good lecture)

9. Update lecture materials (I spend probably 2 hours per lecture for courses I've already taught)

10. Meetings

11. Conference/Workshop organization

12. MANY miscellaneous duties

13. Budget management

14. Prepare talks

15. Serving on MS/PhD proposal/defense committees for students not in your lab

16. Staying on top of the scientific literature

17. Making homework assignments (some can delegate to TAs)

18. Grading (some can delegate)

19. Write letters of recommendation (I write around 10-15 per year)

Of course you can get this load down by learning to say "No" in some cases. But a professor during their first couple years when they start the job can easily expect to put in 60-80 hours per week. It gets a lot easier after that.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#83

Post by temp8964 » Sat, Mar 06, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

kome wrote: post #71

temp8964 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people fail to grasp the idea that the world does not always work surround them. And they have a very different definition of "abuse" than others, which basically goes to: you are abusing me if you don't actively take care of my emotions. For those people, it is much easier to find "abuses". Academic supervisors are not your personal friends. They have no interest in observing your emotions, because they have a…

many academic supervisors are also just lazy to do what is part of their job tho, and they prefer focusing on the interesting part.

First, even if you define taking care of graduate students as part of their job and they fail to do so, it does not mean they are abusing their graduate students.

Second, the expectation of coddling is a very very recent phenomenon. Graduate students are usually expected to be functioning adults, not teenagers. Absorbing negativity and handling them by yourself is usually expected to functioning adults.

Third, academic supervisors are very likely to be people good at things, not good at handling people stuff. The major reason they are supervisors of their labs is they are good at things they do, not they are good at taking care of people.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#84

Post by clgarty » Sat, Mar 06, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

wayoutthere wrote: post #79

temp8964 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people fail to grasp the idea that the world does not always work surround them. And they have a very different definition of "abuse" than others, which basically goes to: you are abusing me if you don't actively take care of my emotions. For those people, it is much easier to find "abuses". Academic supervisors are not your personal friends. They have no interest in observing your emotions, because they have a…

> Some people fail to grasp the idea that the world does not always work surround them. And they have a very different definition of "abuse" than others, which basically goes to: you are abusing me if you don't actively take care of my emotions. For those people, it is much easier to find "abuses". I promise you, we completely understand that the world doesn’t revolve around us. It is made painfully clear every day t…

White men? In CS or computational $SUBFIELD? I guess there are still some left, but we'll fix that.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#85

Post by aspaceman » Sat, Mar 06, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #26

I think there’s a default assumption in academia that students bring the motivation and perspiration to their work. The advisor doesn’t pull them through the program; the student pushes and the advisor guides. My spouse and several friends have PhDs and I do not, so my exposure is secondhand, but when I hear that circle of friends/friends-of-friends complaining about poor advisors, I often hear details about the grad…

I’ve always wondered how people dismiss academic abuse. Now I know! It’s “cause the students are just lazy / expect to be told what to do”. Bullshit.

My previous academic advisor would take out his aggressions and frustrations on his students. One specific instance, he began yelling at the lab because there were footprints on the couch - (I had taken a nap last night after finishing work, whoops). “Whose responsibility is this?!” Obviously I didn’t come forward. It took half a second to brush the dust off the raggedy couch after he left. He expected some student to step forward and get reamed in front of the lab? I was in the military and I’ve never seen such a clear example of leadership incompetence or pure aggression. At least drill instructors had a reason to yell at you nonstop. Folks like this capture the aggression and ignore the point. DIs would always give you proper direction, they never reamed you for their relief alone (even if it seems that way).

I have a decent amount of experience with tough leaders: “One can only expect perfection if you practice it yourself”. Blaming your followers is the mark of an incredibly, incredibly poor leader.

Bad managers are bad. They take out their anger and incompetence on you. And the second you start complaining all the folks like you give the side eye and hem and haw and hmmm and hurrr. No matter how clear the anecdote or straightforward the abuse, there is always some way the student should have taken it in stride. That’s not what leadership looks like.

You’re bullshitting to confirm your biases about students. Thinking they expect to be coddled is just a bias formed through idiocy and if I had to guess, too many “oversensitive college students” stories.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#86

Post by temp8964 » Sat, Mar 06, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

wayoutthere wrote: post #79

temp8964 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people fail to grasp the idea that the world does not always work surround them. And they have a very different definition of "abuse" than others, which basically goes to: you are abusing me if you don't actively take care of my emotions. For those people, it is much easier to find "abuses". Academic supervisors are not your personal friends. They have no interest in observing your emotions, because they have a…

> Some people fail to grasp the idea that the world does not always work surround them. And they have a very different definition of "abuse" than others, which basically goes to: you are abusing me if you don't actively take care of my emotions. For those people, it is much easier to find "abuses". I promise you, we completely understand that the world doesn’t revolve around us. It is made painfully clear every day t…

How do those have anything to do with "white men"? I bet "asian men/women" advisors are probably even tougher.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#87

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau » Sat, Mar 06, 2021, 3:30 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #26

I think there’s a default assumption in academia that students bring the motivation and perspiration to their work. The advisor doesn’t pull them through the program; the student pushes and the advisor guides. My spouse and several friends have PhDs and I do not, so my exposure is secondhand, but when I hear that circle of friends/friends-of-friends complaining about poor advisors, I often hear details about the grad…

In my college, my assigned advisor was an instructor that could barely teach his own classes. I still email the rep I worked with originally cause I don't trust my advisor. He has no idea what he's doing or saying and I'm not jeopardizing graduating on someone who doesn't care.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#88

Post by apohn » Sat, Mar 06, 2021, 3:31 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #26

I think there’s a default assumption in academia that students bring the motivation and perspiration to their work. The advisor doesn’t pull them through the program; the student pushes and the advisor guides. My spouse and several friends have PhDs and I do not, so my exposure is secondhand, but when I hear that circle of friends/friends-of-friends complaining about poor advisors, I often hear details about the grad…

>The advisor doesn’t pull them through the program; the student pushes and the advisor guides.

I've got a PhD, as does my spouse. I think this gives too much credit to the advisors. Some of them make you push a lot harder than others. Some actively derail your life.

Sometimes each person has a totally different experience with a advisor than others because the advisor treats people differently.

When I was in grad school, one of the rockstar professors had a clear bias towards a particular gender and ethnicity. He had a formal complaint filed against him that sucked up a lot of the students time, but basically resulted in his life getting easier (they said he would be relived from all teaching duties for a year).

My advisor was a perfect fit for my research interests. He was an amazing teacher. But he was basically anti-social and never had any desire to do any of the networking stuff other professors did for their students. The networking stuff is really important for your career if you want to stay in academia.

Some advisors would almost drag their students to conferences and introduce them to other researchers, professors, etc. My advisor just shrugged his shoulders and had no interest.

>I often hear details about the grad student’s behaviors and expectations that make me think that situation wouldn’t turn into a raging success in industry either, but would result in “My manager isn’t promoting me, therefore they are a bad manager.”

I think the difference is that in industry you can more easily change jobs and switch to a manager that is aligned with your personality. In Academia, there's typically only 1 or 2 advisors who are a fit. The only choice is to switch schools, which is a lot more difficult than changing jobs.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#89

Post by testkitchen » Sat, Mar 06, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

If you are in social science/humanities, usually students are not paid by professors' grants. Thus professors do not push students. That being said, it'd be very difficult to get good advising if students do not show effort. In natural science/engineering, it's a different story as advisors usually pay phd stipends out of their own funding and thus expect them to be competent RA/TAs.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#90

Post by goalieca » Sat, Mar 06, 2021, 3:35 PM UTC

loceng wrote: post #39

chriskanan wrote: post #23

I'm a professor and have worked in industry. Let me break down the issues a bit on the education side, first. Almost always by year 4+ most PhD students are fatigued and starting to get very weary. I was definitely one of them, and at times I did feel like my supervisor wasn't helping my career development or giving me enough mentoring. He is a wonderful, kind, and creative person and he spent 1-2 hours per week with…

Is 1-2 hours per week really that much? I suppose they also spend additional time reading what you've written, along with revisions, etc?

That’s more than I ever got. One day I was waiting outside my supervisors office to ask a question and he had left the country for a month or so. I didn’t even know.