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MIT is FAR from the only offender here, so much so that I find it odd to be calling MIT out in particular. And abuse takes a lot of forms. My advisor once went eighteen months without ever laying eyes on one of his doctoral students.
MIT is FAR from the only offender here, so much so that I find it odd to be calling MIT out in particular. And abuse takes a lot of forms. My advisor once went eighteen months without ever laying eyes on one of his doctoral students.
Unsolicited advice for any potential PhD students choosing between schools/advisors: you should try very hard to talk to current PhD students, preferably in person or at least over the phone or video call (at any rate, not in writing). Try to talk to as many as possible. Good advisors will probably have a few students who will speak up for them, and great advisors almost certainly will. In contrast, bad advisors will…
Also, if one or more occurs, gtfo before the stress gets you.
Fair warning: you _never_ get the full picture if you only hear one side of it. It is possible that the advisor is a manipulative asshole (though it's unlikely that they are to such an extent), or it is possible that the author grew up always getting participation trophies and now isn't getting any (far more likely, IMO). So before you render your judgment, wait for at least some semblance of corroboration.
Why do you think it's "far more likely" that the student is the problem?
Fair warning: you _never_ get the full picture if you only hear one side of it. It is possible that the advisor is a manipulative asshole (though it's unlikely that they are to such an extent), or it is possible that the author grew up always getting participation trophies and now isn't getting any (far more likely, IMO). So before you render your judgment, wait for at least some semblance of corroboration.
> it is possible that the author grew up always getting participation trophies and now isn't getting any (far more likely, IMO) Why do you think it's "far more likely" that the student is the problem?
Think about it: say you are a judge and you wanted to _really_ understand why someone is divorcing their spouse. Would you listen to just one spouse or both?
MIT is FAR from the only offender here, so much so that I find it odd to be calling MIT out in particular. And abuse takes a lot of forms. My advisor once went eighteen months without ever laying eyes on one of his doctoral students.
I think about it a lot and how I’m sure a lot of brilliant people are not able to fulfill their potential due to these issues.
MIT is FAR from the only offender here, so much so that I find it odd to be calling MIT out in particular. And abuse takes a lot of forms. My advisor once went eighteen months without ever laying eyes on one of his doctoral students.
I went to a SUNY school. My advisor kept me waiting 20 minutes after outside of his office for an appointment made a week earlier, only to walk out with coat on, announcing that he was going to happy hour. He suggested that i set up another the following week through the department secretary. I walked over to do that, discovering that he was actually going to happy hour at the airport, and from there India, and would…
The underlying issue is the huge power differential between advisers and students. Whenever there is such a power differential, abuse is almost inevitable.
I fear that unless that power differential gets addressed, any solutions are going to just be superficial band-aids on a festering wound.