Norms for meetings and feedback with dissertation supervisors?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I'm wondering how much feedback others get from their supervisors and also how much they expect from you and your work. I've talked to others both in philosophy and outside, and I am very surprised to hear from a lot of people, mostly those from outside philosophy, that they get fairly little feedback, sometimes just once a year with committee meetings, and also often requiring fairly little revision at all. Are the expectations in philosophy much higher than other fields? Are they healthy?

Good questions! My sense is that there may be a lot of variance. I didn't meet terribly often with my dissertation supervisor, who was pretty content with me working independently at my own pace--and though I got helpful feedback from him, I don't recall it being a ton, and I was happy with this. On the other hand, I had another committee member (Jerry Gaus) who would give tons of feedback, which was great but could also be pretty overwhelming. But I'm curious to hear from others.

Another reader submitted the following reply:

I started with meeting with my supervisor roughly every two weeks for the first two years. The supervision was mainly about honing my writing skills such that I a) write on topics my supervisor believes to be worth writing on, and b) write in a way that, roughly paraphrasing my supervisor, won't lead to a straight rejection from editors or reviewers upon finishing the first or second page of the manuscript. After the first two years, it's pretty much meet whenever I have a draft or revision of a manuscript ready, roughly every 1-3 months. I think compared to some other graduate schools, my supervisor (and others in the department) are rather hands on. I'm not sure whether this works for everyone, but it surely worked for me in terms of publication quantity and quality, and in finding a job. Philosophical writing is, from my own point of view, extremely difficult unless one is innately blessed or properly trained. (Hint: I don't belong to the former group, if such people exists at all.)

Any other readers care to weigh in? How much did you/do you meet with your supervisor, and what are their expectations/feedback like? Do you think the expectations are healthy and/or higher than other fields?

Comments

[James]

For the first 2.5 years, we met every three weeks. In preparation, my supervisor would make 30-70 critical comments on the writing and we would discuss the philosophical content over 1-2 hours in a meeting.

The comments were very thorough - not just critiquing my ideas, but also spelling, grammar, and writing form. After 2.5 years, we started meeting less regularly (every 4-6 weeks) for about an hour and the comments were reduced to 10-30 per piece of work. My supervisor noted that there was always more to say but it was getting less helpful to point out certain errors the closer I got to the end of the PhD.

Their expectations were generally very high. My work was called sloppy on more than one occasion for work that I was still putting in maximal effort for. Praise was never forthcoming in my work unless I deliberately fished for it, because excellent work was the standard to meet, not something to be praised.

Having spoken with people in different academic departments, different industries, and having read some articles from different subjects, I do think that philosophical standards (in the analytic tradition) are very high compared to other disciplines.

[Also critiqued]

My experience was very similar to James and the one in the original post. Fortnightly or thereabouts meetings early on, then once every few months towards the end. Lots and lots of critical feedback and very little praise.

I do think that philosophers could do with giving more praise and working a bit harder on saying what is good about work and what should be developed—although I know this is difficult from my own experience of marking student's essays.

However, I really hope we don't get less critical in emulation of other disciplines. It is very hard to do good and valuable work in philosophy; I think we need the high standards and level of critical feedback to learn to produce work that will get published and is actually worth publishing. It just might help that process along if we also had a little encouragement about what is going well once in a while.

[It worked out though]

My first advisor was super hands on. He would assign me readings and line-edit my papers. Apparently he gets less hands on as time progresses (based on reports from others who finished their entire PhDs with him). I switched advisor mid-way through because of a change in topic. My second advisor was super hands off. We barely met once per school year, and there was little to no substantive feedback. I'm pretty sure he did read my dissertation (because he's that kind of person) but I have no idea how he thought of it. I'm guessing "okay" because I passed without correction.

[newly tt]

I usually met my advisor when I had a complete draft of something. We would also meet once a semester or so to go over where I stood.

My committee mostly weren't in my subdiscipline, and only saw a final draft of the dissertation (but I was defending in a hurry, because I got a job). It didn't occur to me to ask them to look at things and they didn't offer. The ones who wrote me letters had seen my (published) work in another subdiscipline, and in classes, so based their research comments on that. Perhaps if there hadn't been a job related deadline, I would have reached out - but it's just as likely that, without such a deadline, I would just never have finished. :)

Comments from my advisor were often supportive suggestions, either to think about something or check out a resource. Perhaps the most useful were comments along the lines of "this sentence, as written commits you to a weird, strong view, and you probably don't mean it." Maybe there were more substantive corrections offered, but I was too obtuse to pick up on them.

I have an excellent, supportive and friendly relationship with my advisor. I think some of the way a dissertation was conceptualized was as a student's chance to learn how to work independently. Certainly, I could have asked for more and more substantive feedback from my advisor, but, honestly, like a lot of people, most of my time "writing my dissertation" was really time "avoiding writing my dissertation," and trying not to bring it up. So, practically, I'm not sure when that would have occurred.

My partner is in another field and sometimes meets with his supervisor every other day (once a week is more usual, but so is many months without any communication at all). I think there's a lot of variation and the important thing is that the specific relationship is functional.

[grad student]

I meet with mine every 3-4 weeks on average. They're happy to meet more often but I usually don't feel like I get enough done for that to make sense (I always send writing ahead of a meeting).