In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:
I am an ABD student. My question is what our expectations from dissertation advisors should be? My advisor reads the drafts and gives feedback. He is also ready to meet and discuss whenever I need. But that is pretty much it. Should I expect more from an advisor? Should I expect him to introduce me to other professors in other universities or invite me to certain conferences he attends? Should I expect him to do networking for me? I attended a few conferences where my advisor was also present. But he never introduced me to his colleagues from other universities or told them that I was his student.
Good questions. Another reader submitted the following reply:
Your advisor is advising your dissertation. Networking is (mostly) up to you. Nevertheless, you can advocate for yourself a little. Say “hey, I will be at that conference, too! I would love to be introduced to some people there, if you can make the time to do that” or “I feel like I’m making good progress on my dissertation … if someone requests a book review/comments/etc from you in my area that you want to decline, I would be happy to get one of those under my belt” and so on. I think it’s not really an obligation or part of advising, but it is helpful if an advisor or others at your grad institution advocate for you in these more informal ways. I wouldn’t be too pushy about it, but a little reminder or suggestion might go a long way.
It would be great to hear from other readers. What did your dissertation supervisor do? Did they just read and discuss drafts? Or, did they do more than that? And what do you think dissertation supervisors should do?
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