Jacopo Bertolotti
16 June 2009
The not-so-good student
Tags: career, PhD, qualityPosted in Ethics, PhD life
Let’s take a (not so) hypothetical situation: assume you hold some kind of responsibility in your group. You might the the principal investigator, a researcher or even just an experienced post-doc; the important part is that you are somehow responsible (morally if not practically) for people hierarchically below you.
Let’s also assume that a new PhD student (or, as a limiting case, a fresh post-doc) enter your group. The path he/she took to reach your group can vary enormously from country to country so let’s skip it. The main point is that you don’t really know this person but you have some good reason to believe he/she will do good.
The first few months are there to allow your new PhD student to get used to the new place, the new subject, the new “way of doing things” and so on. After some time passed you expect him/her to become productive. After all he/she is no more a undergrad student and is reasonable that, given some guidance, he/she will start conducting an experiment (or at least a part of it). After all the very reason you took in a new PhD student is because you need people working.
Now assume that, after a reasonable amount of time passed, the new PhD still look totally lost. He/she don’t seem to be able to do things in the lab or to grasp the subject he/she should work on and is absolutely no help for other people in the group. Just blaming him/her is probably not fair; if he/she comes from a different country the cultural shock might be hard to overcome and, maybe, the approach you and your co-worker took with him/her was the wrong one.
At this point you try to change your approach to him/her. You became softer or harsher depending on what you feel might be the best. It might work but assume it doesn’t just like it doesn’t work you third and fourth approach.
Ok, not anyone is cut for research. Maybe this person would live a better life finding a job outside university. On the other side casting him/her out of the PhD program will (most likely) destroy completely his/her scientific career and maybe the fault of his/her failure is partially yours because you didn’t manage to trigger the right switch.
How do you decide destroy someone career before it started? How can you be sure it is the right thing to do? Where do you draw the line?
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16 Jun 2009 12:11, Witek
Good question – it is the same about new people joining the company.
Anyway, there is a spelling error in the word “shure”, should be “sure”.
And to let you know – I’ve requested the Science Survival book for our library and they kindly bought it.
17 Jun 2009 2:57, Mirjam
I think the core of the problem lies in how you view the people in your group. You say ‘after all the very reason you took in a new PhD student is because you need people working’. It may be true that for the group leader the additional hands form the best part of having a PhD student, but personally I think the responsibility for training the PhD (and to a lesser extent postdocs) is much more important. A PhD is a starting researcher and needs guidance. Not everybody learns at the same pace, so patience is important. In that sense the 4 year limit of the Dutch system is much too rigid; some people just take a bit longer to reach the same level. Even so, there may be truly hopeless cases, where the person really is not fit for an academic carreer. Before concluding so, however, I think one should have tried everything that is reasonable to help that person. Moreover, after that, the responsibility of a group leader should not end with simply ‘destroying someones scientific carreer’. I think you should clearly explain to the person why you think he is not suitable for science and indicate what alternative options could be. The PhD should then decide for themselves: quit and do something that suits them better or decide to try and get a degree anyway (in that case you should continue to support them). If it is clear to the student that you need e.g. 2 published papers for that then it is up to that person to fulfill these requirements. If he/she fails to do so the decision is out of your hands and they don’t get their degree. In this sense the Dutch system could improve too, because now it still happens that people just get their degree because they managed to bear the suffering for 4 years, with no scientific results. Note that I find it equally bad if you just let someone plow on, without telling them that you don’t see them fit for a scientific career. And yes, if the student is not productive but decides to continue anyway, you effectively loose money that you could have spent on someone else who could have been better, but I think that is part of the educational game. After all of the above I guess that the question remains when you know that someone is truly hopeless. I think there is no clear-cut answer to this and that one has to rely on experience and gut feeling here. Nevertheless, I think that in general it will be quite clear, provided that one has given the PhD sufficient time (say, order 2-3 years) and coaching.
17 Jun 2009 13:18, Jacopo Bertolotti
@Witek: thank you for pointing out the spelling mistake. In the meanwhile I also found a second one but I’ll keep this secret 😉
@Mirjam: On this respect Italian system is worse than the Dutch one. Here, most of the times, you get your PhD just for being able to survive without your boss complaining too much for the mandatory 3 years. There is no filter whatsoever. If you don’t cast away the ones that are not good they will get their diploma even with no result at all. On one side you can just try to get something good out of the student for 3 years and forget about him/her just afterwards. On the other side a person that is continuously in dire need of being told exactly what to do and how to do it and that is not even able to carry out the most simple task without damaging the equipment can be a major burden for the whole group.
That said I don’t feel comfortable at all in placing myself as an infallible judge of other people possibilities. But sometimes being patient and understanding can be a hard task…
20 Jun 2009 7:44, Klaas Wynne
In the UK, 50% of all kids go to University with the result that a university degree doesn’t mean that much anymore (unless it’s from Oxbridge). Hence, a lot of graduates do a PhD to stand out in the job market. Most of them are not after an academic career. So, the not-so-good-student problem you describe is relatively common here. BTW, as I have found out, it can also apply to postdocs. I had a postdoc with excellent references from Japan but on arrival he hadn’t got a clue what to do. He could barely log into his computer. Apparently, in Japan, you are told exactly what to do on a daily basis. Not really a system I am used to… Said postdoc is happily back in Japan again.
20 Jun 2009 10:03, Riccardo
In my opinion the doctoral period is an education period, and as such knowledge has to be transfered from the group/supervisor to the student. I find hard to belive that a student that has a master in science, and that has passed an interview/evaluation is not clever and motivated. Therefore the problem of a Ph.D. student not finishing can often underline a bad supervision, unappropriate projects or some interpersonal issues.
I would then be very careful when judging the ability of a student to complete his degree, and in the eventuality of a negative decision of the supervisor I think action should be taken very quickly, within the first few months.
I have recently discussed with a colleague who has the same problem with his Ph.D. student as after three year he hasn’t produced many tangible results. After much thinking and discussing he has asked the student to decide (he knew he was not meant for an academic life but a Ph.D. is useful also outside the academia), and then he has changed the postdoc supervising him. Now the situation is much better and the student is finally squeezing results out of his doctoral years, while escaping the curse of being kicked out of a doctoral school after three years!