what your student wants

Recently, I sat in a very good talk about supervision and what students expect from their supervisors. It was a long list - lets see what I remember of it...


You students want you to ...
... be a respected and successful researcher
... be approachable
... respect the differences in each others characters
... give them freedom in their work
... guide them
... be a friend
... respect their work
... respond quickly, when they gave you something to do
... be in interested in and to push their career
... manage their projects
... tell them what's the next step
... take care of them


They want you to be a bit teacher, a bit friend, a bit role model, a bit manager, a bit parent, a bit boss, a bit psychiatrist - each of them in a different weighting. Seems as if one could only fail their expectations - always a good reason to relax a little bit...