I recently shared that I have started a full-time job in academic advising. It will likely come as no surprise that I have something of a soapbox when it comes to advising at all levels. After all, what is this site, really, but an attempt to provide advice on how to get through a PhD program.
So, because, it’s something I’ve been wanting to write more explicitly about, and in a nod to my new position, we are going to spend the month of November talking about advising.
This will be a short month, in overall amount of posts, for two reasons. First, I’m still learning how to juggle a freelance writing contract, working 40 hours a week, and managing the site. I deeply appreciate your patience, and welcome your feedback, as I learn. Second, so much of advising is deeply particular to the relationship between you and your dissertation advisor that I can only sketch the broadest outlines here.
I would encourage anyone who has a particular question to contact the site and I will do my best to address it. I know that one of the biggest factors that prevents a lot of PhD students from seeking help in their relationship with their advisor is fear of professional reprisals. Therefore, if you have a particular question you desperately want to ask but wish to remain anonymous please use the site’s Contact page. I will edit personal details from your question and address it in general terms here on the site.
The topics we are guaranteed to cover this month are the three types of advisors (mentor, sponsor, fan) and their role in completing your PhD. We will talk about how to use the corporate practice of “managing up” to improve your life as a PhD student and, because I have seen it too damn many times, we will cover the options you have if your advisor is toxic or abusive. Finally, I’ll prioritize any questions you send in because, after all, this site is for you.
With that said, let me tell you a little story about the last year of my dissertation. I was cranking out chapters to get done. When I say “cranking out” I mean submitting one revised chapter a week to my chair. At such a bruising pace it’s probably not a surprise that both of us lost our way a little bit. I say that because I don’t think either of us did anything wrong yet it seemed like we couldn’t communicate with each other.
I wrote.
She gave feedback.
I revised (I thought) according to her feedback.
She gave more feedback saying, “No, not like that.”
It seemed like we were circling around the same issues and I was near losing my mind trying to figure out how to get her to understand what I was trying to say. (I’m sure she felt she was near losing her mind too. She was, after all, reading and revising at a fast pace.)
Not knowing what else to do I turned to a group of academic women I knew online and asked for help.
Then, an angel appeared. This angel was a very talented editor (among other things). I paid her to read my work with my advisor’s comments and she helped me see what I was missing. As a third party without a depth of knowledge in the area or any relational baggage (and even the best relationships have their baggage) she saw both the merit in my writing and the merit in my advisor’s criticisms. Most importantly, she put what my advisor was saying in a way that I knew how to work with. I worked with her for three sessions and, shortly after our third session concluded, I had a productive meeting with my advisor and set a defense date.
I share this story with you for a couple of reasons. First, because I think there’s a notion that PhD mentors can only come from within the academia and this notion is harmful. Some of my best PhD mentors did not work in academia. Some, like the angel mentioned above, did have their PhDs and could speak to the process. Others did not (shoutout to Bill Arnold who kept me going when I wanted to quit).
They were all instrumental in helping me make it to and through that defense date.
The second reason I’m sharing this story with you is because advising just doesn’t work if you don’t know you can ask for help. For a long, long time I didn’t think I could ask for help. I’ve heard that’s fairly typical of first-generation students and our need to hide that we aren’t from the academy or (at least) a middle-class background.
But you can ask for help. In fact, you have to. What this month is dedicated to is making sure that you know who to ask for what kind of help and how to process the answers you get.
After all, I’m an advisor now 😉
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