The PhD Advisor Mistake Nobody Warns You About

successful advisor-advisee relationship, I think you should look for— and I don't know if I can come down with just one— but you should look for an advisor who has had people finish and still talk to them. There are advisors who get people to finish, but they kind of burn bridges with the people along the way. But you want that both things to happen, that you finish and you can still, you know, speak somewhat nicely of them and they of you in public. And that's really important because your advisor-advisee relationship starts, but it continues after you finish, because many times they ask, "Who was your dissertation chair?" And/or your dissertation chair may have some weight within a community, so you want to be able to piggyback their gravitas. Navigating the first year of writing your dissertation. Because of this strange dichotomy in the US system of doctoral programs where you start with coursework and then you magically switch over to your dissertation, a lot of people get lost in that switch. Because in the coursework you get a syllabus, you get a due date, you get an instructor saying, "Remember, this paper's due next week." In the dissertation you get a chair. There's no syllabus, there's no due dates, and a chair might just wait for you to ask what to do next. So the first thing you want to do is understand the process and understand if there's a template and understand dates. But more importantly, imposter syndrome is going to kick in a lot more if you run away from this because it just builds and builds and builds. So if you sit down on an incredibly regular basis, could be every day, every other day, something like that, but if you just dedicate time to it and keep your head down and know that this stuff builds on each other, you're going to be much more successful than someone who just sits out there and assumes it's going to continue like it did in the coursework section. And you can lose 6 months or more before you finally realize, oh, I got to do something. And then, oh, I've wasted all this time, what do I do? And you start feeling bad and imposter syndrome shows up. Get ahead of imposter syndrome. The first thing I want you to remember is that your proposal, in my experience, is the hardest part of a dissertation. Look, once you've got your proposal accepted, you're doing the work you wanted to do and you already have approval for it. So it's go do the research, write it up, tell them what it means, you're done. The proposal is where you are creating an idea or a research agenda out of nothing and you're getting a group of seemingly strange people to approve it and maybe people with different agendas to approve it. So it's really important for you to put that time into your proposal. And it's actually really good news if it's rejected or if they're asking for something different, because what that means is they're telling you this one wouldn't work or it's not gonna work like this, but give me more over here. So they're giving you breadcrumbs, maybe sometimes veiled breadcrumbs, but they're giving you a hint as to where to move forward. So that you can get approval and get to the easier part of your dissertation. So your advisor, PI, chair, whatever you want to call this person, kind of controls your life during this process. So you want to find out who that person is and how they like to work. And you just ask them, you know, do you like to see material in pieces, or do you want to see a whole chapter or a whole proposal or something? Because when you find out how they like to work, You can give them information in the manner they like to see it. And since they like it that way versus other ways, they're going to be predisposed to liking at least the forms that you're using to move forward. This is a long and lonely journey and can be hard, and it's been hard for everybody before you. So if it's not hard, never tell them that it's not hard. Always make them think that this is really hard, because if someone says to their advisor, well, this is, this pretty easy, I'm moving forward with no problem. Their thought might be, well, I'm not pushing them enough. I gotta give them more work to do. So you have to also understand the process and almost the game. Also, be available. Now, that doesn't mean you're there to solve every problem the department has or the faculty member has, but by be available, hey, I need someone to cover this class, are you available? And if at all possible, yeah, be available. Look, if you're teaching a class at the same time, no, you can't. But if you aren't and it's doable without horrible inconvenience to you, go ahead and do it. One of the biggest issues I talk to people pretty much daily on is, "Where are you in your process and what are you doing?" And the response many times is, "Well, I've got it pretty much finished, but I need to clear it up and perfect it." something like that. Perfection is a goal that you're not looking for. The problem with perfection— you're working and writing and typing and researching and doing all kinds of stuff to make it perfect, but do you know what perfect is? No, you don't. It's your chair and your committee who get to make that decision. And the problem can be you spend weeks, months working on perfection, and it might be a different perfection than they want. So, So you've gone down a play, spent a lot of time going in one direction. I'm a big proponent of good enough is good enough. Get it to a point where it's pretty good. Give it to your chair and committee and let them give you more hints as to the direction they want for perfect or good enough to graduate. The final push to defense is, yeah, is tiring. You're tired. You've put a lot in and now there's one more hurdle. And it's hard to get it all put together and then you're thinking about Oh my gosh, I'm going to do a presentation in front of this committee and they're going to ask me questions and they're going to find out I don't know this or whatever. First thing to remember is they're busy people and they aren't going to set aside time intentionally to meet with you and tell you that this is no good, redo it so they can set aside time later to do this. They want to do it once and they shouldn't let you get you to the fence unless they're predisposed to pass you. So remember that, that can save a lot of angst along the way. Remember to ask what they want. Ask your chair, is there a template? You know, how many minutes do I have for certain things? So that you are meeting expectations. If you prepare a presentation that's a 45-minute presentation and they're looking for 15 minutes, that's going to be hard to overcome, especially when someone and I've seen this happen, gets 20 minutes in and we realize they're only starting chapter 1 and someone on the committee says, you know, this is only supposed to be a 15-minute presentation, so quick, jump to chapter 3 and finish. That's so stressful and so hard to do. You want to have reasonable expectations going in and understand going in. One of the great things some universities do is they record these these things. Look at earlier ones that have been done. It's going to let you see what happens. It's going to let you see what type of questions people ask. It's going to let you see what type of attitudes show up for the defense and make you a lot more comfortable. If you're ever looking for help along the way in this long and lonely journey, reach out. Join our free dissertation help community.