Over the past 10 years I have been supervising between 6-12 Masters and PhD students at any point in time. I meet weekly with my students most of the time. However over the past 10 years I have become more concerned with the rush by some Universities to get HDR students ‘through the mill’. We need to be cognisant of what this important degree is for – and a primary focus is to assist in the development of independent researchers who can progress in their chosen research field and become the future teachers and supervisors. If we want use the PhD to achieve some other goal, maybe we should develop another degree that meets this alternate purpose rather than confusing the purpose of the PhD.
Of course this is field dependent but I meet my PhD students formally once a week and see them informally on a daily basis.
Over the past 10 years I have been supervising between 6-12 Masters and PhD students at any point in time. I meet weekly with my students most of the time. However over the past 10 years I have become more concerned with the rush by some Universities to get HDR students ‘through the mill’. We need to be cognisant of what this important degree is for – and a primary focus is to assist in the development of independent researchers who can progress in their chosen research field and become the future teachers and supervisors. If we want use the PhD to achieve some other goal, maybe we should develop another degree that meets this alternate purpose rather than confusing the purpose of the PhD.