Number of weeks back at work: 2 weeks
Number of PhD students for whom I have been invited to be associate supervisor: 3 (That's more than one a week people!!!!)
Number of nerves about various aspects of supervisory arrangement: In the trillions and expanding at the rate of knots.
So this post has been stimulated by the first meeting (well my first meeting) that we had with the second of three candidates (phew that's a lot of numbers). We were trying to unpack what this PhD submission was all about as the document that she had sent through was a little confusing (cue reflections on my own first attempt at the PhD plan. Why did USYD let me in???). The most senior supervisor on the supervisory team - there are three of us - and the student have a good working relationship. i.e. they've worked together before on her Masters by research degree and seem to be on the same wavelength. Excellent. Except as the meeting unfolded words were whizzing past my ears and I struggled to understand what the student actually wanted to explore. What had been written and what I think was being explained/discussed/unpacked were definitely not the same thing. And there seemed to be an implicit understanding between supervisor 1 and the student as to what they were talking about. I tried to contribute some of my "expertise" in the area and promptly sounded like a fool. Good first impression there Naomi, well done. Until I've done some further research/thinking about the topic under question, I'm going to keep quiet for the short to medium term future.
With the meeting over, my co-conspirator in this supervisory arrangement kindly and patiently and explained what had just happened. The question is a little bit clearer, sort of, but I'll wait till the second version of this proposal comes through to pass judgement. We did however agree that we're going to have to let this "relationship" between the four of us unfold. Not that it was going to be a problem, just that it was going to need to develop. I think I'm so keen to contribute to this process that I get my knickers in a bit of a knot and immensely worried that what I have isn't good enough ... yet. I'm sensible enough to realise that this is happening and to try to keep this in check until relationships have been more firmly worked out. My very first PhD supervisor Deb Neyle used to ask the student population at the end of her lecture if they had any sensible questions. I'll keep that in mind when I'm in these meetings.
Would you look at that? I'm back at the beginning of the learning curve again ...
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