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aryanhwy3rd year undergrads have to write a 12,000 word thesis here (8,000 if they're in certain joint honors programmes), and I was very pleased when the best and brightest students from my 2nd year class last year all asked if I'd be willing to supervise them. Supervision doesn't involve much: Students are told they are entitled to 6 hours of contact time with their supervisor and one read-through of a draft -- but with 8 students that does add up!
Yesterday I had them all come over to my office for a joint meeting, in part because I wanted everyone to know who else is working with me as there might be some people who would find it useful to talk to each other while they were working (and in part because it would be easier to say some of my expectations once rather than multiple times). And it was really pretty awesome. I've got 5 who are doing more language-y topics and 3 who are doing more math-y topics (one is looking at the stable marriage problem and assorted matching algorithms -- thank you, ILLC, for letting me write a PhD on medieval logic and yet be in an environment where I've come away qualified to supervise undergrads in my husband's area of research, broadly construed. Osmosis FTW), but there was quite a bit of interaction, with people on one side having questions for people on the other side, and it seemed like a genuinely interesting and useful afternoon for all of them. I hope to have everyone together again at least once during next term.
But one thing I told them flat out was that the 6 hours of supervision entitlement? They can basically ignore that. I don't want anyone not making an appointment with me just because they think that they'll "use up" their 6 hours. As I told them, I can think of plenty of things I'd rather do less than meet with someone to talk about research. (In fact, some of the best times I had during last year was with one of my Language & Mind students whose thesis I wasn't in fact supervising but to which I nevertheless contributed at least six contact hours of discussion. We still have two papers that came out of those discussions that we need to finish up). When it comes to both what I want to do, in a cushy academic job, and what I think it is important that I do, given my cushy academic job, I'm not entirely sure that there is anything much more important than supervising students.
So I'm looking forward to the rest of the year.
Yesterday I had them all come over to my office for a joint meeting, in part because I wanted everyone to know who else is working with me as there might be some people who would find it useful to talk to each other while they were working (and in part because it would be easier to say some of my expectations once rather than multiple times). And it was really pretty awesome. I've got 5 who are doing more language-y topics and 3 who are doing more math-y topics (one is looking at the stable marriage problem and assorted matching algorithms -- thank you, ILLC, for letting me write a PhD on medieval logic and yet be in an environment where I've come away qualified to supervise undergrads in my husband's area of research, broadly construed. Osmosis FTW), but there was quite a bit of interaction, with people on one side having questions for people on the other side, and it seemed like a genuinely interesting and useful afternoon for all of them. I hope to have everyone together again at least once during next term.
But one thing I told them flat out was that the 6 hours of supervision entitlement? They can basically ignore that. I don't want anyone not making an appointment with me just because they think that they'll "use up" their 6 hours. As I told them, I can think of plenty of things I'd rather do less than meet with someone to talk about research. (In fact, some of the best times I had during last year was with one of my Language & Mind students whose thesis I wasn't in fact supervising but to which I nevertheless contributed at least six contact hours of discussion. We still have two papers that came out of those discussions that we need to finish up). When it comes to both what I want to do, in a cushy academic job, and what I think it is important that I do, given my cushy academic job, I'm not entirely sure that there is anything much more important than supervising students.
So I'm looking forward to the rest of the year.
