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Reader query on getting feedback from (unresponsive?) faculty

In the comments section of our recent post "(How) do you get feedback?", Amanda writes:

I was thinking that maybe you could do a thread on how to get feedback from your advisers or committee members during grad school. From what others have said this seems a common problem in grad school (which I've finished, so too late for me, but maybe it could help others. I actually had a decent experience. Some of my friends had just awful experiences almost getting no feedback at all during their entire dissertation phase). It would also be helpful to hear from those who teach grad students. What could grad students do to increase the odds they will get comments in a timely manner without offending those who will write them letters of recommendation?

I think this is an excellent question. Although I never had issues here myself, I have known a whole lot of grad students who have. Indeed. as far as I can tell it seems to me to be one the more common–and serious–problems grad students face: an advisor or committee members who are either entirely unresponsive or ridiculously slow giving feedback. An example: I know one grad student whose advisor took over 6 months to read a draft of her dissertation. Another student in the same program got feedback from their advisor in the course of a single week. Talk about an uneven playing field! I also know a fellow whose entire committee was basically unresponsive, wasting over a year to give him feedback and schedule a dissertation defense. 

What should grad students do in these kinds of situations? The most obvious thing is to do everything one reasonably can to avoid ever getting an advisor or committee like that in the first place (up to and including finding out whether they are good supervisors before enrolling in the program as a PhD student!). But what about when one finds oneself in this type of situation? Following Amanda, I think it would be great to hear from grad students and grad program faculty on how to best handle these cases, as well as how to ensure timely feedback more generally. 

Any thoughts, tips, or experiences you think are worth sharing?

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8 responses to “Reader query on getting feedback from (unresponsive?) faculty”

  1. anon

    That is a real problem, when a faculty member who is allegedly supervising a thesis project (MA or PhD) is not delivering comments on work in a timely fashion. I do not have an easy solution for when one finds oneself in this situation, but I do have some advice. Make a pre-emptive strike. This is exactly what students should be asking about during campus visits BEFORE they decide to enter a particular program. Find out who is responsible in this way. Where I did my undergraduate degree, there were many graduate students coming to work with a quite “famous philosopher”. The problem was that the famous philosopher was also an alcoholic. His life was a mess, and it affected many aspects of his ability to do his work. The famous philosopher was great, if you ever managed to finish a thesis (without his help). He was well connected and very highly respected for his research, so you could get a job or post doc. But he was not going to help you through the program.

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  2. Marcus Arvan

    anon: totally agree. Best to avoid the situation altogether by finding out about potential advisors before ever joining the program.

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  3. Tim

    I had this happen. I spoke to the director of graduate studies. Ensuring that grad advisers are doing their jobs is most of what the DGSs job is. In my case, it worked. I got feedback quickly from then on.
    For obvious reasons, this isn’t an available route for everyone. But it might be helpful for some folks.

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  4. anon

    Marcus,
    Just to follow up, further. I suspect that many young people visiting campuses are more excited at the prospects of working with some big name philosopher than they are with figuring out who is really good to work with. That is, many may be disappointed to know that the person who gives feedback may be far less known in the philosophy world than the (drunk) that attracting them to apply to the program in the first place.

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  5. Amanda

    Given the choice between a famous drunk who never gave me feedback but got me a job or a non-famous thoughtful
    young philosopher who gave me lots of feedback but no job market advantage, I would take the former in a heartbeat. I think it would be unwise not to.

    Reply
  6. Marcus Arvan

    Amanda: I can’t remember which post the relevant comments were on. However, when I asked people about this the other week I recall people reporting that their job-market prospects were better with a less-famous person interested in and committed to the candidate’s work than the job-prospects of their classmates with an irresponsible but famous advisor.
    This actually seems right to me. The people who work for the “famous drunk” are, I think, the students most likely to not even finish their program (due to frustration, lack of support, etc.), let alone get a job.
    People who get jobs, it seems to me, tend to be those who “have it the most together”: the people who have published the most, networked the best, and finished their programs quickly. Consequently, they seem to tend to be those who receive the best support while in grad school, not the “king-making” letter of recommendation from a famous drunk.
    Also, for what it is worth, I suspect letters of recommendations play a far smaller role than people expect for many jobs. Although people at Princeton or other research jobs may care about that Famous Person thinks you are the Geniusest Job-Candidate Ever, I suspect many people at teaching schools don’t give a damn: they just want to hire someone who has their act together, has published, has taught effectively, and so on–the person who received the overall training in their program they should have.

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  7. Amanda

    I was just taken it as built into the scenario that the famous drunk actually would help you get a job, which would mean that you did, in fact, have a job.
    As for the more general situation, I think it depends on a lot of things. It depends on how famous the adviser is, whether he/she writes good letters, whether you are the sort of person who can finish without feedback, etc. One thing a grad should NEVER do is pick an adviser who is not only irresponsible in general, but has a history of being hostile toward grad students. I have seen this happen and then often students don’t finish, and even if they do finish they cannot get good letters.

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  8. Justin

    Marcus,
    I think I remember the thread you’re referencing. What I said there applies here too, I think: you can get all the advantages of having a less-known-but-helpful adviser by simply having that person on your committee and working very closely with them. And all the benefits of an adviser’s fame can be had even when that person isn’t giving you lots of help (as long as you can get them to read enough of it to write an informed letter). So my advice here would be that, so long as (1) you can be sure that the famous person will write you a good, informed letter (and pass your dissertation), and (2) you have other committee members who are being really helpful, you shouldn’t worry too much about the famous person’s unresponsiveness.

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