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Tips for choosing a dissertation supervisor?

In our September "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

Would be very curious to hear about strategic choices grad students must make when it comes time to form a committee. If i know “famous” professor X would serve as chair on my committee and also for someone in my cohort, and that person is held in better regard than I am, should I avoid having professor X as my committee chair? Is this way of thinking about things misguided? Do faculty compare students? Need one’s chair be the most “famous” person on the committee to be competitive for the best jobs?

Interesting questions, and a good issue more generally. My experience is that the choice of dissertation supervisor can be crucial. Some supervisors are good mentors who graduate and place a lot of students in good jobs. Others can be brutal to work with and rarely graduate anyone, let alone place graduates in good jobs. Indeed, I've heard all kinds of horror stories, ranging from supervisors who take 6 months to provide any feedback on chapter drafts to perfectionists who won't agree to hold a defense until the dissertation meets impossibly high standards. By my lights, these are probably the most important things to know: does the supervisor graduate students within reasonable time-frames and place them in jobs? Are they supportive and helpful or neglectful and impossible to work with?

While I have heard that faculty do compare students–including in recommendation letters–I'm not sure how huge of a concern this should be. For again, the best supervisors I've seen are ones that graduate a lot of students and regularly place them into good jobs. Whatever 'ranking' of students is going on, it doesn't seem to hurt their students' job prospects! Finally, in terms of whether you need the most 'famous' person to head you committee, I think that probably depends a great deal on what your job-market aspirations are. If you're in a top-ranked PhD program and out for an R1 job, then yeah, I think it probably makes sense to have high-powered people on your committee. But if this is not the case–if you're a better fit for a job at a teaching-focused institution–then I suspect it doesn't matter all that much (though you might want that person on your committee anyway so that you learn the most as a philosopher and write the best dissertation you can!).

But these are just my off-hand thoughts, and I'm perhaps not the most in the know here. Anyone with experience in these areas care to weigh in?

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One response to “Tips for choosing a dissertation supervisor?”

  1. junior faculty

    I want to echo that the advisor’s track record is really important. You may also want to speak to students in your department and get a sense of what their advising style is. In my opinion, it is better to get an advisor that you can work well together with rather than someone famous. Ultimately, you are judged on the quality of your work and you should choose the person who will most likely bring out the best in your work. Grad school is stressful in itself and you want your advisor to be an ally rather than a source of stress.
    In term of the more specific questions about comparisons. This depends from advisor to advisor. Some do play favorites. Avoid those advisors! Especially if you are not in the favored camp. This will just add to your anxieties and sink your market prospects. Do your research, ask around, examine their placement records – if they only graduate “stars” and have other students who drop out / not finish, it would be a red flag.
    No, the chair of your committee does not need to be the most “famous” person. If you want to be competitive on the market, it would be advantageous to have a famous philosopher in your AOS to write you a letter. But this person does not need to be your chair. They could just be a member of your committee or an external letter writer who knows your work. I know of people who went on the market with great success when their chair was a mid-career philosopher, with more senior/famous letter writers who were either just on their committee or an external letter writer. In the end, a glowing letter from a less “famous” philosopher would help you more than a less-than-glowing letter from someone “famous.”
    I think it is a mistake to choose an advisor just because they are the most famous person in the department or in your area. The job of the chair is to be your guide through your dissertation and the job market. Being a famous philosopher often does not correlate with those mentoring skills.
    As a cautionary tale, I chose my advisor back in grad school because they were famous and they were a good fit for my subject area. I was told by older grad students that they can be difficult to work with, but I decided to stick with them, full of boundless optimism. It was a mistake. I was miserable. My advisor did not read my drafts before our meetings, did not give me constructive feedback, did not help me network (despite being at the same conference several times), etc. They became a source of stress rather than someone I can turn to when I felt unsure or lost. I would have been much better off with a less “famous” advisor, but one who took mentoring seriously.

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