I am your PhD advisor: but what does that actually mean?

About a year ago, I solicited anonymous collective feedback from my research group at Princeton on our research, advising, and lab culture (inspired by this fantastic group meeting format from Yisong Yue). One of the main pieces of feedback that resulted from this exercise was the need to set clearer expectations in the advisor-advisee relationship during the PhD, and to have these expectations articulated in a written format. Having clearly articulated expectations provides transparency in the advisor-advisee relationship, allows new students and postdocs to learn about how the group operates, allows both the advisor and the advisee to evaluate if things are going well, and makes it easier for both parties to provide feedback when expectations are not being met. Clear expectations are particular important in the PhD context, where such expectations are often very vague and vary significantly between groups and universities. Based on the feedback from my group, I made an attempt at wr

About a year ago, I solicited anonymous collective feedback from my research group at Princeton on our research, advising, and lab culture (inspired by this fantastic group meeting format from Yisong Yue). One of the main pieces of feedback that resulted from this exercise was the need to set clearer expectations in the advisor-advisee relationship during the PhD, and to have these expectations articulated in a written format. Having clearly articulated expectations provides transparency in the advisor-advisee relationship, allows new students and postdocs to learn about how the group operates