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Choosing a Dissertation Supervisor

Brian Leiter

A grad student writes:

How should one choose a supervisor? I'm a graduate student at a PGR rank 15 – 20 school, and starting to think seriously about dissertation topics. One consequence of our relative status is a very mixed placement record: some of our students get amazing jobs, but others struggle to get any interviews. I get the sense that choice of supervisor is a crucial factor in this.

I suppose one shouldn't have as chair someone who is just starting (less than 5 years post-PhD) in the profession. But what about the other end of the scale: would it be a bad call to have someone who is well known and produces great work, but who hasn't produced much in the past few years? What about a very famous philosopher who has become more of a 'public intellectual'? And how should one balance considerations of who would be a good adviser, pedagogically speaking, against who is more well-known in the profession?

I know that, in the end, one should go for the most interesting topic, and try to produce the best work one can – but I suppose that it can't hurt to stack the deck a little by taking such things into account.  Thanks very much for any thoughts!

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16 responses to “Choosing a Dissertation Supervisor”

  1. Les Green

    I find it easier to list the sort of supervisors one should try to *avoid*. Here are my suggestions (not in priority order):

    -faculty who are out of touch with developments in the field (even if they are still productively mining the seam they discovered as graduate students)
    -faculty who have a poor reputation amongst their colleagues (which is not the same as not being 'famous'; some not-so-famous philosophers have excellent reputations in their fields)
    -faculty who are unavailable to students (e.g. because they are rarely there; because they are too busy with their own work; because they are too busy with their other vocations (e.g. their TV programs, cruise lectures, wineries…) etc.
    -faculty who sleep with students
    -faculty who use students primarily for grunt-work (e.g. finding citations), or for sources for new ideas to rework then publish
    -faculty who are unable to be frank with you about how well you're really doing, what your actual prospects are, etc.

    Reply
  2. Jonathan Ichikawa

    It could go without mentioning, but probably shouldn't: the obvious quality to look for in this dimension — the one most strongly correlated with placement success — is the placement record of an individual's previous students. In choosing between individual potential supervisors, that looks like a much better calculation than would attempts to generalize on the sorts of properties described in the second paragraph.

    Reply
  3. Mark van Roojen

    FWIW, I'd give high priority to having an advisor who will be able to help you do your best work. That means different things for different people, since what we need from our advisors depends partly on us.

    In most places you will be choosing a committee as well as an advisor (at Princeton in my day the committee was chosen for you, but that is unusual in the US). And you are not limited to your committee for your recommendation writers. So you can have letters from people you want even when they aren't your advisor.

    There may be cases where things get more complicated, if for example the prominent person you want a letter from won't write good letters for non-advisees, but hopefully such problems are rare. So I'd focus on who will help you generate work that you want people to look at when they evaluate you.

    Reply
  4. Carl

    In order for readers to help you get a job, you need to graduate. So pick an supervisor you can work with: someone's whose style is consistent with what you need, who sees philosophy (or your corner of it) in a somewhat sympathetic way, who will want you to succeed. Then consider how many advisees he has, and ask more senior grad students (and recent graduates) whether he gives students the time and attention they need.

    Only at that point consider, for potential supervisors who've made the cut, who has the best scholarship and reputation in the field, and the placement record of previous advisees.

    If you pick someone you can work with, but who can't help you get a job, you're on your own, and that can be tough. You might well end up in a non-ideal job, or out of academia all together. But at least you'll have a degree.

    Ideally you'll find someone who you can work with AND who can help you. That's probably the only way of getting the "good" jobs (little teaching, higher pay, grad students to teach). But with a degree you can at least help yourself, without one you can't. It comes down to this: Would you only want to be a professor at an R1 institution, or do you want into the profession, and THEN want to maximize your chances of the job you would prefer?

    Reply
  5. Wes Anderson

    David Sternberg's (1981) book, "How to Complete and Survive a Doctoral Dissertation," although a little dated and not directly relevant to philosophy programs, has a chapter or two on choosing a dissertation supervisor that should be helpful.

    Reply
  6. Manyul Im

    "One consequence of our relative status is a very mixed placement record: some of our students get amazing jobs, but others struggle to get any interviews." That's probably not a consequence of being at a "PGR 15-20 program" per se; PGR 15-20 means you're at a pretty elite program. Jobs are hard to get these days. That said, I know some departments rank their job-seekers, or at least give a departmental letter that indicates something like a ranking compared to the program's other seekers. My sense is that those rankings are based on departmental consensus, based on discussion, including the advisor's assessment of your abilities. That might explain why some people do well in getting interviews and some don't, even though they are in the same program. Whether such rankings are made or not in your case, you should have an advisor who "goes to bat" for you because he or she thinks you are smart and have an interesting project. Chances are, even (especially?) the junior people who teach in your program, given its quality, are people who are respected, connected, and above all, very smart. So find someone you feel like you can talk philosophy with and who thinks well of you (it goes without saying that it should be someone who doesn't feel threatened by you, or by grad students in general — some people have those insecurities). That's your best bet. If you don't know anyone like that by the time you're choosing an advisor, that's a more serious concern; don't have been at such a program.

    Reply
  7. Dai Heide

    The most important thing, to my mind, is flexibility. Preliminarily choose several topics that you have a sustained, long-term interest in and that you think are worthy of the extended treatment of a dissertation. Presumably, then, you'll be choosing among several potential supervisors, given that the topics will likely diverge to some degree.

    When choosing an advisor, pick the one with whom you think you'll have the best working relationship. This is someone, presumably, who actually has time to advise (more) students, whom you get along well with, who has taken an interest in and is respectful toward your work, whose ego isn't so big as to stifle your own originality, etc. Sometimes this means choosing someone who is not yet a full professor, or who is less eminent than other members of the department. And sometimes it means choosing a topic that isn't the one that you swore consumed your every waking moment in your application letter. But it probably also means giving yourself the best chance to write the best dissertation you have in you.

    Other factors are important, too, of course: supervisor's placement record, his or her relationship with graduate students in general, etc. But students who have poor working relationships with their supervisors seem, in my relatively limited experience, to be less productive and less excited than those who have close working relationships with their advisors.

    If you have your heart set on a single topic and let the topic entirely determine your choice of supervisors, prepare for the serious possibility of disappointment: what if the faculty member best suited to that topic falls into any of Les Green's categories above? You'll have a bad time in graduate school and you'll risk writing a poor dissertation.

    Reply
  8. Christopher Gauker

    The most important thing is to choose a director who has considerable expertise in the area in which you propose to work. In fact, you should write on a topic only if you can find a director who knows a lot about it. Only if your advisor knows a lot about your topic will he or she be able to bring you to the cutting edge of it, which is where you need to be if you want to publish. Your advisor is more likely to be eager to work with you (e.g., will read your drafts sooner and give you more helpful feedback) if he or she works on closely related topics. And only a knowledgeable director will be able to credibly explain in a letter of recommendation why what you're doing is important. If your director has significant publications in the general area of your dissertation, then he or she probably has enough of a reputation for placement purposes. But if your director is not the most prominent person in your department working in your general area, then you should at least have that person on your committee.

    Reply
  9. Gualtiero Piccinini

    All of the above is good advice, but virtually none of it is written in stone. There are so many desirable and undesirable features of a good adviser that no one is likely to have all and only the desirable features.

    Not to mention that faculty has a say in this too: some faculty might turn you down as advisee. Presumably you'll have to settle for a reasonable compromise.

    In doing so, consider your strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you are very self-disciplined, you'll do well even if your advisor is relatively uninvolved. If, on the contrary, you need constant prodding to get things done, make find an advisor that will give you deadlines. Etc.

    Reply
  10. Chris Eliot

    This doesn't help the graduate student who posed the question, but I believe applicants to PhD programs when evaluating programs frequently underestimate the significance of potential advisors' working personalities and how they match the students' own. In my experience more graduate students fail to complete programs (including transferring away) because of failure to find an advisor they interact well with than for any other reason. Because undergraduates depend much less on personal interaction, they may tend to underestimate the significance of that factor relative to factors like faculty fame, institutional prominence, and geography. Acquiring information about faculty's working personalities and developing a guess about potential compatibility take a little work, but getting a sense of them is both possible and essential.

    Reply
  11. Grad student who'd rather remain anonymous

    I think the unpleasant bottom line here is that you might be lucky enough to find a supervisor who is well-regarded by his/her peers, works in your area of interest, wants to take you on as a student, and provides you with exactly the kind of support you need to develop as a scholar and a philosopher…

    …or you might not. Chances are, your all-too-human supervisor will fall short in at least one of these areas.

    But if I may put in my two cents, I think Chris Eliot is right that failure to get a good "working personality" match in an adviser can ruin your pursuit of a career in philosophy in a way that having a slightly less famous letter-writer certainly will not. I would add that this is particularly true for people prone to self-doubt, depression, perfectionism, etc. An indifferent adviser is a hassle for confident people; it can be emotionally and professionally devastating for those of us who lack that inner "yes, I can!".

    So, I also think Chris is right about the importance of doing the best you can to discern the working personalities of the various faculty members you're considering. Try asking current grad students *specific* questions about their relationship with their supervisor, for instance:

    (1) Why did you choose this supervisor rather than [someone else at the same school in the same field]?
    (2) How often do you meet with him/her? Is that enough/too much/just right for you? Who decided how often you'd meet?
    (3) Is your research primarily self-directed, or directed by your adviser? Do you feel like you get enough direction? Too much?
    (4) How does s/he act in your meetings? Do you ever laugh with him/her? How does s/he react when you disagree with him/her?
    (5) How often do you turn in written work?
    (6) How quickly do you get comments back?
    (7) How helpful do you find the comments you receive?
    (8) Does your supervisor point out content areas in which you need to do more reading? Does s/he notice and point out weak points in your writing or argument-making skills?
    (9) Is your adviser supportive of, and helpful regarding, your career plans?
    (10) Is there anything you would change about your adviser if you could?

    I can't speak for anyone else, but I would answer those questions, if a prospective sent them to me.

    Reply
  12. Tim O'Keefe

    One thing that can be useful is to grab your M.A., (thesis option) along the way while getting your Ph.D., at the same program–assuming that you're not doing the BA –> MA –> PhD route. I did this, and basically it just involved writing an M.A., thesis (in addition to my Ph.D. coursework, which of course was also sufficient for the M.A.).

    Writing an M.A. thesis can help you see whether a faculty member is a good fit for you as far as working on a longer project. And if you end up doing your dissertation with that faculty member on that same topic, some of that work can also be folded into your dissertation. Finally, just in case something goes wrong along the way and you don't get the Ph.D., a think that it's not bad to have some sort of official degree besides ABD to show for you grad school time.

    Reply
  13. Kenny Easwaran

    I chose my advisor even though he had only gotten his PhD one year before I entered grad school, and it worked out great for me and his other student. So clearly having an advisor who has been out for a long time isn't essential. However, the main reason I chose my advisor was that he was someone who I had found incredibly engaging, and working with him made it clear to me that in fact I definitely am very interesting in working in philosophy and enjoy the type of problems that come up. This even involved somewhat of a change of main area of interest.

    Now, maybe I was unjustified in my choice, even though it did work out well (I think this was probably true for a lot of decisions I made when I was entering grad school – I didn't know as much about what I was getting myself into as many students seem to). I don't think I had sufficient information indicating that my advisor was going to turn out to be as prominent in his field as he did. But the enthusiasm and style of interaction is a point that other people seem to have mentioned above, so it's one factor that should definitely not be entirely overlooked in favor of having someone who is already a big name.

    Reply
  14. Patty

    Think about how you'll be completing your dissertation and consider how well that person communicates with you, given that context.

    For example, if you plan to stay on-campus to finish, having someone who communicates well in-person is important. But, if you plan to write elsewhere, consider how promptly your potential supervisor responds to e-mail.

    If you plan to stay on-campus, having someone who occasionally loses drafts or is slow in responding to written work is acceptable because you'll be around to remind them that they haven't read your stuff. If you are planning to move away, then these qualities would be a problem.

    Also, it's important to find someone whose advising style provides you what you need to get work done. If you are good at setting your own deadlines, then you don't need someone who will be more of a task master. If you tend to procrastinate you might need someone who is very deadline oriented and who will be expecting regular submissions from you.

    Reply
  15. Ari

    I disagree that, "If you plan to stay on-campus, having someone who occasionally loses drafts or is slow in responding to written work is acceptable because you'll be around to remind them that they haven't read your stuff."

    This is not an "acceptable" situation. Students deserve to have supervisors who respond promptly to e-mail and who put substantial care and thought into reading their work. Someone who "occasionally loses drafts or is slow in responding to written work" is not such a person. A student who finds him or herself in the sort of situation described above should, I think, either change supervisors or have a frank conversation with his or her supervisor about what sort of effort that supervisor can realistically put into advising, and decide whether that is enough. A status-quo where a student has to constantly remind his or her supervisor to respond to e-mails and read drafts is not acceptable.

    Reply
  16. West Coast Grad Student

    Regarding Kenny Easwaran's experience with a fairly new PhD: I have heard that one thing you definitely don't want to do is have a supervisor who isn't tenure track. Of course, one reason for this would be reputation in the field, but the more compelling reason is that you may be on the market at the same time as they are, which would mean you might be submitting a letter of rec written by one of your competitors for the job.

    Reply

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