It’s that time of the academic year when supervisors need to be sought out, pinned down and loaded with the scattered ideas, wild dreams and stresses that only honours kids can provide. Who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity?
The relationship between honours student and supervisor is a rather peculiar one I’m told, short, sweet and intense. Therefore, the process of choosing a partner, I mean supervisor, is integral to the overall success of the year. Now I’m picky at the best of times, and similarly to other areas of my life, a checklist needs to be formulated as a guideline to the perfect supervisor.
1) Semi-regular meetings- I’m a pretty low maintenance kind of girl, however, I do need a little bit of one-on-one time every now and again. Therefore, I propose fortnightly meetings with my supervisor, in order to keep me on track with deadlines and also to provide feedback on my work- either positive or negative (more about that later).
2) Devil’s Advocate- It’s always nice to have someone to help balance your thoughts in a relationship, to push your boundaries by disagreeing, just to see where it leads the conversation. My supervisor needs to be able to assist me in seeing multiple contentions, tease out ideas, but reel me in when I become irrelevant or pretentious.
3) Editorial perceptiveness- Must pay attention to detail, it’s really the little things that count at the end of the day, for example when is it ok to start using ‘we’? Being able to run a fresh pair of eyes over my work and pick at everything is important, will be fired over misuse of punctuation, and using underlining as a formatting tool.
4) Honesty- The cornerstone of any relationship, if you don’t like where we are heading, be brutal and tell me. The time allocated to meetings is rather limited, no need to spend half of it sugar-coating words so neither of us cry about how lacklustre my recent work might be.
and finally
5) Must love wine- need I say more?*
* All wine acquired in the duration of the relationship shall be divided evenly at its conclusion.
