Working+With+Your+Advisor

A good relationship with your advisor is crucial for having a positive experience while working on your project or thesis. Tips for selecting your advisor are given here. Once you have selected your advisor, it is in your best interest to maintain a strong, positive relationship with her. Most problems between advisor and graduate student stem from different expectations about what each should do in the relationship. Below are some common expectations advisors have for their graduate students.

Advisor Expectations for Graduate Students

 * 1) **Responsibility:** Your advisor will expect you to take responsibility for the direction, quality, and progress of your research.
 * //Direction:// While your advisor will provide feedback/guidelines for choosing a research topic, problem, and question, it is unlikely that your advisor will completely decide these for you. Your advisor will likely expect you to figure these out for yourself. It's OK to discuss your ideas about research topics, problems and questions, but you should not expect your advisor to do the hard work of deciding these for you.
 * //Quality:// Your advisor will give you frequent feedback about the quality of your research and writing, but producing the high quality research and writing is your responsibility. Thus, when there are problems with the research or writing, your advisor will expect you to at least participate in developing a solution to the problem, and in some cases, may expect you to resolve the problem without her assistance. Do not expect your advisor to fix the problems she sees in your research or writing. Your advisor will be glad to offer guidance and advice, but fixing the problems ultimately rests upon your shoulders.
 * //Progress:// Your advisor will likely give you encouragement and advice about how to make steady progress on your thesis, but she will not see it as her job to keep you regularly focused on your research.
 * 1) **Initiative:** Your advisor will expect you to regularly show initiative in completing your thesis or project in terms of setting