Comments on Profile Post by Lyander

I would say 33% of my college professors were pure evil, and I mean every letter of the word. Those people have no problem crushing your GPA and postpone your graduation for years with Fs if you look at them the wrong way.

I guess that's how humans tend to behave when given the absolute power with no accountability.

I had an opportunity to offer a local university a significant, free and no strings attached piece of work around their digital approach to students with disabilities. I'm talking a couple hundred grand US. I was absolutely shocked at the politics and vitriol that met this proposal, and the arrogance that it was built on. Needless to say we retracted the offer.

A friend in Northwestern sent me this and they were talking about how their uni seemed more concerned with racketeering than education. On my end it's just abusive. Takes a lot of the shine off things really. @GoodEnoughGear you're good people.

There are innumerable problems with the system but three are key: 1) as the article notes, advisers are gatekeepers to the profession; 2) at most universities, there is only one prof training PhD candidates in a specific field, which means the student is trapped...

... and 3) before all this, though, there's a catch-22: it's very difficult for prospective students to find out what kind of a person an adviser is. All too often they find out only once it's too late.

Alas, a potential solution is also part of the problem: university administrators should forbid bad profs from having grad students; all too often they don't.

Faculty can have a lot to hide or they do a cost benefits analysis and find that looking the other way is better for image, so they end up covering each other's backs. Too many horror stories about the old boys' club and just students wearing down like cogs. Possibly overly simplistic but greater transparency of operations seems like a step in the right direction

Some universities offer 6 month lab rotation programs so that a phd student can check out different research groups. But in most cases its hard to gauge the fit. This is especially true for international students. Its easy to feel trapped if your student status also determines if you can stay in the country.

I had an advisor that kept directing me towards screening classes. After a few quarters I figured out she did not have my best interests in mind. Found an advisor that was an old navy guy. My education and performance in classes took an immediate change for the better.

@Lyander We have investigated ourselves and found that we did nothing wrong