PhD supervision style: hands-on or hands-off?
There was a time when I doubted that meeting PhD students every week and getting involved in their projects was a good way of supervising and doing research. When I started supervising I met my PhD students once a week, but I was trying not to get too involved in their projects. Already by meeting them so often, I was feeling a bit guilty and unsure: "Is this the right thing to do? Will this affect their independence and their development as a researcher?" A common type of supervisor that one finds in pure maths is the "hands-off" supervisor , they will typically say: "This is your project, not mine, do not come to me until you get results or get stuck; then, we discuss - and Latex everything before coming". Typically, students are a bit left on their own to struggle and try to find their way by themselves. Many times advisors give students projects and they do not work on them. T he project of the student is only theirs: it is not the project of the supe...