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[closet_vs]

Hello forumites, I am a graduate student. I wonder if you will be kind enough to share how much time you usually spend on a meeting with your graduate students, during office hours and at other times. How long does a meeting in your office, a meeting over coffee, a dinner and/or other meetings in different formats take?  What is your preference? What usually takes a long time to talk about and what kind of meetings are usually short? Do you generally spend more time on your advisees than other grad students who take your courses? Do you digress a lot? If yes, do you digress when you think the student will understand/be interested in what you want to say, or do you digress whenever you feel like it? What is the longest meeting you have ever had with a grad student in your entire career (in "general" situations, not some of the Scarlet Letter Club situations)? My ultimate question is: is it a general rule of thumb that whichever professor is the most accessible, i.e., seen in long meetings, email replies, phone calls and forwarded emails, is the most committed to advise me?

[canuckois]

This is in the wrong forum.  Also, your reference to "Scarlet Letter Club situations" is creepy. 

Consider yourself advised.

[wet_blanket]

Hello forumites, I am a graduate student. I wonder if you will be kind enough to share how much time you usually spend on a meeting with your graduate students, during office hours and at other times. How long does a meeting in your office, a meeting over coffee, a dinner and/or other meetings in different formats take?  What is your preference? What usually takes a long time to talk about and what kind of meetings are usually short? Do you generally spend more time on your advisees than other grad students who take your courses? Do you digress a lot? If yes, do you digress when you think the student will understand/be interested in what you want to say, or do you digress whenever you feel like it? What is the longest meeting you have ever had with a grad student in your entire career (in "general" situations, not some of the Scarlet Letter Club situations)? My ultimate question is: is it a general rule of thumb that whichever professor is the most accessible, i.e., seen in long meetings, email replies, phone calls and forwarded emails, is the most committed to advise me?

I'm not a professor, but I can't imagine that's the case.  Those things are going to depend more on the professor him/herself than on his/her commitment to you.  Some people are crap email managers and some people lack the social skills to end a meeting.  Maybe with the exception of the extremes - someone who you never see or hear from may or may not be absolutely committed to you, but is relatively less committed than s/he is to the other things needing to be done.

Having said that, even if accessibility isn't a good proxy for commitment, it is still a factor worth taking into account.

[larryc]

10-20 minutes.

Same as for sex.

[ticklemepink]

Um, why do you ask?

Dinner invites don't come until... way, way, way later.  Probably when you finish your thesis.

[galactic_hedgehog]

Am I the only one who went ballroom dancing with his advisor? 

I hated it when he tried to lead.

[totoro]

Taking this question seriously... I would think that professors that have long meetings with grad students are the ones to avoid as they have nothing better to do. OTOH maybe a Nobel Laureate who lives in another city isn't the best option either. In reality I would usually meet a grad student for half an hour. But it depends...

[zharkov]

The longest:  Maybe an afternoon going over an early and complete draft of a dissertation?   

But the length of any meeting depends on the matter at hand.  For an advisee, an hour or so every month or two should be sufficient.   With the exception of lab-based sciences, I'd expect most meetings should be about (a) what to read and (b) about what the student has read.

[closet_vs]

Thank you for all the helpful replies. I appreciate this.

I am asking because on the one hand, there is a possibility that I will start working with a new advisor in the near future. It's for a political reason and in the works, but I have a choice to stop it. Hu is a rockstar. I seem to have a problem trying to follow up with hum on things. Hu doesn't always reply my email (hu does sometimes but not always). Hu forgets to read my drafts before we meet. Hu loses my drafts. Hu forgets when we are supposed to meet. But then every time I actually get hum to read my drafts and sit down with me, hu always tells me hu thinks my work is excellent, why, and how to improve it, which makes it seem like hu is not intentionally avoiding me. Hus comments are always helpful. Hu is willing to write me strong recommendations. On the other hand, there is another professor with whom I have been keeping a good working relationship. Hus approach is different from the rockstar. These two approaches are exclusive of each other. Hu almost always replies my email eventually if not within a day. Hu is willing to show me how to correct my papers (not dissertation) in meetings lasting a few hours (the longest was over six hours). There is absolutely no funny business between us because our sexual orientations do not match. I foresee all these nurturing acts will stop after I go with the rockstar because hu will not be interested in my work anymore. I am not sure if I am making an unwise decision towards "orphanhood" or if this is just part of the process of growing up.

[zharkov]

.... or if this is just part of the process of growing up.

My take, part of growing up is figuring what you yourself need and getting your needs met.  Which of these two would do better for you as an apprentice scholar? 

PS:  Another part of growing up is dropping the hu/hum foolishness.

[polly_mer]

I don't understand why a choice has to be made.  Multiple mentors are a good thing.  Some of my best time was when I had an official international star as my advisor (10 minutes was a long meeting with him), a solid performer who was happy to talk a couple times a week (an hour was an average meeting with him), and an office full of colleagues for day-to-day bouncing ideas.

However, I also enjoyed my time with a mentor who would routinely spend an entire day with me about every three months with email every couple of weeks.

I enjoyed the mentor whose office was next door so that I had five minute meetings nearly daily.

Zharkov is right, the big question is what you do need to thrive?

[arizona]

I also don't understand why it's an either/or situation.

My dissertation advisor was a big name in my field with a relatively hands-off style. She travelled constantly and we were often on different continents. I wrote on my own schedule. When a draft of a chapter was done, I would email it to her and would get written feedback and perhaps some extra bibliography to consider. The feedback was always excellent. We certainly didn't have a touchy-feely, hang-out-in-the-office, weekly-check-in kind of relationship. If I dropped off the face of the earth, she would let me drop off the face of the earth--it was my job to manage my own work.

I had a second committee member (junior faculty) who was much more hands-on. She was also around more and I met with her in person more often. Her area of specialization overlapped more closely with mine. Her feedback was equally excellent, although very different.

It's not Sophie's choice--you can maintain both relationships, and your work will probably be the better for it.

[lasquires]

I don't understand why a choice has to be made.  Multiple mentors are a good thing.  Some of my best time was when I had an official international star as my advisor (10 minutes was a long meeting with him), a solid performer who was happy to talk a couple times a week (an hour was an average meeting with him), and an office full of colleagues for day-to-day bouncing ideas.

However, I also enjoyed my time with a mentor who would routinely spend an entire day with me about every three months with email every couple of weeks.

I enjoyed the mentor whose office was next door so that I had five minute meetings nearly daily.

Zharkov is right, the big question is what you do need to thrive?

I had two co-chairs for my dissertation, and it worked out great. Both had sabbaticals and one was completing a book while I was writing my dissertation, and this arrangement ensured someone was always available to work with me closely. You can get pretty much the same deal with any committee member, however.

[closet_vs]

I appreciate the advice to be inclusive. Thank you very much. I had the same idea. However, it appears clearer and clearer to me that these two people probably will not approve my work that way. There was a time when the first person told me to cut out a part of my paper while the second person told me to only retain and elaborate it. Each has made negative comments about the other’s approach (not person, just approach).

[imawakenow]

I appreciate the advice to be inclusive. Thank you very much. I had the same idea. However, it appears clearer and clearer to me that these two people probably will not approve my work that way. There was a time when the first person told me to cut out a part of my paper while the second person told me to only retain and elaborate it. Each has made negative comments about the other’s approach (not person, just approach).

If the two potential advisers are already criticizing each other's method to you, you probably are going to have to make a choice.

Then it comes down to what you want out of an adviser. My adviser was a rock star in the making. That meant I had to fight for his time, and I spent a lot of time working on my own. I felt in the long run, I would rather work with my adviser than with the other potential advisers who didn't have as much on their plates. But there are also advantages to working with a "star."

Think about what you want and need from an adviser and proceed from there.