Recently, I had dinner with an old friend. She is currently a tenure-track professor in a non-life-sciences field and is balancing everything, good and bad, that comes with being a tenure-track faculty member. She told me how she has been regularly speaking with her graduate school mentor for advice and how they have been getting together at conferences for lunch in order to catch up, discuss the current issues in their field, and for continued mentorship. As I listened to these stories, I smiled and asked if this was the same mentor I remember her having in graduate school. She sheepishly looked at me and started laughing, as if to say, "Yes! Can you believe it?!" You see, as she was finishing up her PhD, my friend had nothing good to say about her mentor, other than the fact that her mentor was truly and expert in her field. My friend seriously thought that her mentor was trying to drive her crazy as a graduate student and purposefully impeding her progress toward graduation. I think at one time my friend even called her mentor "crazy".
The fact that my friend was having lunch with her mentor and speaking so highly of her didn't surprise me at all, even after having heard many horror stories about this mentor while my friend was finishing up her PhD. You see, I had a very similar experience myself. My graduate school mentor was one of the last people I wanted to talk to as I was finishing up my degree but now I regularly seek out opportunities to meet with him whenever we are in the same town. I appreciate the mentorship he continues to give me even though there was a time when I thought he must be the worst mentor ever. Luckily, I can look back on that time in my life and laugh, just like my friend can. We both realize now that the mentorship we received was excellent and we were lucky to get it, even if we didn't know that at the time.
I think this is a common reaction for many graduate students to have with their mentors. Graduate school is tough...and it can seem like your mentor really is trying to drive you crazy or is finding new research avenues for you to take that purposely make graduation elusive. However, most of the time, your mentor really does have your best interests at heart -- you just may not realize it until a few years after the fact. It is more likely that he or she is trying to make you more of an expert or more well-rounded than it is that he or she is simply trying to drive you crazy. That said, some mentor/advisor relationships don't work out and you should seek guidance from other committee members or your department head if that's the case.
So, what can you do to get through graduate school with a shaky mentor relationship? First, I think it's important to know that it can be perfectly normal to have ups and downs in your mentor relationship. Also, make sure you seek out mentorship from faculty members other than your immediate advisor and use these people as a sounding board to get different opinions (just understand that they might reinforce your mentor's advice). Do what you can to finish, accepting the fact that your mentor might be right, and try not to burn every bridge while finishing up. Remember, a few years from now you might be enjoying a cold beer or hot coffee with your mentor, discussing your current graduate student's shenanigans!
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