Background: I have a committee member who can occasionally (as in, once or twice a year) be conned into taking 5 minutes to think about what I am working on. Of course, 5 minutes is not enough for any sort of feedback, perhaps best illustrated by the most recent interactions.
About a month ago, I tried to use my window of opportunity, and was told that my project was useless, and should be scrapped.
This week, with no more time spent thinking about the exact same project, this committee member suddenly got all excited: "This is the first time we get to try [insert big fancy keywords here]!"
Huh. I wonder how long this will last. And what kind of response I will get the next time I get my 5 minutes.
The perverse incentives of academia
6 years ago
10 comments:
Ugh. Sorry. I think that the best course of action is to let those "feedback" episodes average themselves over time...on the other hand filing that positive reaction away for future pick-me-up purposes can't hurt either.
I once had a committee member that was even worse...never showed up to my meetings despite always promising to make it, so I had to make a separate appointment to go to his office and go through my whole project again, but he invariably wouldn't have time for all of that so I would show up and he'd say "how's everything going? Good? Great - keep up the good work, I've gotta run." He insisted that he was really interested in being on my committee every time I threatened to replace him...turns out he just wanted to keep an eye on my project in case it became competitive with one of his students'.
So it could be worse...at least you're getting any feedback at all.
Ambivalent Academic - thanks for de-lurking! While I don't have any committee members that have alternative motives, it is a little unnerving to have a few that can change their mind on a dime (due to lack of information, most of the time). I mean, what if he re-decides that my project should be scrapped at some convenient time, say, my defense? But I agree, at least he is not malicious.
I think that's why you get more than one committee member. There are lots of crazies out there and some of them are even helpful/useful sometimes...but that doesn't make them any less crazy so the rest of your committee ought to be able to rein in the one that's getting out of hand.
If he decides at your defense that your project was crap all along he's going to make himself look like a total ass for not doing something about your project for all those years that he sat on your committee - won't happen so don't worry.
I've found that most people who do this kind of thing just have a hard time phrasing constructive criticism. Have you tried: "Do you have any suggestions on how I can improve my project?" or "Can you be more specific as to what concerns you about his project, because it is unclear to me right now how it has changed since we met last time and you were pleased with it?"
Then you can maybe if you're lucky get at the real issues (if any) and deal with them rather than constantly worrying about the mystery flaw in your project. If he can't give a more specific response than "it's crap" then there's likely nothing wrong with your project at all - he's just being cranky and you shouldn't take it personally.
Good luck!
I think someone's feeling towards your project is a direct correlation function to the size of their ego, the quality of their last paper, and caffeine intake. Do with this what you will.
I really hope that what you said in the first 2 paragraphs will be the case, because I would be very surprised if he ever spent enough time thinking about my project to give me constructive feedback that I can actually do something about. Thanks for the advice!
Hermitage - you are definitely only something here :) I've gotten some of the best feedback from Advisor (not the same person as in this post) after dragging them to the coffee shop. And the ego thing.... well, lets just leave it at that.
Ugh. Better a committee member than your advisor!
Albatross - true... thanks!
I had a committee member who thought (and I found this out at my preliminary exam) my project was completely worthless.
I dropped the committee member from my committee by the time it came to my thesis defense. :)
Unreaction - I am glad you corrected the situation on time! I think my situation is salvageable; just need to figure out a way to get this guy to think about it for more than 5 minutes!
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