Hacker News Reader

> Going from having my supervisor coaching me in my PhD to being basically totally unsupervised and free to work on what I want

This was my case during my PhD (physics). My supervisor was not competent enough in my field of studies to help me from a science perspective (I had a co-supervisor who had more information, but not too much - it was a really unique area at that time).

BUT - he was a wonderful, extraordinary person when helping me travel the muddy waters of academia. He was always there to arrange after some, let's say, more "heavy" discussions. I was really delighted to have him as a supervisor.

He also let me roam free in innovative areas, he supported me when I wanted to publish 45 pages of thesis, when the norm was more 200+. He was really, really great.

I started to work in academia during my PhD and he was concerned I would not finish it. I sworn him that I would, before the end of the millenium. I had my defense mid December of the last year :)

I kept on visiting him over the years, presented him my children but he unfortunately died last year. RIP Prof. J.

I argue, that the ability to ask stupid questions is one of the most important skills to learn during your phd. Too many people avoid asking those questions, because they think they make them look stupid. In reality I estimate that in many cases a large fraction of the people listening were asking themselves the same question. Many "stupid" questions are not even stupid by any definition they are just basic (and are often not simply to answer either). Asking these questions enables one to really understand a subject.

I would also argue that it really does not take to be a postdoc to ask these questions. Hardly anyone thinks "this was a stupid question".

I definitely don't think you need to be a postdoc to do it, but a PhD student will naturally have more reservations about doing it bc they are less confident

Yes, but conversly after too long at the top, this leads to some professors thinking they know about everything and approaching a problem like they're an expert.

Feeling stupid isn't good, relising you don't know everything and how that doesn't make you stupid is. Especially when you then harness that into driving yourself to learn about whatever that is, childcare, science, politics...

If you start to act like you can do no wrong then you get situations like academics system getting hacked. The IT guys have to deal with the fall-out, and the academic is still demaning that they get full root access to do the same thing all over again despite not learning from the situation.

I can totally relate! Asking the basic premise questions, for me at least, is what allows the more complex parts of presentations to click into place. Like it all just sits in the buffer, percolating, recombining, and I just need that seed crystal for the whole thing to click. I think my goal during every scientific interaction is to really find the most basic, simple thing I'm missing because I find those details the most valuable to learn. They help put into place so many other disparate things because they are foundational knowledge.

> Going from having my supervisor coaching me in my PhD to being basically totally unsupervised and free to work on what I want in my postdoc has been very difficult both for my work and my mental health. You have to become almost totally self reliant.

My supervisor more or less completely ignored me during my PhD, with hindsight I'm not entirely sure how he got away with it.

Yeah it's really the luck of the draw when it comes to supervisors. Thankfully mine was very supportive both academically and psychologically, but most people aren't that lucky

That is super lucky! I was fortunate they were super academically supportive, but psychologically? Terrible. Same with my post-doc advisor, though the rest of the lab members were really the academically supporting part of my post-doc; my advisor was just great at getting grant money and little else. Like a savant.

I don't have a postdoc advisor since I was hired without a project, so I'm basically alone

Same here, cultivating motivation is definitely the hardest part of the job. Academic work needs months if not years get out and have impact and, personally, I don't get to discuss my work too often with people because it's too specialized.

Yeah and also it's really hard to justify to yourself spending time on more general topics. Like I should go through a general textbook or two that I'm interested in, but instead I just procrastinate bc it doesn't feel worthwhile or active work. Same for keeping up with scientific news. Even within my own research group of 30 students probably only 3 students understand a given project in any depth.