I have been thinking lately about what it means to be a graduate student. When I was younger, I had this glorious image of myself pursuing a PhD. I imagined investigating my own interesting scientific hypotheses. I had in mind people like Einstein and Bohr, thinking outside the box and defying the conventional frameworks prevalent at their times. I have always believed that people who go for graduate studies are those self-motivated and committed to their own ideas and thoughts. Of course, since a graduate student usually lacks the training required to conduct research, they need an advisor. My understanding of the advisor’s role at the time was to “advise” a student on the correct techniques and tools to substantiate their work in their respective disciplines, and to validate and verify the claims made in their thesis or dissertation.

Over the years, however, my concept of graduate school has shifted as my preconceptions clashed with reality. In time, I have come to realize that graduate studies are in fact not that different from industry positions – except for the paycheck, of course. It is true that a graduate student’s work builds their name and establishes their reputation in the academic and research communities. In the industry, however, their work becomes more orchestrated by the company or the institute. Nonetheless, it does not seem, at least not nowadays, that a student gets much of a say in their own graduate research.

While it is true that a student gets to pick their advisor, this is more or less the boundary where their “research-freedom” appears to end, and where they start becoming a “minion” to their advisor. I see countless examples around me where students either don’t like their research projects, or lack interest in it, or get micromanaged, or become flooded with endless tasks and directions that are not core to their thesis. And while it is important to acknowledge the advisor’s role and the value of their experience and insight, it is equally important to keep in mind that the work is the student’s OWN research.

There does not seem to be enough conversation going around about the matter of ownership and leadership during a graduate student’s degree. Sadly, the advisor-advisee relationship has completely transformed into a manager-employee one, at least in the engineering disciplines. Students now feel so overwhelmed with executing their advisors’ instructions, they barely have any time left to actually think, to ponder about how they want to drive their research, and to devise the research questions and directions that intrigue them. I believe this culture is not only toxic and kills the student’s spirit, but it also defeats the very purpose of graduate school. Graduate school is supposed to be graduating the next waves of brilliant thinkers who can push the boundaries of their fields. But, the way things are right now, it is just graduating people who are good at following orders, and who are reluctant and intimidated to make their own initiatives. While a graduate degree should be the time period a student gets to learn how to polish their ideas and adequately defend them, it is unfortunately a time where many students learn to be numb and become eager to graduate so they can be free from servitude.