Had a meeting with Stu yesterday. My reaction to Stu wanting to go into a PhD program?
I discouraged Stu saying, "In this market, there are fewer and fewer students I would encourage taking the path I did". Stu replies, "but by the time I'm done, the market will be different."
This brings up the old advising dilemma of the "cheerleader" vs the "gatekeeper" which needs a whole blog of its own.
Besides, I'm not sure Stu was asking my opinion.
ReplyDeleteStu has some clear talents that can be refined. But I remember that I was far more willing to listen to criticism.
Stu totally sounds like a guy to me. Maybe if you were a woman of age 50+, he'd pay attention. He now views you as a peer, and you are a girl on top of that, so why should he listen to you? I had a similar situation to yours happen a couple of times (Stu was male both times). You were right not to push, Stu can bang his head againt the wall on his own if he won't listen to advice; either wall or head will give in eventually.
Poor poor Stu. Doesn't know what s/he is in for.
ReplyDeleteGoing to hit grad school with all those young students and suddenly realize s/he ain't as young as s/he used to be..
There isn't much you can do.. there are some people who are destined to be perpetual students. (I've known quite a few)
They'll get their degree and then decide that no, they were wrong, time to try Law School. If they are lucky, they will be retirement age before they need to find a "real" job.