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I was lucky to complete my PhD at Harvard in 3 years. When I started my studies there in 1963, I heard graduate students describing themselves as G7s or G8s. Even after 7 or 8 years at Harvard, they still hadn’t submitted their theses. My supervisor, Allan Robinson, is part of the reason why I took just 3 years. He was very supportive when I struggled with my PhD oral qualifying exam, and he suggested a couple of quite tractable problems to work on for my thesis. His style of supervision was very much hands off at the beginning, which suited me just fine since I already had experience doing research as an undergraduate and as a master’s student in Australia. I was able to make good progress in my research after about 1 year, and Robinson then suggested that I write up a draft of my thesis and show it to Professor George CarrierGeorge Carrier, the chair of the applied mathematics program. Carrier was impressed with the draft and immediately suggested that I could schedule a thesis defense in September 1966, before Robinson went on sabbatical.

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Surviving My Harvard PhD Supervisor: Working Through the Graduate Student Labyrinth

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年

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  • Lawrence Mysak

摘要

I was lucky to complete my PhD at Harvard in 3 years. When I started my studies there in 1963, I heard graduate students describing themselves as G7s or G8s. Even after 7 or 8 years at Harvard, they still hadn’t submitted their theses. My supervisor, Allan Robinson, is part of the reason why I took just 3 years. He was very supportive when I struggled with my PhD oral qualifying exam, and he suggested a couple of quite tractable problems to work on for my thesis. His style of supervision was very much hands off at the beginning, which suited me just fine since I already had experience doing research as an undergraduate and as a master’s student in Australia. I was able to make good progress in my research after about 1 year, and Robinson then suggested that I write up a draft of my thesis and show it to Professor George CarrierGeorge Carrier, the chair of the applied mathematics program. Carrier was impressed with the draft and immediately suggested that I could schedule a thesis defense in September 1966, before Robinson went on sabbatical.