From my own experience as a student, I know the uncertainty and hesitation that can arise when interacting with superiors. Many times, I wished for a clear “user interface” that could save me the time and energy of guessing and inferring. With that in mind, I present here a brief guide—a “user interface”—for how to best work with me.
I have, in a sense, two personalities: one for work and one for life. In daily life, I am fairly relaxed, enjoy humor, and have a high tolerance for playful teasing. At work, however, I may appear stricter and sometimes even a bit aggressive when asking questions. Please remember: this is never personal. My intent is always to push toward better outcomes for the project and the problem at hand.
I am most comfortable in a peer-to-peer style of relationship. This means you don’t need to call me “professor,” “teacher,” or “supervisor.” Simply calling me by my name is fine—and even teasing me is welcome (see my personality above).
I don’t expect you to work excessively hard. But I want to emphasize one thing: you are not working for me—you are working for yourself. The effort you invest will transform into skills, knowledge, and achievements that will stay with you for life. Another point I emphasize is the importance of professional communication.
In the past, doing a PhD was like an apprenticeship, where students relied on supervisors to pass down knowledge. Today, most knowledge is publicly available online. I believe the PhD–supervisor relationship has shifted. We will jointly figure out the research direction and methodology, but I expect you should be able to work out most the technical details independently. If you get stuck for too long, however, please don’t hesitate to bring the problem to me.
Like any human, I make mistakes and can misjudge things. I welcome disagreement and see it as an opportunity for valuable discussion and new research directions. That said, I expect you to support your opinions with solid reasoning and evidence—I am not persuaded by lazy or purely subjective arguments such as “I think” or “I believe.”
Please feel free to use whichever methods or tools you find most effective for your own working style.