Supervising B.Sc. and M.Sc. Theses

Update #14/75

Many Ph.D. candidates are unhappy about supervising B.Sc. (and B.A.) and M.Sc. (and M.A.) theses. I think this does not need to be the case for the following reasons:

1. You can aim to publish together with the student. This is a huge win for the student and can also help bring your research forward.

2. B.Sc. and M.Sc. students can be pieces of the puzzle to your dissertation. They can aid in exploring sub-areas of your primary research area. A student involved in a large research project will be motivated to perform better, making this another win-win situation.

3. Ph.D. supervisors and your senior research fellows will appreciate your effort in supervising junior students. Professors often need to supervise a certain number of theses per year or get some form of a bonus for supervising theses.

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Frankfurt’s skyline at night.

What Happened Since Last Week?

We added some meat to the bones of our article. The literature review is now in a good state.

What Were the Biggest Obstacles?

Productivity was a bit low, and that was mainly because I had to catch up on some work-related issues after returning from holidays. My inbox is now clean, and things should normalize this week.

Which Goals Did I Meet?

1. Finish the literature review for the article.

Which Goals Did I Miss?

1. Expand the experiments to additional datasets/benchmarks.

2. Make diagrams based on the preliminary experiments.

Was It a Good Week?

The week could have been better. Albeit not being the most productive week for the Ph.D., I at least had some good office days and team events with my Commerzbank colleagues.

Short-Term Tasks for The Coming Week

1. Expand the experiments to additional datasets/benchmarks.

2. Make diagrams based on the preliminary experiments.

3. Align with the prospective B.Sc. student on research questions and the methodology.

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About “75-Step Journey Toward a Ph.D. in Natural Language Processing”

You will, from now on, witness my grind. Feel my blood, sweat, and tears.

With this series of articles, you become a real-life weekly witness of my dissertation progress, all in 75 steps. This has multiple purposes:

1) Forcing myself to keep moving through the power of public shame!

2) Helping other (prospective) Ph.D. students to stay motivated and to show that hard times are normal when going through this process.

3) Getting support from the community when I go through hard times.

Share this with your Ph.D. student friends: Substack Blog Telegram WhatsApp LinkedIn Medium Twitter Calendly.