Written By: Jose Santamaria
Your advisor will be one of the most important figures throughout in your graduate life, and it will probably be significantly important even after you graduate. It is therefore very important that communication between you two is constant, efficient, and effective.
Advisors, as people in general, cannot be classified in 3 or 4 groups, there is a whole spectrum in styles, personalities, and mentoring styles. You will get to know your advisor and learn her/his style, and together you will mold a relationship. But to do so, it is important that you do your best from day one to build that relationship.
Starting the Relationship with your Advisor
At the very beginning, it is important that you meet with your advisor and together clearly set the expectations both of you have, in the short and long term. This will lay the foundations for the future, and just as in all other constructions, it is crucial that they are rock-solid.
I would advise that during that meeting you take notes of those expectations, and later revise them on your own, and see if you have any doubts or questions about them. After that, send your advisor an email with a summary of your meeting, and the list of expectations you discussed, to check if you got everything and if you got it right. In the case of having doubts, ask for clarification. Having that compromise in writing in your inbox will be useful in the future when you have any doubts about what you agreed on.
It will be in the first meetings that you will learn what the working dynamics in your new research group are. They might be similar to what you are used to, but they will probably be different in many aspects. You will adapt to it during the first weeks. During this adaptation process, you will probably not be already producing useful results and writing papers, but it is important that, whatever you do, even if it only is reading papers, or setting up your workstation, you notify your advisor. Maybe a meeting in person is not necessary, but a weekly summary of what you have done will always be welcome by your advisor. It is better to provide more information than required than not giving enough.
Consolidating the Relationship
Once adapted to your new research environment, you will already be working on some interesting projects, and your advisor needs to know about it and your progress. Since every professor has a different schedule, and it can also vary from quarter to quarter, it is important that you both clarify how you are going to deliver the updates on your work. It might be in the form of presentations in front of the research group, weekly individual meetings with your advisor, monthly email updates, or a combination of all of them, as well as other possible ways. Whatever it is, make sure you commit to it, and provide him your reports on your advances.
It is important to state that it is okay if you do not always have advances to report. Research is not an easy path, and results do not appear from nowhere. Adding up to that is the fact that the workload you might have will not be constant. There will be weeks in which you have a lot of assignments from courses you are taking, or weeks in which a deadline to submit an abstract for a paper is coming up, and you are focused on your research and producing a lot of interesting results.
In either of the cases, remember that it is important to notify your advisor. Your advisor is not you and she/he does not have mind-reading powers, so unless you tell her/him, there is no way she/he knows about you and what you are doing. Once again, a weekly summary email proves handy in this situation, to at least notify your advisor about your work.
Bonus
Although I, unfortunately, cannot promise you it will always be so (but it should), apart from your “boss”, your advisor will become a mentor for you. She/he will be a person you can always turn to asking for advice, guidance and even help.
I am not saying you two will become best friends and go for a drink sometimes (although it does happen), but through working together and facing challenges in your research, you two will create a bond that will be beneficial for both of you. And the better your communication and relationship is, the more beneficial that relationship will be.
So even if the meetings, weekly emails, reports and all of the work seems tedious, in the end, it pays off, and not only me, but most of the graduate students and professors that I know will encourage you to keep up and construct such a relationship with your advisor.