What made a grad student memorable? Work ethic, sense of creativity, communication skills, native brilliance, something else?
What made a grad student memorable? Work ethic, sense of creativity, communication skills, native brilliance, something else?
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I had one student who wrote her thesis and asked me to be her supervisor. She was really bright, but did not get the work done. We met up and she told me the plans, I said great, then deadlines (that she had for herself, I did not care) passed and I asked about the work. No answer for some time, then she said she had been sick and had family problems, but now it was out of the way.
Same thing repeats, missed deadlines and dropping off the face of the earth. Reason this time: the literature search turned up different results than she had hoped and she didn’t know how what to do with them, so instead of coming to me, she let that paralyse her. Then she wrote up some nonsense that shoehorned the results into an unusable ball of bullshit. I explained what she did wrong, we made a plan about how to detangle the whole mess, created a very detailed to do list. I stressed that questions are no bother at all, including “shit I don’t know what to do, can you point me in a new direction?”.
Same thing repeats. I e-mail her a few times, then after considerable time I write to her that I am dropping her. No answer. After several (!) months she writes to me that she had hit a motivation slag due to problems XYZ but NOW she had finally found the motivation, and could we meet up for the master plan? I forwarded her the e-mail from a few months ago about me dropping her, and added resources about mental health services at the uni. I wished her the best and advised against starting a new thesis project before taking care of the mental health problem. She did not answer.
The one who answered my question with “I already did that, here’s the result”.
I’d say the ones who come in the most over-educated are always the most memorable. Some are rock stars and some honestly struggle because they might be using graduate studies as an escape from the world of employment. But they’ve always been pretty memorable.
I had one student who sent me a manuscript that had citations not showing up, figures not loading and other very basic and sloppy mistakes. I said that the draft is sloppy and I ask the student to go read their own manuscript and send me a polished version. They responded and said that the way my comments were conveyed to them make them unmotivated to work. So they stopped working all together. Next week, I got a call from the education program director who said that this student was upset as they felt that I unfairly targeted them and my comments were not helpful. I give them more specific comments on their sentence structure and organization. And a couple of days later, they emailed me and said that they have decided to quit due to differences in mentoring styles. I was relieved and happy that I was no longer responsible for this student.
The one who failed two classes (one I taught, one someone else taught) but was allowed to stay in the program because his dad donated a boatload of money to the school. Last I heard he runs a LARP company that (surprise surprise) his dad set up and funded for him.
That’s a tough question. I’ve had the privilege of working with many incredible students, each memorable in their own way. There was one, however, that I remember fondly. What made her stand out wasn’t just her academic ability, though she certainly had that—it was her curiosity, resilience, and the way she brought genuine passion to her work. She asked bold questions, challenged assumptions, and was never afraid to dig deeper, even when the answers weren’t easy. Watching her grow into a confident scholar was rewarding.