Relationship-building with PhD advisors

Joshua Siktar
2 min readFeb 7, 2023

Someone recently asked me how I’ve developed meaningful relationships with my two PhD advisors, over the 2.5 years (so far) we’ve been woring together. I think taking these steps has also helped me become a more effective researcher.

For context: I am a little over a year away from defending for my PhD. I am in a mathematics program, and I have two co-advisors who have different, but overlapping research interests, and we all work together, rather than on separate projects.

  1. Come to every meeting with an agenda in mind, and questions about things I have tried. A large portion of our meetings is devoted to me presenting proofs or at the very least, ideas for how to solve our problems. Then they give feedback not only on the correctness, but also on the delivery and organization.
  2. Don’t back down from challenges, and adopt a growth mindset. Things will be hard and take time, and my advisors are considerate of that when they ask me to learn or try something new. On the flip side, I promise continued updates and ask questions within a reasonable time-frame as I get stuck, so they can help me and we can learn together. I also publicly acknowledge that developing new research skills will only bring benefits to my career post-graduation.
  3. Keep them aware of my other responsibilities. I also teach undergraduates to receive part of my stipend (the rest comes from a grant), and this is an important part of my responsibilities as a graduate student. That being said, it can…

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Joshua Siktar

Math PhD Student University of Tennessee | Academic Sales Engineer | Writer, Educator, Researcher