I am, for the first time, advising senior theses this year. One of my thesis students, we’ll call her Jane Doe, just won a university wide competition for a grant that supports outstanding undergraduate research in the field of women and gender studies.
To be clear, this is not my thesis. This is not my grant. I take my role as advisor quite seriously, but Jane is an extraordinarily self motivated and conscientious student and this is genuinely her independent research project. She earned this award.
Nonetheless, I am feeling as proud of her award as I’ve been of my own, which has me musing on the advisor-student relationship from a vantage point that is different than any I’ve had before. So, I’d be curious to hear from y’all about your experiences with your students’ successes (and failures) and especially how you think about your responses to each.
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Yes, I take pride in all my students’ successes, whether or not I helped them. With failures, I mostly blame the student unless I can define some way in which I messed up in advising them.
I haven’t been around long enough to experience many successes or failures in students, but I remember repeating an awful lot of what I’d heard from advisers (with a new appreciation) as I advised an honor’s these last year.
On the other side, too, I love sharing accomplishments with my advisers from graduate school and I sense their pride when I do. I get the sense that because of their understanding of the system, and engagement in the process of training me, they are even more proud than my parents of most of what I accomplish.