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The pain of being a supervisor

Post Icon Posted: Submitted by JebJoya on 19 February 2008 - 5:50pm.

Joined: 2006-10-09
Posts: 318

The life of a supervisor:

‹ Homemade mnemonics Happy Easter Everyone ›
Post Icon Posted: 19 February 2008 - 6:56pm

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 811

I thought this was even better:

I'll have to consider doing that when I become a supervisor.

(PhD comics rule)
Post Icon Posted: 19 February 2008 - 7:01pm

Joined: 2006-10-09
Posts: 318

The whole series of recent comics about Cecila marking all rung a bell with me :)

Jamie
Post Icon Posted: 19 February 2008 - 9:39pm

Joined: 2006-10-01
Posts: 370

The bells! The bells!...

Am on hour 48 of the great mark catch up and it is not going well. If you want to be a good teacher you mark thoroughly, but if you ever want to get a piece of work back to your supervisees, you have to live by the (invariably wrong) mark scheme of doom the lecturer wrote on the back of a beermat and latexed at 3am.

So you go for 'good teacher', and waste twenty minutes writing out a full tailor-made and comprehensive correction on one sheet: "Poor mite, just hasn't quite got it" you think, "I don't want them to feel they're falling behind": then find 7 other assignments with the same glaring error...

I hate this game.
Post Icon Posted: 20 February 2008 - 12:50am

Joined: 2007-03-03
Posts: 122

You guys have got me addicted to yet another web comic. The nouns I would use to describe you would earn me harsh words from Steven were I to use them here, I suspect. So to take my revenge, I have only one thing to say:

BALLS OF STEEL
Post Icon Posted: 20 February 2008 - 1:15am

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 245

Balls of steel.

By the way, my supervisor must have super powers, he always gives back assignment at the latest one week after we hand them in (and he has two supervisions groups).
Meh to the procrastinating supervisors of this forum :p
Post Icon Posted: 20 February 2008 - 3:04pm

Joined: 2006-10-05
Posts: 534

Balls Of Steel

You don't have to be a supervisor to procrastinate on here. I'm just glad to see that people don't treat supervisee torturing as a sport like my old supervisor did.
Post Icon Posted: 20 February 2008 - 9:25pm

Joined: 2007-10-04
Posts: 186

My supervisor tends to mark our work in supervisions, I'd call it multi-tasking but very little supervising ever actually gets done
Post Icon Posted: 20 February 2008 - 9:34pm

Joined: 2006-08-31
Posts: 676

Really!? That's awful, complain.

I actually quite like marking, it's good to see people grow and make mistakes whilst doing that. Sure they may make the same ones over and over, but the general quality of the work has gotten much better. If you have explained something lots of times, maybe you need to explain it in a different way, or better, they need to explain it to each-other.
Post Icon Posted: 20 February 2008 - 9:44pm

Joined: 2006-10-01
Posts: 370

That is awful: mind you my supervisees practically never get work back... glass houses i guess!

But yeah, I meant all of the supervisees make the same mistake, and because you've been so thorough as to write a full explanation on the first- you feel duty bound to put it on all the rest...
Post Icon Posted: 20 February 2008 - 9:51pm

Joined: 2006-08-31
Posts: 676

Lol, I'm currently mid-mark. Uh oh.
Post Icon Posted: 20 February 2008 - 10:05pm

Joined: 2006-08-31
Posts: 676

Just wrote one-over-(stick person) where (stick person) was a drawing of a stick person. Hehe.
Post Icon Posted: 20 February 2008 - 10:28pm

Joined: 2007-10-04
Posts: 186

Well she's always willing to help with problems, and her marking is very detailed. It's just that we haven't used the blackboard once, and we tend to answer our own questions among ourselves.
Post Icon Posted: 21 February 2008 - 12:10am

Joined: 2006-08-31
Posts: 676

All done now, 24 assignments in total, man was I behind.
Post Icon Posted: 21 February 2008 - 10:09am

Joined: 2006-10-09
Posts: 318

Seriously, the new one:

So true... Handing mine back today and getting a new big pile :( Damn having 3 supervision groups!

Jamie
Post Icon Posted: 3 March 2008 - 3:39am

Joined: 2006-10-01
Posts: 370

All done now, 984 PHD strips in total, man was I behind.
Post Icon Posted: 3 March 2008 - 4:46am

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 245

Were you that desperate to read them ? :D
Post Icon Posted: 3 March 2008 - 3:01pm

Joined: 2006-10-01
Posts: 370

Not to read them so much as to have read them, it's one less way I can cyberslack in future...
Post Icon Posted: 3 March 2008 - 3:58pm

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 811

That makes perfect sense! Procrastination is useful because the more you do it the more you'll get bored of it and work when it actually matters. My life has meaning now! :D
Post Icon Posted: 3 March 2008 - 5:07pm

Joined: 2006-10-05
Posts: 534

But i've been procrastinating from procratinating, so now procrastinating is interesting.

The cycle continues.
Post Icon Posted: 3 March 2008 - 5:32pm

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 811

Level 2 procrastination is a dangerous habit...
Post Icon Posted: 3 March 2008 - 7:58pm

Joined: 2006-10-05
Posts: 534

I call it $ \mathbb{P}^2 $
Post Icon Posted: 4 March 2008 - 4:14am

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 811

I call it $ \displaystyle\sum_{\aleph = \varpi}^{\psi^{\psi^{\psi}}}\oplus^\odot - \oint_{\int^{\int}}^{\int \mathcal P}\Psi(\otimes)d\mathbb{C} $
Post Icon Posted: 7 March 2008 - 12:01pm

Joined: 2006-10-18
Posts: 13

Read all of PhD comics in 2 sittings across 3 $ \textrm{days}\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\rule[.4ex]{2em}{.2ex} $ nights

Wednesday morning 700 comics 5am to 9am

Friday morning the rest 4am to 6am
Post Icon Posted: 7 March 2008 - 12:49pm

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 811

I had done something like that but it was about three years ago and there were only 570 of them... (this was the most recent one).
Post Icon Posted: 7 March 2008 - 1:57pm

Joined: 2006-08-31
Posts: 676

What's wrong with the textile strikethrough?
Post Icon Posted: 7 March 2008 - 5:26pm

Joined: 2007-10-04
Posts: 186

Who knows? The help page makes it pretty obvious simple. Doesn't beat full HTML capabilities though :p On a side note I've read the archives twice now, takes about 4hrs without tales from the road (which kinda breaks the flow when you're browsing the archive)
Post Icon Posted: 16 March 2008 - 11:32pm

Joined: 2006-10-18
Posts: 13

I didn't even know there was a cheat help page, and I don't know textile. But I know html and $ \LaTeX $ though
Post Icon Posted: 16 March 2008 - 11:35pm

Joined: 2006-08-31
Posts: 676

It's very easy to pick up.

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