Chris Blattman

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If you want to be my student…

Current and future students: Macartan Humphreys and I have created some guidelines for PhD advising, including advice on how to manage us.

Update: Yikes. The unintended consequences of frankness.

5 Responses

  1. Applause for all the points made here and other places on the internet. Grad students are adults and being a full-time student is a job like any other. Being a good employee and being a parent trying to raise a good thinker, I learned that getting things done well is a lot about setting expectations, clear communication and of course sometimes you get sent back to the drawing board but it’s all in the name of progress. No need to lead a student on, wasting their time and yours and having them find out much later in life when the stakes are much higher that their work is not up to par.

  2. Your guidelines are very well-thought and show you to be an organized and caring adviser. I am a recent PhD from a top-20 program and comparing you to my main advisor makes me so angry at the guy again.

  3. The short answer is that faculty and grad students specialize, and people who specialize in archival, interview, or small-N/comparative-historical training would be unwise to have me as their main adviser.

    Political science (and our department) is a big tent and I advise many such students in some fashion. But “PE of development” is well-defined as a field demanding quantitative excellence.

  4. Chris,
    This is great – tons of incredibly useful advice, especially on how students should relate to their advisers.

    I do have a question on the methods section though. I was surprised to see no expectations on the qualitative side: no language, archival, interview, or small-N/comparative-historical training. Those seem relevant to studying development (and you often to point to such work, by the likes of Ferguson or Scott), so I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.

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