<p>In the mentor-protege’ relationship, the mentor calls the shots until the mentor thinks the protege’ is ready. That’s the education that you get from this relationship. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s not that the professors are too busy to help the kids’ work, it’s that the attitude of “I paid so I get to decide what I work on” is not the way the mentor-protege’ relationship works. The professor has the upper hand. </p>
<p>For the mentor-protege’ relationship to work, there has to be a symbiosis. There has to be mutual benefit. I guess I am happy with this approach. I’ve advised my kids to seek guidance of mentors but to be mindful that their mentor’s time is worth a lot more than their own time. Don’t waste it. </p>
<p>I’m not a professor, but in my field, I personally mentor a lot of junior people, and invest my time because it has a positive payoff. It’s also very enjoyable.</p>
<p>I know it’s very hard for a quiet/shy kid, but approaching the professors in person will probably be the best strategy at this point. Emails are too easy to ignore, and it’s too easy to reply with a negative email. Face to face offers the opportunity for negotiation and suggestions. School should be starting up again soon, so he won’t have to wait long to contact the faculty in person.</p>
<p>I agree that the email approach is not appropriate in this situation; the student is seeking a mentor and must be comfortable discussing the project in person. One other thought That occurred to me is that this seeking of a thesis advisor seems very tardy. D3’s plans for an undergrad thesis/project were in place by the end of the spring semester preceding the year in which the project was undertaken. What spurred her into high gear to solidify her mentor/mentee relationship was a discussion with a classmate who was also hoping to have the same advisor. Students were aware that advisors will not take on an unlimited number of students.</p>
<p>According to the OP, the professors in question were doing work very similar to the area the student wanted to write a thesis on, but the professors told the student they were too busy to help him. So I don’t think that in this situation, at least, the professors rejected him because the topic did not interest them or that the student was demanding that the professors advise him in a different area (although I am sure that this happens).</p>
<p>Seems like if more resources were devoted to faculty, more faculty could be freed up to do the enjoyable job of mentoring, which would benefit everyone.</p>
<p>I agree with momsquad–have your son go by in person to talk to his advisor when he gets back to school. Suggest he say something like “I am interested in working on a senior project in (name general area of research). I know you are doing work in this area-- is it possible for me to get involved in a project with you?”</p>
<p>If professor says no, then have him ask “Is there anyone in the department you would recommend I talk to?”</p>
<p>If that doesn’t work have him check if there is a new faculty member starting in the department. If they are new they likely will not already be working with any students on projects. Even if it is not their area they might be willing to serve as advisor</p>
<p>Because they felt there was nothing in it for THEM. It’s not their job to help HIM. That’s the wrong attitude. There are only so many hours in a day. Time is precious. All of it. </p>
<p>How can he help THEM? That will get him an honors project. THEY decide what’s worth spending their time on. HE will get an honors project and get mentored. THEY will get help with THEIR research.</p>
<p>Hoosiermom makes an excellent point. Sometimes these decisions are made pretty early and many professors may have a student already. At my D’s school these decisions are made in the spring semester because many of the students get funding.</p>
<p>Are you saying, CRD, that if a dept offers a thesis based honors option, you think a kid is SOL? And that’s that? Uh, far too soon to give up. Unless he’s not following protocol or had missed deadlines, or there’s some grey area, it seems the dept offers this option</p>
<p>Thanks all for your comments and for sharing your perspectives, they’ve been very helpful. As noted, the info on the website for honors projects indicates that “students often use honors projects to explore specific interests”, but what it doesn’t say is if it’s the students’ interests or the professors’. </p>
<p>The professor who is doing research closest to my son’s interest, in collaboration with a prof in another dept, was very encouraging about my son’s topic and approach. She turned him down saying she was way too busy to be his advisor. I wonder if an altered approach by my son with an offer to help with her research rather than do his own might bear fruit with her.</p>
<p>His faculty advisor is the dept chair who also said she didn’t have time to be his senior project advisor. He’s continuing (email) discussions with her. I’m not clear on how much he talked to her during the spring semester of his junior year, but I do know he’s been incubating his ideas at least since then and did some of his literature searching on campus. It’s possible he should have checked in more with his faculty advisor then but for whatever reason he didn’t clarify things at that point, leaving him a bit behind the curve.</p>
<p>There are 9 faculty members and about 50 seniors in this department. My son doesn’t know any other student who is doing a senior project. His guess is that perhaps 3-4 others are going to do one.</p>
<p>He needs an advisor from within the department, and 1-2 other professors to be on his senior project committee who could be from outside the department. He’s motivated enough to do this project on his own, with not a lot of hand-holding from an advisor, so it’s possible someone with less experience/interest in the topic would be fine for him. </p>
<p>He’ll be back on campus in 2 weeks and so can talk face-to-face with everyone then.</p>
<p>I’m sorry your son is having this problem. I am somewhat surprised that he was not required to get things set up in the spring of his junior year if he wanted to “thesis” in his senior year. Many colleges actually limit the number of theses that faculty may supervise in a given year. It is part of faculty course load, and these things are governed by contract. I might really want to work with a given student on a thesis, but if I am already committed to other students at my limit, I cannot.</p>
<p>Your son should set up an appointment with the department chair to discuss what he can do. Another possibility is that the faculty he has asked are not particularly impressed with his proposal and won’t work with him without significant modifications. The thesis proposal may not have the scholarly merit that the student thinks it does. This is also not unheard of.</p>
<p>I didn’t say that. I said that if he wants a professor’s time, he has to make it worth their while. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s exactly what I recommend. This way her investment of her time in him becomes a net positive for her, and your son benefits both from the relationship and in getting honors.</p>
<p>My S is having a similar problem. He has secured a good internship for the fall, which his college encourages, but is having a hard time finding a professor sponsor, which is required. Most of the professors he contacted never even replied. he’s a senior and has done consistently well in his courses. I don’t think colleges should encourage internships for credit if the professors won’t help.</p>
<p>Klh720, that’s unusual. Sponsoring an internship takes very little time. It’s not like there is a lot of reading to do and feedback to give. It just involves verifying that the internship is appropriate to award credit. </p>
<p>When did he contact them? Many professors are away during the summer. Perhaps he can drop into office hours for one of them when he gets back to school.</p>
<p>Agreed. In my department, one had to have a proposal in and approved with advisor before second semester junior year. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Or at the very least, meaningfully demonstrating to the Prof that he is capable of doing independent research and being proactive about reaching out for help as appropriate. </p>
<p>Having a tendency to be quiet and only/mostly communicating through a passive medium like email may give some Profs concerns he may go to the extremes of never asking for help at all until it’s too late or being a high-maintenance headache by asking advisor/Profs questions on matters he should be able to figure out/research out/google on his own.</p>
<p>This is a long shot, but if your son finds he needs to revisit the profs who have already turned him down he might float the idea of having co-advisors for his project, especially if two of the faculty are already collaborating. Something about shared responsibility takes the edge off of people’s fear of commitment.</p>
<p>-He needs to do this, in person, not by email. Email is easy to ignore or forget, and showing up in person will signal interest.
-If the potential advisor doesn’t have time, your son should ask her to suggest other faculty.
-Your son might need to change his topic. Commonly students don’t realize their projects are not as high quality as they think, and in my experience, some students take polite constructive criticism as praise.</p>
<p>I am an introverted person, and I learned the hard way that in academia you must be a “go-getter” to succeed. It’s really hard for me, but I learned to do it. Good luck to your son!</p>
<p>I am also surprised this was not set up earlier in the year.</p>
<p>My daughter says that sometimes grad students can advise on theses. Is that a possiblity?</p>
<p>My kid is independent and the adviser didn’t do much, so I wasn’t even aware of the time commitment for faculty. She is in a small department and professors met and parceled out student thesis writers between them. Yes, there was some match up of interests but honestly the fact that one professor was on sabbatical really was a factor in who she ended up with, not matched interests or her ability to help.</p>
<p>I just talked to my son about the timeline. He said he’d spoken with his faculty advisor last semester about doing an honors research project this coming year. At that point he hadn’t narrowed down his topic. She told him to work on it over the summer and come back with his topic for approval within the first 2 weeks of school. He took a course from her last semester which involved writing a research paper as a significant part of the grade. He got an A for the course, so I’m assuming she’s happy with his research skills and work ethic. </p>
<p>I don’t really know what his overall relationship is with the faculty in his department. He understands the importance of building relationships, and he’s improved in this area over the past 3 years that he’s been in college. He’s a likeable kid with lots of friends, is a leader on his athletic team, but is probably on the quiet side in a classroom setting. He’s very passionate about his topic and will pursue it out of his own interest and as a career even if he doesn’t end up writing about it in his senior research project.</p>
<p>There are no grad students in his college. The alumna he knows went on to grad school in this field and is willing to serve as a mentor.</p>
<p>His semester starts in 2 weeks and he’s very willing to go talk to people in person as soon as he gets back to campus.</p>
<p>Personally I think that if the thesis option is offered, a department has to figure out how to make sure that any student who wants to take the option can do so. It’s true that it’s a drag to supervise a project that doesn’t interest you or to put a lot of work into a student that you don’t know that well or don’t find intellectually interesting, but sometimes that’s what you have to do and you have to be an adult about it. If you don’t want to expose your department to those risks, then don’t offer the thesis option. We don’t. Our best students have the option to do significant projects via independent studies, which are not guaranteed to students. Were we to find ourselves in a situation where none of us could take another independent study student or if a student had a project that none of us could or would supervise, we’d hook that student up with a professor at one of the nearby campuses or create a summer opportunity or…something! Intellectual curiosity ought to be rewarded!</p>