How should I plan graduate study and manage my time? How can I get along with supervisors? And how many papers are reasonable for a Ph. D candidate to publish?

Vernon L. Snoeyink, a member of American Academy of Engineering and professor emeritus of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was invited to an information session at meeting Room 705 on Oct. 25, to give his opinions on graduate research to nearly 20 student representatives of SOE.

Professor Snoeyink first shared his perspective of what makes a good graduate student. He said students who excel always had the ability to critically assess their own research and to develop their own opinions of the best next steps to take, while students who do only what others tell them to do could do good research but would not excel. To foster critical thinking, the first step is to not believe everything printed in journals. And when we write our own journal papers, we should make sure the papers are worth reading and will be good for our own reputation. When asked how he planned his life, professor smiled and said his life had not been going the way he first expected. And life was about always trying and finding yourself, and doing what you like eventually. As in the field of research, he also chose what he liked and what was within his strength.

The professor also gave his opinion on how to maintain a good relationship with one’s supervisor. He thought the best relationship should be a win-win one, in which each made good contributions to the research direction. If the supervisor and the student have personality differences, they should put their differences aside and focus on their joint research. But if their relationship is really not good, perhaps the student should stop at a master’s degree and look for other alternatives. In China one problem that gets in the way of the relationship, some students thought, was that graduate students had to do many extra routine tasks for their supervisors, which resulted in them not being able to focus on their research. The professor said he thought this was because the academic institutes were almost the only institutes that could offer technical support to the enterprises in China. But he thought this would change as the environmental consulting industry in China developed.

Some students feared that Chinese students, as one minor ethnical group, might not adapt to the new environment in US very easily. Snoeyink said Chinese students were no longer a minority group in US, and that diversity has greatly increased. Most of the Chinese students in environmental engineering and science at the University of Illinois have no problems integrating with other ethnic groups.