I downvoted this because it is way too unspecific about what fields this advice applies to, and implies that people should do this for any field of study. But this is not the case. In economics, for example, it’s worth nothing and even frowned upon to reach out to supervisors before you apply. I’m not claiming that is the norm across fields, but the example highlights the danger with giving this advice without caveats. I think it’s very important to describe what fields the authors and people consulted are working in, and what fields they think it applies to.
Edit: removed the downvote since it unfairly discounts the actual advice, but I still think the post needs to be much clearer about who the target audience is.
Thanks for the feedback Karthik! Agreed this is very general advice that isn’t applicable in all disciplines, departments, etc. and thank you for pointing out that we didn’t make this clear enough. We’ve added a caveat at the beginning that hopefully makes it clearer that this is intended to offer general guidance in contexts in which it is considered appropriate to reach out to supervisors independently, and that it’s important to check (e.g. with a university administrator, and/or people in the same discipline) that it’s appropriate to do so. Hopefully this addresses your main concern.
We think your comment also rightly points out the importance of us communicating our confidence in how relevant this advice is for different disciplines, what evidence we’re basing that on, and making it easier for people to judge that for themselves as well. We’ll make some edits to the post asap to try to do this.
I downvoted this because it is way too unspecific about what fields this advice applies to, and implies that people should do this for any field of study. But this is not the case. In economics, for example, it’s worth nothing and even frowned upon to reach out to supervisors before you apply. I’m not claiming that is the norm across fields, but the example highlights the danger with giving this advice without caveats. I think it’s very important to describe what fields the authors and people consulted are working in, and what fields they think it applies to.
Edit: removed the downvote since it unfairly discounts the actual advice, but I still think the post needs to be much clearer about who the target audience is.
Thanks for the feedback Karthik! Agreed this is very general advice that isn’t applicable in all disciplines, departments, etc. and thank you for pointing out that we didn’t make this clear enough. We’ve added a caveat at the beginning that hopefully makes it clearer that this is intended to offer general guidance in contexts in which it is considered appropriate to reach out to supervisors independently, and that it’s important to check (e.g. with a university administrator, and/or people in the same discipline) that it’s appropriate to do so. Hopefully this addresses your main concern.
We think your comment also rightly points out the importance of us communicating our confidence in how relevant this advice is for different disciplines, what evidence we’re basing that on, and making it easier for people to judge that for themselves as well. We’ll make some edits to the post asap to try to do this.
This stuff also varies a lot by country. I’m guessing this is UK focused (as US tends to use “advisor” rather than “supervisor”).