Your professor is your guide, mentor, and friend. He is your only guru who will give you and your work, a nice ride. He will take care of your research and evaluate your job every time. Alright, let me stop writing beautiful words about professors. They are busiest people in the world.
Some even claim to be too busy when they are not. Therefore, you should understand that they do not have enough time for your research. However, they will be euphoric when you show them results. They love results.
By the way, do not forget to give them credit for each and every work you perform. Even if they have no time and energy to provide you any ‘input’ for your job, you just have to ‘add their names in publication and other results.’ So, keep this in mind that you must credit them for no reason. Not all the professor(s) are ‘spin head,’ some of them are extremely good and they provide good evaluation of your work.
Here are some tips to impress every professor:
Always show more than you do: This just means to present yourself as an active student even if you remain passive at your workplace.
Always ‘butter’ them: By ‘buttering,’ you can get close to your professors. Try to hang out with them, play games and visit public places; become more personal towards them. The more friend you become; there is better chance that you will get real treatment at your workplace.
Lie more: Yes, the more you lie to your professor the better impact you will have on them. If they will give you some work and you are not ready yet to complete it; just lie and say that you are sick or something.
Print more material: Print a lot of references and put it on your work table. When professor visits at your workplace show to them that you are working incredibly hard to solve your research problem.
Make Library: This is similar to point 4. Get books from a library and arrange at your shelve. This will show that you are busy reading a lot of books.
Don’t give yourself a vague instruction or goal. Be as accurate as possible. For instance, don’t tell yourself “I will see my professor someday.” Change it to a more precise and forceful way “I will see my professor tomorrow morning from 10:00-11:00 a.m. during his office hour” or “I will see my professor this Thursday by appointment.” Once you have a clear picture of what to do at what time, you will not end up doing anything but making promises that could never be realized.
This is only a start. Don’t go to your professor’s office hour with nothing to talk to him. Be prepared with some questions in reasonable amount and difficulty so that all of your questions could be addressed adequately by your professor. Why?
The process of building a good relationship with your professor is the process of making the professor enjoy talking to you.
How could you get him to enjoy the conversation? Read the Q&A platform, where you will find answers on your questions. You also need to demonstrate some basic etiquette which I’m sure every typical college student should have, you should let your professor feel the joy of helping you and making you appreciate his answers. So leave the time for him to address each question and make comments now and then to make sure that you are in pace with him. You should be bright in the sense of quickly comprehending what the professor will to enunciate rather than in the sense of outwitting professor.
Photo by Tra Nguyen
