'If You Want to Be My Student'

By Colleen Flaherty. Like any good graduate adviser, Chris Blattman expects a lot of his students. But just how he’s expressing those expectations has generated a fair amount of discussion at Columbia University, where he is an assistant professor of political science and international and public affairs, as well as some talk outside its walls.
Blattman, who is known for his frank approach to decoding college and graduate school for students on his blog (he once wrote a “how-to” post on e-mailing professors), outlines protocol for would-be advisees in a new post called “If you want to be my student.” Described as “advice on how to manage [me],” it links to a page on Blattman’s website for Ph.D. students. Read more...