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My friend graduated in PH.D. wow wow.!!! U r great..!
This Email was send to me and I think is the good way for my friend and me who want to know how to improve our English and study in the future..


Lets to read it...!



Subject: Dealing with teachers/supervisors‏
Sent: Thu 7/01/10 9:50 AM

Dealing with Teachers/Supervisor

During the period of study, students need to deal with teachers or their supervisors in various matters. In doing so, it is necessary that students know the teachers’ preferences, understand their situations or even be sensitive to their moods. As such, students will be able to adjust themselves appropriately to conform to the teachers’ preferences.

This seems to be common for any interpersonal relation. In order to make our coordination or cooperation fruitful, we need to understand the situations and sometimes it is necessary that we adjust ourselves accordingly. However, this is not always easy, as all individuals have their own preferences. Sometimes it is not very pleasurable to put aside one’s own sensitivity in order to accommodate that of others. In any case, as teachers or supervisors are persons influential for students’ success or completion, it is essential that students develop some strategies to deal with them. This is perhaps a reason why the USYD student representative body (SUPRA) provides the USYD students with a manual entitled ‘Working with supervisor’ or something similar. It is a means by which senior students advise their juniors how to deal with teachers.

I myself have never read SUPRA’s manual, even though I came across it for many times and felt it is interesting. Nevertheless, during my study, I got useful advices from a senior student of the same supervisor and I always appreciate it. I call that senior student ‘Rabbi.’ This is how my supervisor also calls him.

The word ‘Rabbi’ is a title of respect for a spiritual leader of the Jewish or related religions. This Rabbi, my senior,[1] is a spiritual leader of the Mandaean community which is situated in Sydney.[2] He is a true spiritual person, suitable for his position in his religion. His kindness and friendship extend to us who are people of different practices and faiths.

In the early period of my study, I usually met Rabbi in the PGARC (Postgraduate Arts Research Centre), the working place for postgraduate students in the Faculty of Arts. He worked hard days and nights, but still looked happy, contented and mindful at all times. He always told me when we met “work very hard, work very hard!” And when I had a question such as how to type diacritical signs, he taught me and showed me how to do it.

In a later phase, when I was rushing on the first draft of my thesis, Rabbi advised me again how to learn most from the supervisor.

It was when we were in Thailand, after the International Samādhi Forum (ISF), held in Chiang Mai, in which Rabbi was a speaker who presented a research paper on meditation. During those days, my supervisor stayed in the same house with Rabbi, in the Tawandhamma Village close to our temple. On that day, I went to see them, bringing vegetarian foods for some practitioners, out of my concern that our staffs might not have been able to find for them vegetarian foods. Some of them could not eat meat.

After a conversation with Dr Crangle, my supervisor, regarding the submission of the first draft of my thesis, I had a brief period to talk to Rabbi. He advised me that it is best to make our work perfect or nearly perfect before submitting it to our supervisor. “Don’t be too rush,” he told me. As our supervisor is meticulous in the accuracy of English writing, he can be easily irritated on seeing wrong spellings or grammatical errors. If our writing has a lot of mistakes in regard to English language, the supervisor will need to take time correcting our English and hence have no more time to assess other qualities of our writing. As such, we won’t be able to learn anything more from him.

Therefore, before submitting our writing to the supervisor, it is best to check for all mistakes and correct them first. Or we may ask an English native speaker to edit our work, in order to ensure the good quality of English writing. If the supervisor is satisfied with our English, or at least is not irritated with it, he will teach us more on other aspects, such as how to construct the chapters, how to support the argument in a more reasonable way, how to write to suite readers’ expectations or something else which are all beneficial. In this way, we will learn most from the supervisor and that will be helpful for our own works in the future.

It has been proven that the Rabbi’s advice is correct. Being care for the correctness of the writing, I tried my best to correct all mistakes, even before sending the writing to Dr Jeff, our English editor. Moreover, every time I got the work back from him, I learned how Dr Jeff corrected my English and tried to understand it. Whenever I could not understand his correction, I asked him to explain it to me. In this way I gradually learned from him how to write in English in the way it should be. Even though my English is still far from being perfect, it has improved a lot.

Later, in the submission of my work for examination, I could ask for Dr Jeff’s editorial help only for the first chapter. As there were only few days for my supervisor to look at the work, I decided to send the work directly to him, after trying my best to correct all possible mistakes. The supervisor appeared satisfied with the work. He asked me how I improved my English writing or whether there was someone editing the work for me. At that time, only P’ Moo helped proof-read through the thesis, but mostly she made no correction on it. It was the care that improved my work!

Rabbi’s advice is common in dealing with all teachers, not only with our supervisor. The care for qualities of the work shows our respect to the teachers who will assess it. At the same time, it shows our respect for learning. In Pali, this is called sikkhāgāravatā.[3]

According to the Buddha’s teaching, sikkhāgāravatā or respect for learning is a virtue necessary for the development of wisdom. It helps prevent us from falling back from the good. Therefore, students should try their best to study with care. ‘Learning with care’ will bring about the highest result for all students, irrespective of their initial capacity. The care taken in our study can elevate the students’ capacity to its highest potential.



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[1] Rabbi Dr Brikha Nasoraia, Brikha President of the International Mandaean Nasoraean Supreme Council.

[2] Many years ago, most Mandaean people migrated worldwide from Iraq, after a longer than one millennium persecution of the Islamic government in their countries of origin. In Australia, the Mandaean community is situated mainly in Sydney.

[3] Originally, Sikkāgāravatā refers to respect in Buddhist three modes of learning: sīla, samādhi and paññā.