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33 points nabla9 | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.433s | source
1. lr4444lr ◴[] No.42480507[source]
In everyday life, parents and children do not choose each other, whereas in academia, mentors and mentees actively select one another.

I don't think the distinction is nearly as concrete as the authors seem to assume.

Parents, in choosing their mates, certainly have in mind a broad set of concepts about how their offspring should turn out, and even the most gentle and supportive of them have values, behaviors, and disciplinary strategies they put into place to mold their children - obviously not a guaranteed outcome, but certainly on the whole correlative in many dimensions of child outcomes we could measure.

In the opposite direction, I would not assume mentor and mentee relationships in academic are as fluid and breakable as the author might assume. Students make major decisions about where even to attend graduate programs based on prospective but not promised guarantees to work with mentors, and mentors take on mentees based on initial impressions of research compatibility that don't always turn out as positive as they might have hoped, and it's not that easy when grant money or institutional budgeting is at stake to reverse these decisions.

replies(2): >>42480848 #>>42481278 #
2. newsclues ◴[] No.42480848[source]
I didn’t get informed consent to be born to my mother and father.

No choice in being alive or who would be my parents.

Isn’t that normal?

3. bsder ◴[] No.42481278[source]
> In the opposite direction, I would not assume mentor and mentee relationships in academic are as fluid and breakable as the author might assume.

Most evidence, in fact, says that mentor/mentee realtionships in academia are incredibly immutable. Many people put up with hideous amounts of abuse because their advisor has a thumbs up/thumbs down effect on their career that a Roman emperor would be envious of.