这20条法规，是一个研究生导师以比较幽默的口吻对学生的善意劝告，可谓苦口婆心。要对这20条法规有一个较好的理解，研究生首先需要对自己的导师有一个清楚的了解，否则就会产生新的问题，同时对这20条执行起来也有些困难。所以，研究生选择导师是攻读学位过程中最最重要的一个环节。师生之间很多很多的不愉快的事情的发生，多是由于这个环节没有得到重视，或者草率，或者被忽视了所致。关于选择研究生导师的重要性，我在以前的文章中已经强调过了。有人一定会对法则中的某些关于导师的条款提出质疑，质疑当今一些研究生导师的学术水平和信任度或学术资格问题。这不是我这篇文章讨论的内容。附：The Laws of Herman1. Your vacation begins after you defend your thesis.2. In research, what matters is what is right, and not who is right.3. In research and other matters, your adviser is always right, most of the time.4. Act asif your adviser is always right, almost all the time.5. If you think you are right and you are able to convince your adviser, your adviser will be very happy.6. Your productivity varies as (effective productive time spent per day)1,000.7. Your productivity also varies as 1/(your delay in analysing acquired data)1,000.8. Take data today as if you know that your equipment will break tomorrow.9. If youwould be unhappy to lose your data, make a permanent back-up copy of them within five minutes of acquiring them.10. Your adviser expects your productivity to be low initially and then to be above threshold after a year or so.11. You must become a bigger expert in your thesis area than your adviser.12. When you cooperate, your adviser’s blood pressure will go down a bit.13. When you don’t cooperate, your adviser’s blood pressure either goes up a bit or it goes down to zero.14. Usually, only when you can publish your results are they good enough to be partof your thesis.15. The higher the quality, first, and quantity, second, of your publishable work, the better your thesis.16. Remember, it’s your thesis. You (!) need to do it.17. Your adviser wants you to become famous, so that he/she can finally become famous.18. Your adviser wants to write the best letter of recommendation for you that ispossible.19. Whatever is best for you is best for your adviser.20. Whatever is best for your adviser is best for you.
