It's hard being a supervisor. When I was first told that an undergraduate student was coming to the lab, I thought, “Great. A slave!” Experiments would be finished quickly, coffee fetched diligently. I looked forward to instilling the joy of science into my new student, illuminating the path to a PhD. I would be the cool graduate student who shaped their scientific career.

But reality didn't live up to my expectations. To begin with, I hadn't realized how much teaching was involved, nor how often I would hear the words “What shall I do next?”. All the reading and other tasks I thought I could catch up on fell by the wayside as I had to supervise and then recheck different experiments. I started to dislike myself; I was selfish, intolerant and overbearing. I found it hard to let someone else be privy to my project; it was painful to watch others make mistakes. Often I had to bite my tongue or stop myself from taking over, reminding myself that I was in the same position once, eager to learn skills and needing to gain confidence.

Having experienced a short stint at supervising, my respect for my own PhD supervisor has grown immensely. How does she manage to be friendly but at the same time authoritative? How does she get us to realize our own mistakes and learn from them? She even looks as if she enjoys it.