PhD Supervisor

Created by Andrew 2 years ago

I am so very sorry to hear about Gareth. He was one of my supervisors when I completed my PhD at Henley. I now live in Australia and stumbled across what happened while looking for a video of him talking about leadership to present to my MBA students tomorrow. I have a lot of very fond of memories of Gareth and I recall being sat by the Thames with him talking to 3 of us about the PhD journey. Two things have stuck with me; firstly, he told us very in a very serious voice, 'a PhD is an apprenticeship', to which we all nodded at these sage words, immediately followed by...'and the quickest way to a divorce', which completely floored all three of us. He also gave me some of the best advice when I was ready to submit my thesis for examination. He told me that all three of my supervisors had talked it through and all had disagreed on what needed to be improved before submission. He said, as they could not agree on what needed to be corrected, the thesis was ready and to get it submitted without further delay, I recall his parting words on the phone to me were "One of us has to be right...and I bloody well hope it's you." It was and I am eternally grateful to Prof Gareth Jones for all of his advice, guidance and friendship.