Choosing a project supervisor is the first and most important decision a good research student would make. This is because a project supervisor is supposed to be the backbone of the student under his or her supervision; the student’s success or failure depends on the extent of help, guidance, and direction from the supervisor. A poorly grounded project supervisor would certainly affect the students’ grades drastically.

Unfortunately, higher institutions these days don’t allow students to choose their supervisor (postgraduate students are exempted). They would rather request the students to submit three (3) project topics, while the Head of Department (HOD) decides on the best and most suitable one among the three topics, and thereafter assigns the student to a supervisor. This arrangement has many times put the students in a fixed position where their only alternative to changing a supervisor they are not comfortable with is by paying a stipulated amount of money to the same Department for a change of supervisor. Most Nigerian Universities accept between N5,000 to N10,000 to change a supervisor.

The big question remains…

How can one know the right project supervisor?

The following are the qualities of a good project supervisor, especially at the undergraduate level.

1. The supervisor should be ever ready to look through the student’s work and guide him from start to finish
2. The supervisor should be well-grounded in a particular discipline, particularly the area of study of the student
3. He must be physically available
4. The supervisor must be friendly
5. He must be teachable, patient, and tolerant
6. He must have a track record of supervising students for research success
7. He or she must be ready to provide relevant help or hints to the student
8. He must be ready to support the student during the defense
9. He must be able to understand that not all students have the same intellectual capacity, hence he must try to encourage the student to succeed patiently
10. The supervisor should be available to cheer the student during their final defense or presentation.

If your project supervisor does not have any of these qualities and you are unable to change, I would advise that you get an external guide to assist you throughout your research journey. This is where we come in. We at research pages can be your virtual supervisor and guide to complete your final year project or thesis successfully.

Send us a message today, let’s be of service to you.