Jason Starr asks a great question in the comments to the previous post: if you are a Ph.D. advisor, to what extent do you think you could advise a graduate student who you rarely or never physically met? If you’re a graduate student, to what extent do you think you could thrive if you rarely or never saw your advisor in person?
This might not be what you mean, but here’s my own experience.
During my PhD I was able to visit a researcher in the US for 6 months. After returning to Europe, this researcher continued to advise me — weekly meetings via skype+online-whiteboards+graphics-tablet made this quite possible (these days, g+ hangouts are an even better tool I suppose).
Without it, I probably would not have finished my PhD, let alone continue afterwards.
I think this is possible depending on the student and professor. I would not feel comfortable advising a young student entirely this way. But after whatever point when I gained confidence in the student’s skills (both technical and critical thinking skills), I would be comfortable advising them via skype, chat, email, etc.
I think the hardest part about it for me would be guaranteeing distraction-free time for advising conversations. It’s a lot harder to make plans with and get thoughtful responses from busy professors when you aren’t with them in the flesh.
I just noticed this post. I actually spent about 9 months visiting Georgia Tech while I was in graduate school (my father had died, and I wanted to spend time with my mother). I suppose “visiting” GT is a bit of a misnomer — mostly I worked by myself either at my mother’s house or the GT library. I spoke to Benson (=my advisor for the non-Jordan people reading this) by phone every few weeks, but for the most part I was on my own.
This was actually one of the productive periods for me during graduate school. For instance, this was the time when I developed a lot of the ideas about the Torelli group which turned into my thesis and a lot of my early work. But I’ve always worked best in solitude — even when I’m collaborating with people, most of my contributions come from things I think of away from in-person meetings.
I suspect that my experience is atypical, and I don’t think I would be comfortable advising a student that I couldn’t meet with and keep track of in person. But for the right kind of person, it can work.