alt Hacker NewsIt certainly is true in physics and engineering that a PhD student at least half way through their PhD should know more than there supervisor about their topic (and usually much earlier). Even a Masters thesis project student should understand the intricacies of their project better than their supervisor. I'm speaking as someone who has supervised a significant number of both PhD and Masters students.
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Yes, I intentionally left out the next part of the quote about graduate school, since that seems more accurate. I was disputing only the part that I took to be pertaining to undergraduate education. The full quote is:
> This starts to break down in college when the professors often at best only slightly ahead. (they have more knowledge and experience - but in a slightly different area and so it isn't relevant to the depth of whatever is under consideration) Grad school is about advancing the state of the art - if you don't know more than your professor you are doing it wrong.
The original post said “in college”. It might be true for PhD candidates halfway through their program, but that’s like 0.5% of college students. The vast majority of students are leagues behind their instructors in domain knowledge.