Looking through the fog : making sense of overseas student supervision in Australian universities

Coming to Australia from India as a Ph.D. student in 1984 was a big step in my life. I knew I would be living in a vastly different cultural, social, and economic environment, but, in retrospect, I realize that I understood almost nothing about the way things worked in Australia. Prior to arrival, I received no advice or reading material to assist me with understanding these matters. Since then, it seems very little has changed-overseas students still come with little understanding of what to expect and how to operate, and some supervisors have little understanding of their students’ cultural backgrounds.