Advisor/Advisee Scenario 1: Pressure From Consulting

Student A has been a graduate student at MIT for three years, but has made little progress on a dissertation because of the heavy demands of being a Teaching Assistant. For the last year, A has had a Research Assistant position in Professor B's group. During this time A has settled on a thesis topic and started building a simulator to use for the thesis research.

One day Professor B tells student A to stop work on the simulator and write some code that he needs for a consulting project. Student A doesn't need the money and would rather work on his/her thesis, but is afraid that refusing might jeopardize his/her RA position. A confides this concern to C, another more senior student of Professor B.

C reassures student A that Professor B would not penalize him/her for refusing the consulting chore. However, A is not reassured, and asks C to promise not to discuss the problem with anyone, especially Professor B.

How else might A get help with this problem?

What might C do to be helpful?

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