The major goals of a PhD study should include, in decreasing order of importance:
- Make sure the student receives enough preparation s/he would need for a brighter future and a successful career after graduation.
If a PhD graduate (after 5-6 years of tedious study) can even not find a good job with interesting work and a minimum salary (130k/year in industry or 100k/year in academia), it is largely the advisor's fault.
There is an old Chinese saying that "mei2 you3 gong1lao2, ye3 you3 ku3lao2; mei2 you3 ku3lao2, ye3 you3 pi2lao2",
meaning if you look at a PhD student's work for 5-6 years,
even if there is little contribution, there will be hard work,
or
even if there is little hard work, there will be fatigue. :)
Advisors should treat PhD students as students who need to learn,
and with high respect, rather than treating them as employees
who need to produce, esp. in the first two years.
- The student acquires the most valuable thing in the PhD process: patience and perseverance. S/he realizes how hard research is: nothing is going to work before you tried at least 100 times, and still isn't going to work if you try 101 times, but if you make sure you're on the right track, it'll eventually work if you keep trying, or at least something else (instead of your original goal) would work and that thing is often more interesting than your original goal.
- The student is well-trained in technical communication skills: writing, presentation, and teaching. S/he has taken at least one writing/speaking seminars, and has taught at least one real course.
The advisor should also help non-native speaking students improve their English.
- The student learns *how* to do research, including how to find or propose a problem, do literature survey, formulate ideas, conduct experiments, and write/present them to various audiences.
- The student interns at least twice with top-class research labs or groups in other universities. Do *not* do an engineering intern, or with a non-top lab, which is even harmful on the CV.
- The student should be well-connected in the community after 3 years of study, by attending conferences and giving seminars in other universities. It is the advisor's responsibility to introduce the student to many people in this field, esp. those smartest researchers, so that the student would have an opportunity to collaborate with them during the PhD or after graduation.
- The student has taken many relevant courses in and outside of his/her own area, greatly broadening the vision. Taking classes from good professors
also helps the student learn to teach.
- The student does some truly *independent* research without the advisor's influence, which may or may not succeed. This is the only way to check whether the student has grown fully independent and really to go. Ideally, the student should have one (1) single-author paper in his/her job application (it would help a lot for academic jobs and it doesn't need to be a good one! it's just a great practice).
- The student publishes 2 quality papers in top conferences/journals.
Note: points 1--3 are much more important than 4--9, because
even if the student chooses to abandon research after graduation,
s/he would still benefit tremendously from the skills and lessons learned in 1--3.
Point 9 is the least important: the point of the PhD is to train you *how* to do research,
rather than the "doing" itself, though you get to learn it largely by doing it (but also by other things like courses and teaching).
It is more important that you're better prepared for future publications,
because it is all about the "potential".
If you want, you could devote the rest of your
life to publishing, so why rush during your PhD then? :P
John Hopcroft got tenured after the publication of his second paper. Well I know it was in the old days but still we should have a classically-oriented mindset rather than aiming for short-term and low-impact goals.