Supervising PFE and PFA Students: my Ten Lessons —version 2026

**Alif Chebbi1–2 (**LR Biotechnology and Bio-Geo Resources Valorization (LR11ES31) — ISBST, University of Manouba, Tunisia ; Microbiomica — Nonprofit Knowledge-Based Initiative in Microbiomics Education)

alif.chebbi@isbst.uma.tn

Congratulations. You are a newly appointed assistant professor. You have papers (20+, no less), genuine enthusiasm, and a love for science forged over ten years abroad — or built patiently inside Tunisia as a postdoc. You have done the hard part.

And here is the twist: the 2011 law says you are not officially allowed to supervise Master’s students yet during the first two to three years. We do not know why. Nobody does. But as a wise friend once said during a 30 km long run in : we do not complain — we move on. So let us move on.

So, you have the PFA/PFE. Many colleagues refuse to supervise them, since they are not counted toward the Habilitation, but many others — like me — take charge of them and invest time and effort to help them.

📌 What is a PFE/PFA student?

PFA (Projet de Fin d’Année): a 3-week training period. The student observes real lab work, contributes something meaningful, and produces a structured written report. PFE (Projet de Fin d’Études): a 4-month immersive placement in a lab or industry setting, with a full written thesis and formal defense. Both types require: two supervisors (one internal from the institute, one external from the host lab), IMRAD-structured reporting, and proper academic referencing.

Here’s the truth! The problem is not the students. They are bright, curious, and motivated. The problem is that nobody showed them the map. They come from lecture halls and practical demonstration labs. Suddenly they are in a big lab or company. They do not know how to cite a paper, how to ask a good question, or that the Methods section is not optional. The good news this year: the Ministry has introduced a new “savoir-agir” teaching framework, which should, deinceps, help students learn how to manage internships, write reports, and engage with the real academic world. But right now, in your lab, today, that student is yours to guide. That is where you come in. Not as a supervisor barking deadlines, but as the friendly, structured guide who makes the impossible slightly more possible.

10 Tips That Actually Work

01 — Handle bureaucracy first — before anything else

When a student joins your group/lab, make sure they sign all required paperwork on Day 1: training sheets, reports, lab safety forms. Do not assume they know the process. Walk them through it. A student who is not administratively registered cannot be officially evaluated — no matter how good their work is.

💡 As an assistant professor, mastering the administrative side of supervision is as important as the scientific side. Deadlines missed on paper can erase weeks of brilliant lab work. After many years in Italy, I’m struggling now to learn these manoeuvres.

02 — Start with a welcome message, not a To-Do list and create a whatsApp group for the whole cohort (could be 2 to 15 students)

On Day 1, before anything else, send a short warm voice note or text: “Welcome! This will be intense but you will learn a lot. I am here. Ask me anything.” This costs you 30 seconds. It changes everything. One group. All your students. Name it something human — “PFA 2026 Microbiomica”, as i did, and works perfectly. Pin a Google Drive link at the top with all shared resources: protocols, manuscript templates, example reports, and PDFs from previous years.

💡 A student who feels welcome asks questions. A student who feels intimidated disappears quietly and submits something terrible on Day 21. 💡 Bonus: students help each other in the group because this culture could help them when they start doing Master degree and PhD programs. Free peer support. Zero extra work for you. Beautiful.

03 — Post weekly slots on Sunday. Let students book

Every Sunday morning, post your available time slots for the week — Tuesday and Thursday, 15 to 30 minutes each. Students reply with their name: “Tuesday 10h — Ines.” First come, first served. Late students get Friday 4 PM.

💡 Nobody wants Friday 4 PM. The system is entirely self-regulating and teaches students the professional habit of claiming their time.

04 — Give them an academic cheat sheet : good manuscripts/ppts

On Day 1, share a single page that explains: what IMRAD means, how to cite using Zotero (free, 10 minutes to install), what a p-value is in plain language, and how to email a supervisor professionally. Share examples from previous years — a good manuscript and a good PowerPoint slide set goes further than any abstract instruction.

💡 Do not assume they know. They do not know. This is not their fault — it was never taught. One page saves you weeks of corrections. In the future, there is a module at ISBST where we will teach how to write in science and wisely use AI tools.

05 — Show a good example AND a bad example

Send two manuscript excerpts side by side: a clean, well-written Results section from a previous student, and one that needs serious work. Ask: “Read both. Which is clearer? Why? Model yours on the first.” I have done many corrections online via Google Meet, where numerous students can connect and see how to improve manuscripts. But do not compare students in front of them — that creates jealousy.

💡 Students learn by contrast far faster than by abstract instruction. They will remember this longer than any lecture on scientific writing.

06 — Check in briefly — but consistently

You do not need long meetings. A 10-minute weekly check-in beats a 2-hour panic session at the end. Ask three things only: What did you do this week? What is blocking you? What will you do next week? Set a deadline, note it, and follow up. Always. This gives you early warning before they panic-write everything in the last 24 hours — and it gives students the accountability structure they need but have never been taught. Students can send messages via the WhatsApp group, and this helps alert the others to the problems and solve them together.

07— Normalize asking for help

Many students — especially first-generation university students — are afraid to admit they do not understand something. Tell them explicitly, more than once: “There are no stupid questions here. If you are confused, tell me and we fix it together.” During group calls, always ask: “How can I help? If something is unclear, let us talk about it now, before we go further.”

💡 A student who asks for help at Week 1 submits a decent report. A student too afraid to ask submits chaos at Week 3.

08 — Give a manuscript template with annotations

Do not just say “follow IMRAD structure.” Give an actual Word template — each section labelled, a sentence or two explaining what goes in it, and a rough word count: Introduction ~300 words, Methods ~400 words, Results ~400 words, Discussion ~300 words. IMRAD stands for Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion — the universal structure for empirical scientific papers in life sciences, medicine, and applied biology.

💡 Students with a template produce first drafts. Students with only instructions produce anxiety. They should follow the writing guide of their own institutions and not stick to others’ rules to save time.

09 — Creating a supportive atmosphere for manuscript & presentation correction

When a student sends a panicked message — “Prof, I do not know what to write in the Discussion” — resist the urge to write it for them. Instead, ask one question only: “What is your most interesting result, and why does it matter?” Most of the time, they can answer that. Then say: “Write that. Start there. That is your Discussion.”

💡 Breaking the blank page into one small question is the kindest — and most effective — thing you can do for a stuck student.

For oral presentations: Give students time to rehearse with a visible 10‑minute timer active. Let them practice in a low‑pressure, supportive setting — alone or in small groups — before any formal correction. Focus first on flow and clarity, not on perfection. After the timer ends, offer constructive feedback on one or two key points only. This builds confidence and reduces anxiety.

10 — Finally, show them that their work matters. And Bonus — celebrate the small wins

A student submitted their first draft — even a rough one? Say: “Good. This is a real first draft. Now we improve it.” A student finally got their citations in order? Acknowledge it. A student understood what a control group is? That is worth a genuine “Bravo vraiment, keep going!” in the group chat.

Academic life is full of criticism and corrections. Moments of real encouragement from a supervisor are rare and remembered for years. Be that person.

I usually use an Instagram page (micrbiomica_Chebbi) for science only to celebrate their wins as a real research group.

Integrating AI responsibly — A section your students need now

According to the Digital Education Council’s Global AI Student Survey, 86% of higher education students regularly use AI in their studies, with 54% reporting weekly use. A separate survey by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI, 2025) found adoption to be even higher, with 92% of students using AI in some form, compared with 66% in 2024. Your PFE/PFA students are among them. The question is no longer whether they use AI, but whether they use it effectively and responsibly.

What AI Does Well

• Generates outlines, draft structures, and initial ideas
• Reformulates and improves writing style
• Summarises a corpus of documents quickly
• Answers general factual questions
• Proposes analogies, counter-arguments, and examples

What AI Cannot Replace

• Original thinking and genuine scientific curiosity
• Critical reading and interpretation of primary sources
• Hands-on lab observation and empirical judgment
• Ethical decision-making and professional responsibility
• The human relationship — mentor, student, colleague

The risk you must Warn them About: Hallucinations

Large language models invent bibliographic references with alarming confidence. A 2025 Stanford study found that sup > 40% of citations generated by popular LLMs are fictitious or inaccurate. Teach your students to verify every reference in Google Scholar or PubMed before including it in their report. One fake citation in a PFE report is enough to fail a defense. Read the textbook of micrbiology and bioinformatics very well before using these tools otherwise you will be lost.

📌 Simple AI Charter for PFE/PFA Students

✅ ALLOWED: Brainstorming, grammar correction, reformulating your own text, idea generation

✅ ALLOWED: Using AI to understand a concept or summarise a paper you have already read

✅ ALLOWED : Making posters/graphs with good prompts for sure

⚠️ DECLARE IT: If AI helped you structure a section, note it briefly in your acknowledgements

⚠️ DECLARE IT: If AI summarised sources — you must still read and verify those sources yourself

❌ FORBIDDEN: Submitting AI-generated text as your own without rewriting it

❌ FORBIDDEN: Using AI-generated references without verifying them in a database

❌ FORBIDDEN: Replacing your own observations, data, or conclusions with AI output

Recommended Digital Tools for Supervision in 2026

The Survival Checklist

• IMRAD structure — give them the template so they are not guessing
• Zotero — free, 10 minutes to install, show them once, they will use it forever
• Ethics statement — required even for a 3-week report; one sentence is enough to start
• Statistics — teach one test appropriate to their data; one test done correctly is science
• p < 0.05 — explain it plainly: “the result is probably not a coincidence”; then help them report it
• AI hallucinations — warn them to verify every AI-generated reference in Google Scholar. Recently I noted a major mistake when using AI to analyze the endometriosis microbiome; I will discuss it in another paper.
• Dual supervisor requirement — one internal (institute), one external (host lab); both must sign off
• Missed deadline — have a conversation, not a punishment; find out why, then reschedule

You Are Their First Map.

Your PFE/PFA students are not struggling because they are lazy. They are struggling because real academic life — with its silent writing conventions, its expectation of structured output, its unwritten rules — is genuinely new to them. Nobody handed them a map.

You are the map. A friendly, organised, occasionally exhausted assistant professor who posts meeting slots on Sunday mornings and sends voice notes of encouragement at 10 PM. Who shares good examples alongside bad ones. Who created a WhatsApp group that somehow makes science feel a little less terrifying.

Three weeks is short (or three months). But a student who leaves those few weeks knowing how to structure a paragraph, cite a source, and ask for help without shame — that student carries something real. And I am happy that in the future, they will come back — not as students, but as colleagues. That is because of you.

Finally, I don’t recommend taking on 9 students as I did this year. Five students are manageable without needing help if you are alone — i.e., you don’t have postdocs or PhD students yet. Good news: in the future, no PFA? There is only one PFA, which is fair for three months to optimize their output.

Bon courage. You are doing more than you realise.

— Alif Chebbi, Assistant Professor, Microbiology — ISBST, Manouba University, Tunisia P.S. To the student reading this over your supervisor’s shoulder: Yes — this was written partly for you too.

Thank you, ChatGPT/DeepSeek and Claude, for rephrasing my mixed thoughts.