The hidden perks of bad supervision

What to do when your supervisor does not believe in you? Years on, I still can’t understand why she accepted to supervise me. Had she been a much younger professor, eager to get her first PhD student, I would have understood her desire to enter academic adulthood. But a full professor? Even at this stage of my career, I would not take someone whose topic falls so far from my own interests. If the person seems talented, I’d suggest a couple of doors to knock on, hoping that my colleagues have time to supervise them.