Overview of Hanginthere on PostgraduateForum.com

H

Signup date: 10 Dec 2016 at 6:17pm

Last login: 05 Aug 2017 at 11:18pm

Post count: 38

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Hi all,

Hope you are having a productive or restful Saturday. I am a third year PhD student and will be transferring to writing up in September, with the hope of submitting before July 2018.

For those of you that have been there, please can you tell me the ideal time to start looking for a job?
My PhD is in social science and I know that the labour market is very competitive, so I am doing my best to gain experiences.

I have two publication (one in a high impact journal), by the end of 2017.2018 academic sessions, I would have had 2 years teaching experience (leading seminars). Will these experiences be enough to make me part of the competition?

I know I need to focus on finishing my thesis, but I have just been preoccupied about what to expect after my PhD lately.

Thank you for your help.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Sorry to hear about your situation.
I have to agree with timefortea that there is not much you can do other than providing the emotional and physical support which you seem to be doing.
If she is not motivated to write, perhaps she might benefit from joining a writing group?

I guess the best way forward will be to find out exactly why she has not been writing, is it possible that the feedback is not clear?

I am sorry I cannot be of much help, but when I have writers block, I find that writing with other PhD students makes things a lot better.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

I will suggest the use of social media -- facebook, youtube with current students sharing their experiences about the course, why they love it and why they would encourage anyone considering a similar subject to give it a try at the university.
The title could be ' proud to be ...insert the name of the university'.

Good luck.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Well done you!

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

There is no harm in trying.

I wrote to the head of the department of a university close to where I live during my second year about a GTA role, he told me to check back as they were not recruiting from outside the department/university at the time.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Quote From tru:
Generally, the supervisor will not put the best idea forward for a PhD project until the second or third student comes along, since he/she knows that that his familiarity with the academic system and more grant funding will ensure a higher rate of success for the pet project. You also do not have any other student in your group to discuss your work with. There is also very limited prelimiary data for the project you do, if there is any at all.

Since you do not have a solid group yet, your chances of having more publications through collaborations with other group members are very low. Most successful academics I know come from big established groups with big name profs and lots of resources and papers to kick start their career. A PhD student is supposed to be independent and not rely on others, some may argue, but when you are competing against other PhD grads who had lots of help and papers, you know how low your chances of success is when it comes to future fellowship, jobs and grants.

These are our experiences. It may not be how your experience will turn out. Yours may very well be excellent. Good luck.

I agree with tru, my main supervisor is a first-time supervisor and his input has not been useful in helping the substance of my work. I rely on him for critiquing of the quality of my work, while depending on my second to give me ideas when I am stock/short of ideas on how to progress. The worst part of being in this situation for me is that feedback takes forever which is very depressing.

My advice for you will be to make sure you have a second supervisor who is more experienced for backup.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Tudor_Queen:

Quote From Hanginthere:

I have also found that even when I send a chapter to someone else for feedback, my supervisor's feedback is usually.

What was that?

I meant to say that my supervisor's feedback is usually different from the feedback I receive from the reviewer. So I have given up on doing that, at least for now.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Quote From pm133:

Quote From Hanginthere:

Quote From muspectrum:
Beginning to wonder if Hanginthere and I share the same supervisor as I had the same problem. I got R and R and the stress of this, the massive resubmission fee and full-time job led me to just not being contactable/not reminding him of stuff for an entire month. Then he wondered if I was still alive and all was sorted...until the post office lost my thesis after the uni sent it to examiners, but thats another story.

So, not ideal, but maybe just the silent treatment will work?

That must have been very frustrating. I don't have a job, so you can imagine that I go through a period of two months of doing nada.
I try to continue with research and lit review, just not getting anywhere with setting a timeline for feedback.
I do not want to make an official complaint, so I guess I have to continue to manage until I submit next year (likely June).

I appreciate your feedback and wish you all the best.

On a positive note, I guess he is helping me identify the sort of academic I do not want to be.

Inhad a friend once who paid another academic to review her thesis because she was sick to death of the lack of urgency of her own supervisor. Is this an option for you?

I would if I can afford it, but I am sure I can't.

I have also found that even when I send a chapter to someone else for feedback, my supervisor's feedback is usually.

Thank for the suggestion though, probably something to reflect on.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Hi Sofi,

So sorry to hear about the way you feel. The first thing I'd like to say is that your third year is not a time for you to think about quitting. You are close to the finish line.
Is it possible to ask your supervisor to spell out what he/she wants from you?
Sometimes when my supervisor says something that I do not know how to apply, I ask him to be explicit. That might make me look stupid at the time, but at least, I leave the meeting with a clear understanding of what is expected of me.

All the best.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Quote From muspectrum:
Beginning to wonder if Hanginthere and I share the same supervisor as I had the same problem. I got R and R and the stress of this, the massive resubmission fee and full-time job led me to just not being contactable/not reminding him of stuff for an entire month. Then he wondered if I was still alive and all was sorted...until the post office lost my thesis after the uni sent it to examiners, but thats another story.

So, not ideal, but maybe just the silent treatment will work?

That must have been very frustrating. I don't have a job, so you can imagine that I go through a period of two months of doing nada.
I try to continue with research and lit review, just not getting anywhere with setting a timeline for feedback.
I do not want to make an official complaint, so I guess I have to continue to manage until I submit next year (likely June).

I appreciate your feedback and wish you all the best.

On a positive note, I guess he is helping me identify the sort of academic I do not want to be.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Tudor_Queen:
And then he doesn't let you know... how helpful!

Yeap!
I probably have to send another reminder before I get something back.
The waiting has been draining because at first, I thought it was because my work was not up to scratch. However, based on feedback I have received from others, the problem is not the quality of my work, rather his ability to provide feedback on time.

Thank you for your input.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Quote From pm133:

Quote From Hanginthere:
Hi everyone,

I have a quick question. How often should one write his/her supervisor a reminder for feedback? Should it be every two weeks or four weeks? I have accepted my fate, in that I have to remind my supervisor to respond to my drafts, at the same time, I don't want to appear like a pain.

Thanks in advance.

Feedback for what?
For a draft paper? A few days with my supervisor but he has been known to take 18 months with other students if they have sent him a poorly drafted piece of work. I would request a meeting by the end of a fortnight if I had not heard and I would assume I had sent him crap. The meeting would be me asking himwhether it was a little crap, a medium sized dollop or whether it was a shitstorm from start to finish in which case I would die of embarassment.
I am too assertive to just passively wait for months on end.

If its for performance reasons, I would not ask him at all.

No, this is for my chapters. I have never sent a draft of articles that I hope to publish to him for feedback because of how late it takes him to respond to my thesis drafts. I have so far submitted four articles for publication (two published in Elsevier) without running it through him -- the topics are not directly linked to my PhD, so I just rely on the journal's editors for comments.

I have tried everything including drafting a timeline to get him to agree to something, but nope, the response has always been ' I will let you know when you can get feedback'.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Quote From TreeofLife:
My supervisors hated it when people chased them for feedback. I never did. I just handed drafts in with the expectation that I will get them back eventually, which was anything from the same day to a month, depending on their workloads.

However, I was lucky, others in my group took months and months to get feedback or got shouted at if they chased the feedback.

Best advice is to agree on a rough date you can expect it back when you hand it in and then drop hints about it in other meetings if they haven't got it back to you. If you don't have regular meetings, then start going to places they will be and initiate conversations that will eventually turn to convos about work because you don't have anything else to talk to them about anyway. Don't ask them about it directly if you don't expect a good response and you don't like this bad response.

I know! I have having to chase up but, I cannot remember ever getting feedback without sending tonnes of emails. It should not have to be like this, but it is.
I am not usually on campus so don't get enough chances to bump into him.

Thanks for your advice though.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Tudor_Queen:
OK - maybe when you meet (it is harder to say no in person) you could push for some sort of time frame? I understand that this could be tricky though depending on what kind of supervisor you have. Maybe other people on the forum will have other advice.

Thank you for this. I don't usually meet with him unless the feedback cannot be conveyed via email -- usually when we do not agree on changes.
However, following your initial advice, I wrote him and the response was 'thank you for the reminder'. I might have to play along until I finish the damn thing.

H

Hanginthere 38 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Tudor_Queen:
Hi Hanginthere. Is this a situation where the supervisor has agreed get your feedback to you by a certain date? If no date has been agreed then I would strongly suggest that when you agree on a date to send him a draft, that you also both agree on a date for him to have got back to you with feedback. This is how it works with my supervisor. This way she has allotted to time to look at it and tends to get back to me on the date agreed.

That all aside, if I needed to chase I guess I'd do it on a certain day each week.

Thank you so much for your reply. My supervisor had been evading providing a clear timeline of when to expect feedback, I am I am having to chase him up to receive one. In the past, his feedback has taken between 6-2 months to receive.

Thanks for the tips about sending a reminder each week. We probably send one out today.

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