Hey again! Thanks guys, it's good to know that people agree with me that this is all a bit mad...now I just have to learn to say no! I do actually really like and really respect my supervisor, and when she has all these expectations of me I tell myself that at least she has faith in me, but clearly too much! But whenever I say anything about needing to cut back on what I'm doing, she just ignores me and then increases my workload even more. I honestly think she just doesn't realise how hard she's pushing or how much I am feeling the pressure, but I don't want to have to drive myself to a nervous breakdown before she realises! There are several postdocs on our team, and whilst they are busy and clearly work hard, they tend to work 9-5 and have their weekends off etc- they certainly put in less time than I do. I think because I'm in my 20s with few other commitments (i.e. not married, no kids etc) she thinks I have 20 hours a day to put into my PhD! I suppose the question for me really is whether I want to finish on time and tell her I'm not doing everything she asks of me, or whether I just it all and accept the fact that I will be well over the three year mark. I think another discussion about this at my June review might be timely....thanks guys! Best, KB

Thanks guys! I'm glad it's not just me that thinks this is impossible! Truth is, I'm rubbish at saying no. The more that gets asked of me, the harder and longer I work, and in the end I always get everything done, so then more and more gets asked of me. A vicious circle in other words. I think I will have to accept that it's going to take at least an extra 6 months- nobody in my subject ever finishes in 3 years anyway. The thing is, I would love to do all of the things that my sup is suggesting, but there just aren't enough hours in the day. And to be honest I'm doing my best to keep in her good books so I can stay on for a post-doc hopefully...that's part of the reason I just keep doing everything she asks, but I think I need to grow a pair of balls! Last week was the first time I said 'no' to her (about the MSc project stuff) and it didn't go down too well, although she has since made an effort to reduce our involvement with that a bit. Part of me thinks I should just keep going and as we get nearer to the deadline she will realise that it's impossible- I have tried telling her I don't have time to do it all but she just smiles and then increases my workload with some other overly ambitious idea! Grrrrrrrr. Perhaps my June review will be the time to broach the issue again, when I will have a chairperson there who will hopefully be on my side! Cheers, KB

Hey guys. I think I have been enjoying my PhD rather naively. I am now halfway through (time-wise) and have a couple of papers published and some nice data, a couple of conferences coming up blah blah. I've been working pretty hard (around 10 hours per day plus time at most weekends), so there was me thinking I was on top of it all. And then my sup asked me to do a PhD plan for the next 18 months. On trying to fit in the rest of my data collection, another 4 papers to be published that my sup is insisting upon before submission of my thesis, preparation of the thesis, several applications to be written for post-doc funding, and all the usual conference stuff, teaching, supervising MSc students etc, I have come to the conclusion that actually I am aiming for the impossible. I will have to give up all my hobbies, my social life, sleep for less than 3 hours per night, and spend the next 18 months chained to my desk (except for when I'm testing). My supervisor even offered to chain me to my desk which was very generous of her. Is everyone else feeling like this too? I have that sinking feeling.... Best, KB

Thanks Ev, I have just sat and copied every single thing from my USB stick to my home laptop after reading your post. I do copy things across anyway but was a bit behind with it...I now have everything on two USB sticks, my uni computer hard drive and my laptop! Thanks for the reminder! Best, KB

Hey! I don't envy you having to make that sort of decision, but one thing I would say is absolutely don't take on a subject that doesn't interest you! It's a long, hard 3-4 years, and the one thing you will need to keep you going is enthusiasm and passion for your subject. Not only that, but there is the risk that you will then be limited to that sort of topic for your career, depending on how specific it is and what sort of skills you have learnt (and whether they are transferable to a different topic that you like more). I absolutely love my topic and that keeps me going when things get tough, as they inevitably do now and again. Obviously, it isn't ideal to have a rubbish supervisor either. My supervisor is generally really good (although we have had the odd disagreement and she can be extremely demanding!) and I often realise how good she is when I read other people's horror stories on here. So a good supervisor is really important too. I suppose it might not be wise to judge them just off your experiences so far- sometimes with academics it seems to be out of sight out of mind, but when you are there working under their nose, they can treat you quite differently. One of my pals struggled to get on with my supervisor through the application process and felt as though she wasn't treated terribly well, yet now she's on the team there are no issues at all and they get on really well. Is there any way you could get to know the dodgy one a little better before you make your decision? Best, KB

Hey! Well I don't personally have issues with any of the staff in our department, but my supervisor certainly has a few enemies that I know of, and that can be a little awkward sometimes because some of the people she can't stand I get on with quite well. But my supervisor is the kind of person who would consider one of her students talking to one of her hated members of staff as a crime punishable with death! There also seems to be some sort of competitive thing going on between her and my second supervisor, who seem to be permanently trying to score points off one another, and sometimes he has responded to me in a way that makes me think he's deliberately being a bit unhelpful because I'm one of her students and he doesn't want her PhD students doing better than his own...sad, I know. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I'm not the only one to have noticed it! Personally I tend to just get on with everyone and I can't be bothered with the tittle-tattle, but you don't have to look that far in the department to find a bit of bitchiness and bad feeling! I also worry sometimes that people who don't get on with my supervisor will decide they don't like me just because I'm one of her students, but it doesn't seem to work like that fortunately! So try not to worry too much, I think there are a lot of politics in every department that determine who gets on with who and so on- just be your usual self with everyone and hopefully people will see you for who you are! Best, KB

Hey Florence, I know what you mean. I will be 29 when I finish my PhD, which isn't old, but my friends are well ahead of me in terms of settling down with their boyfriends, buying houses, getting married, and having babies. I am really happy with my situation at the moment but I do wonder if I will meet the right person any time soon and also how I would incorporate babies into my career plan! I would love to have children and will be gutted if I don't, but it's also really important to me to get my career going as well. I guess it's not really an issue for me right now because I don't even have a steady boyfriend, but I do look at my friends and think how nice it would be to be settled, in a serious relationship, with my own house etc. I guess it's important to just remember that everyone goes at their own pace, and things will happen for you when they are meant to. Not much consolation I know, but you have the foundations in place (a fiance, the beginnings of a successful career etc) so keep your chin up and it will happen when it's meant to! Best, KB

Hey! My last paper came back with one reviewer only suggesting minor revisions and the other asking for some fairly substantial ones. I was told it would need to be sent out to the reviewers again before a final decision would be made. I decided to go ahead and resubmit it because it was a really good journal and I wanted to give it a shot, but some of the reviewer's comments were really difficult to address because they were either irrelevant or they reflected an apparent lack of knowledge on their part with respect to the topic, and there were quite a few changes that were actually impossible to make (the reviewer had suggested that I should include literature that didn't actually exist and that sort of thing). So I made the changes I could, explained why I wasn't able to address the other suggested changes, and sent it back in. It was then accepted straight away without even being sent back to the reviewers- I guess the editor had realised then that some of the suggestions were a bit off the mark. So I think you should certainly give it a go- my supervisor always says that as long as you address all of the suggestions (or defend your decision not to make the changes) then most likely it will be accepted in the end. So go for it- and if the worst happens you can send it somewhere else anyway! Good luck! KB

Thanks guys, it's good to have other people's opinions on this. I think she genuinely doesn't realise how busy we are and how much of our time this is taking....hopefully she does now. She even texted me last night to tell me to take it easy over the weekend so I think she had realised how stressed I am right now. It was the same when I was the TA on her module last semester- I spent sooo much time doing all the organising and obtaining the (hundreds of) readings for the students, copying them all, dealing with all of their queries, running the seminars, maintaining the module online site and she even made me attend all of her lectures just in case she needed me to walk downstairs and get the technician for her if she had technical problems! Grrrr! Oh well, she is generally a very good supervisor and we get on really well but now and again I just think DO IT YOURSELF!! Best, KB

Hey guys- thanks, you are right! We had a word with her this afternoon and said it was just too much for us and she was a bit grumpy about it but has agreed that we can give some of the responsibility back to the MSc students, although she said they had to be closely 'supervised'. I don't mind supervising them, I just object to doing everything for them! I pointed out that the two of us really didn't have time to do both a PhD and an MSc at the same time, which is practically what we are doing, and she did seem to take it on board. She did ask whether we thought they were capable of doing the seminars by themselves...they're MSc students for goodness sake, not infants, they are perfectly capable! Grrrrr! And yes, she is hoping to get publications from it....anyway, thanks for the advice, hopefully it is sorted out now! Best, KB

Hey all! I'm getting a bit hacked off. My sup has 9 MSc students whose projects she is supervising, but basically it's down to me and a fellow PhD student to do all the actual day to day stuff, while she just joins us once a month or so for a meeting to check on progress. Now I don't mind doing this, I actually quite enjoy it and our MSc students are all really nice. BUT my sup is loading so much of their work onto the two of us doing our PhDs with her- we are doing EVERYTHING for the MSc students, things that really they are quite capable of doing (building databases for results, including all the menial stuff like photocopying and printing measures and testing packs for them, sending their questionnaires out for them etc), and still she insists on us doing more for them. We are spending more time organising and doing their project than they are! The last straw came yesterday, when our sup announced in our meeting that because the MSc students 'have a lot on in the next few months', me and my fellow PhD-er would be responsible for preparing and conducting seminars that they have to put on for their participants. I don't dispute the fact that they have a lot on, but I am meeting myself coming back at the moment, and I have a review in June, a presentation to do in June, a conference in June to prepare for, not to mention all the usual testing, paper writing, data entry, transcriptions, post-doc proposals, you name it. Grrrrr. I am not good at standing up to my supervisor, but equally I am not happy about literally doing half of their project for them. How much time does anyone else put in for their MSc students? All of my other PhD pals say this is unacceptable, but I don't know what the norm is! I'm more than happy to supervise them, but no-one did all this for us when we were MSc students! Sorry about the rant :-s

Hey Natassia! Yeah, I have cried in front of my supervisor when I wasn't well last year. I was bad with the bipolar and felt like everything was getting on top of me...it was fine in the end. I was really embarrassed but I just couldn't stop crying, and I'm not normally one to cry in front of anyone! Actually, her reaction made me realise that she is human after all, and in a way it was better to get things out in the open and be able to talk honestly about things. Much worse was the time when I cried in front of the departmental statistician because he was tearing my project to pieces and I was so stressed out (he's not a psychologist and didn't understand what I was trying to do). I was mortified but he didn't even react- he just carried on telling me how my project was not going to work. In the end I said I had to go out for 5 minutes to get myself sorted out, then I went back in and he just carried on where he left off, slagging my project off! But afterwards I was so embarrassed and felt so pathetic and even now I remember it every time I see him, although he has been very nice to me since then- I suspect the sup had a word! In short- don't worry about it, I reckon all supervisors are used to this sort of thing! Best, KB