Thanks john_W78U, snoodiemctockish and itsmardan!

In my case there are no past students... I´m my supervisor´s first PhD student. At the beginning I thought this was good, cause he was young and sometimes worked in the lab. I was so naive. Because he is young he interferes too much and a lot of times leads me in the wrong direction. Sometimes he just talks nonsense and gets annoyed if I don´t agree... I don´t know.

I have to read a lot, search for everything on my own, and if he tells me to do something I have to do the exact opposite or look for an alternative, because he is probably wrong. I don´t trust him anymore. If it weren´t too late I would definitely change him.

I´m very stressed at the moment. I work for long hours, and hope I can go somewhere else to finish my work, and eventually take a second advisor. Like snoodiemctockish I´m feeling very anxious these days :/ My PhD has turned into a nightmare

Hi there!

I have been having some problems with my supervisor lately (or not so lately). I should be finishing my PhD but still have no first author publications and hence I´m kind of nervous because I feel I will not make it on time. My supervisor thinks this is not important (arghhhh) and this makes me more angry. I blame myself for my first year, because I didn´t have a lot of orientation and I was new to research, but afterwards problems started.

My supervisor likes to explore different areas in research and, from my point of view, ended up knowing a little from this and that but not much in concrete. The problem is that he likes to give advice a lot... but a lot of times his supervising leads to nowhere (experimentally proven). Because I was not having results from his projects I started one of my own with what I had in the lab. After some experiments I told him it was working, but instead of encouraging me he looked for flaws everywhere and gave me other projects to work on. Whenever his ideas don´t work he looks out for excuses and if he does something wrong he denies it. He has one fatal error in one of his articles and even when it´s obvious he won´t accept it!

However, I looked for collaboration elsewhere and I´m considerating taking a second advisor. Since I´ve started talking to others his interest has risen considerably and he is now annoyed by the others presence in the project. I mean... it´s crazy, if he thought it was a bad idea what was I supposed to do?

I don´t like the situation, because I got here because of his horrible advising in the first place and he has not contributed to my project at all.

Sometimes I feel like leaving this PhD and starting a new one, but I´ve spent a lot of time in this one and since the last thing I´m working on is giving results I´m encouraged to continue, but it´s like a torture lately...

Has anyone had a similar experience? Is this normal?

Thanks to everyone for the answers! :)

My situation is similar to that of Noctu. I work within the health research field and because my supervisor´s role has been limited to providing some funding (I have payed for some things too) I think that I have the right to have both spots as the idea was mine and I designed and ran all the experiments by myself.

I will first write everything, get an idea on how to submit an article for the first time, and only after I have done everything I will suggest him that I would like to be first and corresponding author. I just hope he understands...

Hi,

I would like to hear other people´s opinion regarding the importance of the "corresponding author" in a scientific publication. Is it possible for a PhD student to be first author AND corresponding author or should the advisor play this role?

I´m asking cause, after spending a lot of years in a PhD program, I think I will finally be able to publish something and it was entirely my idea, so I think I deserve to be both first and corresponding author. Is it crazy? Where I work the corresponding author is normally the PhD advisor, that´s why I ask... is it always like this?

Thanks for reading!

Hi Maisy,

I have entered my third year and don´t have results yet, and of course no publications other than some reviews. I work with cells too and I think that sometimes that makes it harder cause they take their time to grow, there is always the risk of contamination and they are so delicate that anything can kill them.

However, though it is really hard, I remain optimistic and hope that some day I will start having good results and will be able to publish, who knows. After all there are very few people that get to publish within the first PhD year.

Hi Androxx,

The PhD process can be quite hard sometimes, but it can be fun too. I think a bad relationship with your boss and a bad working atmosphere are not distinctive of a research institute but it happens in the industry too.

It may take some time until you get involved with the subject of research and start searching for yourself (sometimes even during your free time) for information in scientific articles, till then it will be probably very boring to be forced to do so. The same with results, sometimes it takes a looooong time to get one good result, you should be patient and flexible, paying attention to other people´s experiences/results because they may be useful in the future.

I find the "no vacation till you get good results" quite strange, but you can talk that maybe with your director.

Anyway if you want to quit, it´s a good time because you´ve just started. Spending more time on it and quitting after 3 years on the other hand wouldn´t be a good idea.

As you´re an international student in a foreign country, let me ask you a question: are your lab partners supportive? can you talk to them? do you have friends outside the lab? I´m asking this because during the PhD you may not have good results and it can be very frustrating buuuut if you have a supportive atmosphere (friends, family) you will make it through.

Hi Manfred,

I feel identified with what you write. The PhD process has been quite hard on me too. Sadly success depends strongly on publications and when you get none it looks like you´re the only one to blame and people start bad mouthing.
I have started my third PhD year with no results and feeling looked down (I have a lot of results but negative).

I feel now that those negative results were something and I was able to tune the project so that finally I think I will be able to make it work. Sadly I was alone all the time, and had to do it all by myself (ironically if it ends up in a publication I sense I won´t be the only author in it...).

So the PhD process is hard when things don´t go as expected and harder when the environment shows no support. Sadly it´s all about the results and the orientation you receive plays a major role. If you caught your supervisor bad mouthing you maybe it´s time to talk with him and maybe even change him. Specially if you have been working hard on a project which has failed due to lack of advice and motivation.

I won´t leave the PhD but it´s your decision. You could work harder and prove them they were wrong!