Hi everyone,
I'm at a loose end and wondering what advice people might have- I'm certain I'm not the only one in this boat.
Basically over the past 9 months my relationship with my PhD supervisor has gone from being great (really supportive, understanding) to practically non-existent. To give a brief overview (and apologies in advance for the length):
- I'm doing a PhD in a Arts and Humanities related subject, and my work is relatively in demand. I often present work both within the UK and much further afield, and last year, was awarded fellowships etc to spend 2 months abroad in N. America at another university on a residency/ study visit. My supervisor was incredibly supportive during the whole process (helped by it being one of his close friends that I would be studying with in Canada). However, that is where the support stopped. I am one of only two PhD students that this supervisor has, and in addition to that, they have an additional senior role in the university.
When I got back to the UK, after eight weeks of no contact whatsoever from them (my second supervisor/ over members of dept are brilliant), I was met not with time to debrief (or even show the product of my artistic residency abroad), but told I would have my annual review a week later. I had 30 mins with my supervisor before this, where they turned up late, looked through the annual review form, listened with disinterest to the work created, and then ran off to another supervision. My annual review went *OK* but it didn't instill much faith. What was worse however, was that the pieces of admin I was required/ recommended to do by my panel, I completed within a couple of days of the review, sent to my supervisor for approval, and had my work/ emails ignored. Constantly.

- This was all pretty disheartening anyway, but I put it down to time of year/ workload etc. However, I noticed that the other student (just started) was getting 1-2 supervisions a week. At the same time his other student was receiving pretty much weekly tutorials and in the studio all the time. My emails where still going ignored. Any meetings I did get where short and pointless as they didn't scratch the surface of what needed to be covered. By this point I requested another tutorial in order move on with research and no emails where answered. She disappeared home for Christmas and I finally got a meeting with my supervisor regarding my research. I also started working from home full time as apart from being a nice space, I was blatantly being ignored by both my supervisor and other student. The morale in the lab was pretty low as well, and I can't deal with negative energy when I'm writing. All this and no email contact for nearly a month pretty much made me write a resignation. I just didn't feel supported at all given its my final year. I was going to talk to supervisor but he was never approachable, and whenever I started raising an issue I was told I was overreacting, or 'got the PhD blues'- he never actually heard me out however.

- I was talked out of quitting (I'm on a full phd studentship) by two of my former supervisors from different institutions (who had convinced me to accept this studentship in the first place over the ones offered to me by their institutions. And, thanks to them, and a few weeks off over Christmas, I came back to uni full of hope that I was 9 months away from submission, and this coming term would be much better than the last. Should also add here that as a 'practice-based' PhD, my former supervisors did tell me that a lack of doing practice (composition in my case) probably wouldn't be making me feel any better.

At the start of the year I had a really, really important conference proposal deadline to meet. Its the biggest in my field, and I had hit on a novel idea in my research that i was hoping to present. However, my achilles heel is my writing, as I am (was- more on that later) primarily a practitioner. So basically I take a lot longer to write anything than most. However, in the past, my supervisor had been utterly amazing at supporting me when drafting proposals- by suggesting ways to improve my writing for example. After the rubbish previous term, I started afresh and sent on my redrafted proposal in the early part of January. Given that during my last meeting I was told that my ideas where important to the field, and that I should try to get a publication this year, I hoped that I'd have feedback quickly given my weakness in writing.
Early January quickly became mid January- became 3 days before the deadline and I sent a polite reminder to no response... chapter overview still outstanding, and studio still full, so I decided to go ahead and start the chapter that my paper was going to be based on regardless. I was working in uni and again Sup was never in, cancelling studio time at the last second which was being filled by his other student. I got some supervision from my second supervisor which was great, but, as he is VIP and rarely in, I really needed support from my first sup.
Long story short, sup looked, but not until I said i wouldn't submit anything. I got an apology, and sups guidance that day was great.
I had hoped that after that things would change with sup as they knew I was really annoyed, but no joy.

-This type of thing continued into February, where after still receiving no feedback, or encouragement or criticism, I lost the plot and signed and sealed my resignation, ready to hand to my supervisor after I completed an event that we both had work at.

- Thankfully, former supervisor (more a friend, UG supervisor, known him for 10+ years now) talked me out of it, tore up my letter, and made me focus on job in hand. Over the course of the next days I tried to talk to sup about difficulties etc (my PhD work was now suffering, and I was getting depressed) to no joy. So I went to my head of dept, who I had never really seen eye to eye with research wise, but is accommodating. He expressed his concern, and had also tried to talk to sup about things, but his emails where ignored!
So the past few months have been this odd mix of occasional tutorials, mainly about thesis, which seem to go nowhere as sup just doesn't seem interested. I recently started composing again (after 7 months!) but again, trying to get support is nigh on impossible. The support from the rest of the dept is incredible, but sup is just disengaged. My paper was accepted to that conference, but despite only being 30 mins away from uni, Sup didn't come- absence was noted not only by the other profs in the dept who had come to support me, but by others in the conference. Neither did he come to the highly successful (acclaimed even) event that myself and a colleague ran recently. I broke down recently in front of my second sup who is a true gent when we where discussing all this, and ended up writing a frank email to sup saying that I was struggling (didn't mention why) and I've a meeting next week. What do I do? Any point going? I'm at such a critical stage- literally 8 weeks before hand in. I'm just really keen to not make things any worse than what they already are at the moment. The experience has put me off my topic and I'm not pursuing an academic career either. Sorry for the incoherent ramble.
Mus x

Honestly, I would use every other source available to bring my thesis to a good end. Quitting is nonsense at this stage, you have put in tons of work and it would be a waste to throw everything away. I think its too late for switching your supervisor last minute and I doubt that you can figure out why she lost interest in you and your work. You could file an official complaint, then you have at least somewhere written down that the supervision was nonexistent. Will help you if there are troubles at the viva.

I would walk into the meeting with a clear written roadmap of what you still need to do before you have the viva and where you need supervision. Try to make the points as detailed as possible, its easier to ignore a "need supervision" than a "need suggestions on chapter 1 before this date". If the meeting doesn't help and she still ignores you I would ask your old supervisor and your second supervisor if they can help you out and comment on your writing.
Some input is better then no input at all.

Hope that helps a bit!

It sounds to me like something bad is happening in your supervisor's life right now from the description you give. I'd get help from the second supervisor as RinaL suggests. It also sounds though like you are engaging in catastrophe / all or nothing thinking - might it be worth seeing if you could get a few sessions with the university counselling service? The last couple of months are horrible anyway for most people, but it sounds like you are suffering emotionally more than most, and maybe talking things through with a counsellor might give you some extra support.

It sounds to me like you couldn't make it much worse, if you have had little to no supervision for the past few months and you are 8 weeks away from submitting I would use the meeting next week to tell your supervisor how you feel. Tell her you are not satisfied that you have been left in the lurch and you would really appreciate her stepping up and helping you out for the last few months.

I am in a similar position with my supervisor at the moment, not nearly as bad or as crucial time for me but I have only one supervisor who has been having a lot of time off sick recently and my research is quite a few months behind because of it. She is very reluctant to find me a second supervisor but I'm hopeful that I have raised the issue in plenty of time before I get to the stage you are at and have no supervision.

Well done for sticking at it and good luck.

Hi Everyone,

Thanks so much for the support/ ideas/ suggestions. RinaL, I do intend on making a complaint about sup as I don't want anyone else to go through this (although his other student doesn't have these issues, she sees him once a week at least). The problem is, that having raised it with the head of dept, who has tried to raise it with sup, the next step is to take the issues to the head of the grad school. Lo and behold, guess who my supervisor is... So complaining isn't an option until I'm out of here. As you say, its too late to quit now, and I am lucky enough to have other support. There is a lot of bad feeling in the dept at the moment. Sups other student has caused a lot of problems for everyone, and despite being chastised by head of dept, student won't back down (won't go into detail) and sup hasn't so much as batted an eyelid.
bewildered- great suggestion- I'll try that. I'm better than I was, but some more support will probably help.
clairaN- I'll try. As I mentioned, it won't have been the first time that I've tried talking to him about it (my previous sup from another institution has tried too), and previously I've just been told that I've been overreacting! In fact, the last communication I had was to tell me to stop panicking and that everything is going really well. Which is rubbish when I've written 32000 of a 40000 word thesis, and he's looked at less then half of that. I'm also worried that come my viva, he will once again offer no support. In fact, for his last student, he didn't even attend the viva- student wanted him to, but like me got support from second sup and got through with very minor corrections. Hope things get better for you too! Make sure you get that second supervisor- they are invaluable.

Theres nothing worse than having a bad relationship with a supervisor. Like the PhD isn't hard enough withtout them adding to your problems.

My surpervisor is also the director of the grad school so I can sympathize with your situation. As crap as your situation is, all you can do is your best. You've got 32000 words done so your over half way there. Just keep plodding on and keep doing your best and try to keep an eye on the light at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks clairaN. Yeah I agree. I've heard nothing productive (even a date for supervision) for six weeks now, and I'm 6 weeks til submission. I had a pretty significant achievement in a competition with my work over the weekend, which has given me a massive boost. The dept yet again has been amazing about it, but he is nowhere to be seen (not an acknowledgement even). What amazes me is that these people are heads of grad school- their job is to keep grad students happy and submit on time and to a high quality... Bleh.

Hi Guys,
Thought I would update. I eventually got a supervision middle of September and to no surprise my 35000 was wrong, so I've had to rewrite it all. Feedback was good and we agreed a proper timescale and meeting schedule too. However, I think my applying to any and all jobs (including non-academic) also had something to do with this as sup went into a bit of a blind panic. We also had a bit of a chat and he told me to send me my thesis compiled thus far and he'd take the strain off and review it quickly whilst I composed- and that we would meet up again the following week. Surprise surprise, he cancelled by text, highly unprofessionally the night before the meeting. Being honest, I lost the plot and sent a really blunt email detailing exactly whats happened over the past 12 months. Since then, he has been amazingly supportive- we have revised my timescale for submission until Christmas, and he's organised my external examiners- so hopefully I'll have a viva in February. I feel a bit more confident now- ok redrafting a chapter a week and then having a weekly meeting is hectic, but its getting done!
Additionally, whilst I have since got a non-academic job at the university, and whilst he isn't exactly happy about that, he has supported my decision as best as he can- giving me references and also finding me a little bit of teaching work etc. So- whilst I expect something to go wrong again, my advice to all those in the same situation is to find the strength to be honest and frank and tell the supervisor how you feel. It might just help.

Mx