Hi all,

I'm one of those new PhDs who have been floating around here since October. Four months in, I'm still really enjoying it and consider myself extremely privileged to be doing a PhD and research which I'm passionate about. This is mostly the cause of two supervisors who have been extremely supportive, motivating, and friendly on an almost weekly basis. As opposed to me chasing them up, as seems to be common from posts on here, they're constantly in touch and ensuring we meet every month for at least a couple of hours. I found this at first a bit unsettling as throughout my academic career thus far I've been largely left alone and produced good work, so monthly get-togethers and weekly updates felt structured in a way I wasn't quite prepared for - almost like doing an undergraduate again!

However I have come to really appreciate and even depend on this kind of relationship with my supervisors. My topic feels so large and though I've alread got a considerable amount of primary research under my belt, it did at first feel like I was just swimming in a sea of sources. However, my supervisors have given me goals every month to achieve which have really helped to give focus and direction to my work, as well as challenging me to think engagingly about what I'm trying to achieve. Despite having been involved in this particular topic for many years, it surprised me at how uncertain I was when they first asked me why this topic, and specifically why the question.

Before Christmas they had me complete an essay on my chosen methodological approach, have challenged me rigorously in meetings about the historiography, and in the New Year set me the task of actually sketching out my thesis structure with a snyopsis for each chapter. I found each task very worthwhile, especially the thesis sketch which I conducted very much along the format of a contents page and is now providing me with a guideline as to how to pursue my research goals.

However at our meeting last week they asked me to actually write a chapter in preparation for my 6-month probation review in March. Gulp I thought! So I've got about 6 weeks to knock a piece of writing up of about 5,000 words, on any chapter I wished, with the one guideline that it had to be work I would actually want in my final thesis, not something I'm writing simply for the review. I am almost certain this will prove another very satisfying task as all the others, and help hone and propel my research forward. I've already started and I've surprised myself at how competent and comfortable I feel cracking on with the writing side of things.

So the purpose of posting here, other than to just send out a positive vibe about my PhD (which I sometimes feel is lacking here!) I wondered for all those other newbies, how is your relationship with supervisors going, and how have they challenged you thus far?

Best wishes,

Hello,

I have just started my phd as well in october (newbie in the forum as well ;p). I 'm very glad to hear that your start was very smooth - mine was as well. My relationship with my supervisor is very good so far, I only have one though, the second one has not been appointed yet and I am kinda excited and anxious to see what he/she is gonna be like. So far we contact regularly, we have had about 4 meetings and we are gonna have one tommorrow as well. She answers to my questions, sends and informs me of material that I might find useful, critiques my chapters, etc. When we first met she told me to start working on my conceptual and theoretical frameworks, put me on a small task of finding out about the actions the NGOs and social movements I will be examining are undertaking (I am doing a phd in political ecology), commented on my MSc disso (the phd is supposed to be an extention of it) and told me that I would need to give in 3,4 chapters, some primary data and initial findings for my upgrade (supposedly by the end of this year).

Besides these she hasn't given me any deadlines, tasks or anything, so I am kinda left alone doing what I think is best. At the beginning I felt a bit lost not knowing what to do, but then I decided to make a schedule and set up deadlines for myself and inform her of them. I find that setting up deadlines for myself helps a lot, otherwise I might be doing no work at all, hahahahaha. I made the structure of the thesis (I find it helps me a lot as well), did a general literature review(additional things are always coming up though) and wrote 2 initial chapters, about 25.000 words ~ its a lot of words I know, I have to cut them down. So my supervisor read the chapters and told me what else I could incorporate, gave me advice on my writing skills, told me I have to make them smaller, etc. Thus now I've started the third chapter according to her lines ~ the last one for the general lit review~ and will make the corrections altogether after she critiques this one as well.

So this is my experience so far. It's been quite productive but I think that I might be overworking though at this point, but I couldn't help it, I was really anxious. The only thing I am concerned about is the so-called 'academic standard', cos I haven't been told anything concerning that. I hope I've given another cheerful message here and I would also like to know other people's experiences. Best wishes for everyone new..