A quick question to any other part time students studying remotely. I sent my supervisor a progress report and a message asking for some feedback so I know whether the suggestions I have proposed for further work seem reasonable, that was on the 14th and as yet despite another email asking for confirmation he received it I have had no reply. DO I have grounds to be P***ed off with this, do others have the same problem or is it just me?
Any feedback would be gratefully received
Thanks
Max

I am remote and part-time so have to deal with supervisors via email or skype. I find that mine do reply readily to queries and if they are away I get an email to that effect. Do you know if your supervisor is at uni, or could they be on leave? I wonder if it would be useful for you to arrange a sKype tutorial so that you can pre-arrange a time/date to talk face-to-face. Alternatively you could call your sup?

My supervisor is difficult to track down, so I just keep sending emails until he replies with a date for a meeting. They are there to help (within reason) and so you should be allowed to get hacked off.

Hi,

I'm the opposite way round - in that I'm in college full time but my supervisor is on sabbatical writing a book.
I have taken to sending him mails that say 'next week I will send you some work -when will you be able to read it?'
Depending on when he thinks he'll have time to read it, I set a date for feedback. Sounds boring and pushy, but I got fed up of sending work and not knowing when I'd get it back.
When it takes ages to get feedback I start to panic that it is rubbish, so I took control for the sake of my mental health!

Cobweb

I live a couple of hours away from my uni (so have to be pretty organised with meetings and so on), and have had similar issues with getting responses from my 2nd supervisor. He just hates email and is a bit disorganised, so doesn't tend to reply to emails, and tells everyone just to drop in to see him, which really doesn't work for me being so far away. (But then when I do eventually get to see him he's really, really helpful, so it's worth it!) I've got into the habit of endlessly pestering him, which feels awkward to me but he doesn't seem to mind. It's really infuriating to have to keep pestering him for something so basic, but I've come to accept to some extent that's just his style.

I'd say give it another day so it's two weeks since you first got in touch - that's a perfectly reasonable amount of time within which to at least expect a response. Then as the others have said, ask for initial feedback by a certain date/a supervision by skype or however you arrange it. Give (or even make up) a reason for asking for it by this time if you feel awkward being pushy about this, such as needing to make plans for future research or needing to arrange it around your other work or something. Good luck!

Thanks for all the replies, I am glad its not just me. I think I will give him till Monday, that gives him 2 weeks + a weekend and then I will give him a ring (even though he tends to be difficult to get hold of by phone, I wouldn't be quite so bothered if last I sent him a progress report that I had been working on till gone midnight every night for a few weeks (after starting my full time job at 6am) I travelled 200 miles for a meeting to discuss it to find he hadn't even read it.
Hopefully I will get a reply tomorrow (heres hoping )
Thanks
Max

Argh, I've been in that situation too, gone all the way up to my uni to find he's double-booked my slot and says "can we make it next week instead?" Beyond frustrating - I feel your pain! Good luck with getting hold of him this week.

Just had a reply (with a bit of an apology) and also a request for some ideas for a paper to present at a conference later in the year (this would be my first one) . Now need to arrange a meeting to discuss my work I sent him.
Thanks for all the support / advice
Max