======= Date Modified 15 18 2010 13:18:41 =======
Hi all

I posted a few weeks ago about my situation. Sadly, my daughter passed away recently and I had a miscarriage. By some miracle, I finished my thesis. I suggested an external to my supervisor, whose expertise matched very well with my area. He had chosen an internal from my department, who also was very well suited. I never heard anything for 2 months but today I received an email from the acdemic who looks after PhD students in my department. She has assigned herself as my internal and a prof from Greece who I have never heard about. Both have absolutely NO knowledge of my area.

I suspect that the department is trying to go easy on me - i.e, the viva is just procedure for me to pass given everything I have been through. However, I have worked so hard and I wanted a big name as my external.

I have no idea what to do now. Should I just go on with the examiners selected? I do not want to delay my PhD any longer but I don't feel good if they are just passing me for the sake of it.

Does anyone have any thoughts about the effect on academic career prospects of having an uknown academic as an external?

Regards.

Hi,

Sorry to hear about your situation

I would have a word with your supervisor if I were you. It is my understanding (certainly at my uni) that supervisors have to agree to examiners - both internal and external. I've never heard of the uni over-ruling examiner choices before.

I personally also would've thought that if they were trying to do you a favour, then your supervisor would be the one to suggest an external. I certainly know of academics who have asked friends to be externals (and called in favours) if they wanted to ensure a PhD passed. If this is the case it seems odd that you haven't heard of the prof.

I'm not sure about the career impact of having an unknown academic, but I know that personally speaking it would un-nerve me to have an unknown. Simply because I want to have read my external's work and hopefully have some idea of what they are like personally.


I would speak to your supervisor and go from there. Fingers crossed he can shed some light!

Thank you for your reply. My supervisor was cc'd on the email and I am pretty certain this has been done with his knowledge. It just seems odd that I was not consulted. My supervisor asked me to help him with choosing an external and so other than going easy on me, I don't know why they would do this.

I would definitely talk to your supervisor then.
It does seem strange that you weren't consulted and I would clarify as to why this was. I'm sure you are correct and they think they are doing you a favour, but it would've be more courteous I think to have told you earlier.

I'd ask the supervisor straight out what's going on, and say you're not happy with the examiners. Just write an email.

I'm going through the examiner process myself at the moment. External has been chosen (and relevant form filled out). Hopefully she'll still be the external at the end, and the internal will be ok.

Hi SK100, yeah, I agree with Bilbo, just ask straight out, you could also ask why they didn't go with your suggestion, I think that's a perfectly reasonable and professional thing to do. It's very stressful to not know why these things are hapening and to feel the loss of control in this way.

So sorry to hear about your circumstances; you've done incredibly well considering.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I will contact my supervisor.