I am not a PhD student but very close to someone who is and who doesn't know where to turn for advice. She is a year into a 3 year PhD - chosen for personal reasons in a particular city - high ranking university, and the subject chosen because of the diversity of opportunities it could potentially bring. The supervisor though is in her first year as a lecturer and has turned out to be very poor - only interested in a very narrow field and not widely read, meets the student very frequently (daily!) but just seems to throw in confusion and no real direction, avoids challenging questions. Despite the poor supervision it's likely that the student will pass 1st year, but she has been so miserable all year, working crazy hours but getting little progress. She is now at the point of quitting, as she can't face it any longer, but would really love to continue with a different supervisor. She did go to see the head of dept but didn't get anywhere. Can anyone advise on how it might be possible to get a change of supervisor, without ruffling too many feathers or getting a name as a troublemaker?

I think many people find their sups know very little about their field. I know within 3 weeks of starting mine, I had already read ahead of my supervisor and she knows very little about the topic. But she is okay at strategy, i.e. they types of studies that make up a PhD.

My advice would be to find a second supervisor to ask for advice, although probably stick with the primary supervisor - having one that meets daily is a massive advantage! Take a step back and decide what the PhD is about and what the 'story' your telling is (no one will tell you this, you need to work it out on your own), then go to supervisors with these ideas and ask them to plan with you a schedule of what's going to happen over the next year i.e. data collection, writing etc.

Just to put this is perspective, in my first year, I met my supervisor about 3 times and she ALWAYS confused me, so I just went and got on with a lot of it on my own, which I now realise was her way of making me get to grips with it myself and forcing me to read and critique the literature (or she's just lazy - who knows!)

Thanks for your suggestions Sneaks. In fact the daily meetings don't sound so good as the supervisor throws in random comments and suggestions and generally 'checks up' every day, but it feels more like monitoring than supervision. She is a nice person but whenever there is any discussion of any really challenging stuff just evades answering. She keeps trying to keep the student to her own line of research and doesn't allow any wider thinking. Re finding a second supervisor, unfortunately there is one appointed who is a 'token figure' and as I said the head of dept has already said that the PhD student can't change supervisor. It seems that the department is flaunting the university rules that say new lecturers should only be 2nd supervisor at first - but the student is reluctant to go for formal procedures to complain. She is a lovely person too and hates getting into conflict!

Has your friend written anything that makes her case? As in her research case? I know my supervisor wouldn't listen to a word I said until I had given her a literature review - then she could understand where I was coming from.

Ah an interesting one Sneaks. This supervisor doesn't think it's necessary to do a literature review, just to use the book and references she has selected! I really meant it when I said she was not a good supervisor.

Hi Kimbo. To be honest, my supervisors don't know much about my research and have largely just left me to it. What I did to compensate was network like hell to try and get more expertise on board. Just e-mailing people who are at the top of my research area with questions about areas I was unsure of. As I became more confident, I felt that not having supervisors who are experts in what I'm doing was such a big deal. I'm not slagging my supervisory team off, because what they are good at (I think Sneaks hits on the most important thing of all here) is how to write and compose a thesis - and even edit.
I think what your friend needs to do, if she really wants to change the main supervisor, is identify someone at her uni who is more of an expert in her area and approach them and ask if he/she would like to supervise her. If she gets agreement, then discuss the matter with her existing supervisor and then approach the head of department, informing he/she that she's found someone else who has agreed to supervisor her and her existing supervisor is okay with it. It's just a matter of paperwork then.

mine also knows nearly nothing about my field. the daily meetings can be distressing. my first set of supervisors used to want to see me every two weeks with written work and it got very stressful. i would suggest talking about a different work strategy or changing supervisors. even though your friend gets a new one, its only 1% of phd students who have supervisors who know the area they are researching in well. so tell her not to be too overreliant on them. i also used walmin's strategy.

all the best!

I guess I use departmental 'mentors', there are a few girls who have finished their PhDs in the last two years and are now lecturers. Some of them had my supervisor too, so I often go to them and moan/ask advice, often about how to handle sup, or how to interpret/respond to her advice. They're also people that I can email with questions I wouldn't necessarily want to ask sup e.g. "is this how you report regression???" "does this....make sense?", I also get them to proof read finished versions of things.

I do agree that daily meetings may be OTT - perhaps your friend can ask for weekly targets and then meet on a weekly basis to set these and discuss how the previous week's have been met.

Thanks to all of you for your kind suggestions and I will pass them on. I think the situation is particularly difficult because it is a very small interdisciplinary department - the supervisor doesn't have any other PhD students and the research area is in a niche area, so there are no other buddies to share/moan with. My friend is seriously bright - possibly a threat to her supervisor - so hopefully one way or another she will get through.