@DocInsanity...Hmmm ur maybe right. In a phd, u need help not honesty!..His honesty will only cost me my time. Isnt it not reasonable to think, that a prof who doesnt read a journal draft may also not read your dissertation in the end!...I fear, my 3 years of hard work with errors will culminate in the dissertation.

Hi all,

Thanks all very much for your reply. Yes I am aware that I need to take the initiative of calling meetings etc. But i have a feeling my prof has a casual attitude. Sometimes he even refuses to fund me for a conference saying he does not have money inspite of paper acceptance and also refuses to share his name as coauthor(hes my supervisor!) ask he thinks he did not contribute, without even reading the paper. Should I read him as honest guy?. This unpredictable attitude of his keeps me guessing if my efforts would pay off or am I simply wasting my time in the name of a phd. I have no sight of my destination. To me his version of phd is "your time starts now" and let me see at the end of 3 years what u did.

Hi all,

I am into my second year of my phd, and am having serious problems going through. I sit outside of my lab and that disconnects me form my colleageues and supervisor.
Due to this I have met my supervisor only 5 times during these 2 years. He is very busy and rarely responds to my emails. Initially I thought he was giving me time to settle down but after 2 years I realised that he doesnt want to know my progress unless I show it to him. He never mails to call for a meeting as well nor does he reply to my mails for a meeting.

Recently, I sent him a draft for a journal which took 7 months to prepare. He said he will send me his comments before the deadline and but he never did. The same thing happened even with conference publications where he never responded as well. I can understand him as he has over 40 phd students, and possibly has no time. But also I wonder many times, then why in the world would he take me in if couldnt do justice. I wish I could ask him this. :)

I now have a serious feeling as to why should I continue with him when there is no proper balance and supervison. He expects me have three publications that makes me liable (but not certain) of getting a phd and I feel it is impossible to get a phd considering the present scenario and no help. I have a good name overall due to my contributions, but I know this is temporary and does not have a value to my phd.

My social life also has taken a huge beating. I am spending most hours at my lab working weekends, late nights trying to learn/find everything out myself. Also I dont speak the local language and most of my labs instructions etc are not in english. All this degraded my social life and confidence. I am extremely outgoing by nature, but I have transformed into a more private person.

Now, I am seriously considering getting a job in the industry or move to a place and escape from this phd stress. A lot of sacrifice has been made for my phd (leaving family,friends, country etc..) that will go in vain and I have regret that. On the positive side, I will atleast get a better pay, and more importantly a better response to my efforts. I have few questions to ask and any advice would be greatly helpful.

Are these common phd experiences?
Would it be fair to ask my supervisor for a reference?
How do I show these two years on my CV for my potential employer?

Thanks. :)

HI all,

I am doing my phd in germany. I joined phd with funding but right from the first i found out that my supervisor did not care about my progress, but i still gave myself time to see if things ironed out. Things remain the same even after 2 years now and I meet him only once in 5 months. He does not reply emails for appointments nor reads my drafts for publications but he expects 3 journals to get phd. I have a second supervisor but he is a completely unrelated field and honestly I dont know why he was assigned as a 2nd supervisor.Technically, although i have worked hard to have submitted a journal without his supervision, i feel teribly uncertain of getting a phd as he doesnt even know my research. The best thing out of all this is that i love my topic, but this insecure feeling drains me. Now I find it hard to decide between the two: To stay and see how it works out with my phd with all given uncertainities or leave and move to the industry and see some growth after these hard 2 years.