Hey all,

I think the title says it all. I have 5 months left before I absolutely have to submit (it will have been 4 years) and my first supervisor is making my life miserable.

I've been working hard for the past 3 and half years and feel like I have done more than enough work to simply write up and get it submitted. The problem (in my supervisor's eyes) is that my PhD is in Statistics and a lot of that work has been the application of existing methods to new application areas, rather than the development of new statistical theory (although there's been some). He feels like the applications side of things counts for very little from the point of view of a Statistics PhD, and that I still (at this late stage) need to be producing more statistical research.

Is he correct? This doesn't seem right to me. I've spoken to my second supervisor about it (who is in fact an experimentalist whose data sets I have been analysing) and he has been very supportive. Of course, in his mind the applications really do matter - so it's a bit hard to get an outside opinion on the situation.

I've been working a couple of part time jobs since my funding ran out at the end of last year, one is a research position with my second supervisor and the other is an applied statistician role in industry. I've been really enjoying both of them but of course the extra time commitment makes it even harder to envisage continuing to do practical work at this point in the PhD. My industry boss has also been really supportive of the situation (especially after having seen some of the downright abusive emails I've received from my first supervisor) and has been willing to reduce my hours for the time being, so in fact I am now only working one day a week.

I sent the very first draft of my very first thesis chapter (mainly copy and pasted from papers and my transfer report, with a bit of work to tie it together) to my first supervisor today and he took it as another opportunity to tell me my work is not up to PhD standard, rather than provide useful feedback.

I think the fact I have been enjoying my jobs so much is that I really have to ask if this is worth all the, frankly, shit that my supervisor is putting me through.

Any comments, advice, questions, musings, etc. on the topic would be genuinely really appreciated.

Don't quit. Go to whoever is in charge of postgrad affairs in your department and ask them to mediate in a meeting between you and your supervisor, to discuss these issues. In my experience, the person who gets the flack when students fail to submit within the 4 year deadline is the person to keep your supervisor in check. Provide them with a summary of the work so far, they will likely say yes you have enough for a PhD and the three of you (or more if you bring your other supervisors along) can negotiate a write-up timetable. Believe me, once that has been done, it is very difficult for your supervisor to then suggest further data collection or analysis. If they do, you just politely remind them that the issue has already been resolved. ;-)

Unfortunately I do not have faith in the postgraduate tutor. He has been known to downgrade students' registration (from PhD to MPhil) at the first sign of trouble, for instance.

I could have a meeting with the head of the Maths department, particularly as she was one of the examiners for my transfer exam. However, aside from that contact I don't know her well enough to gauge whether she would be supportive of the request to help mediate.

It sounds like it might be worth you having a discussion with the head, if you just put it that you're looking for a fresh perspective you may be able to feel out their opinion and that might help clarify things for you. Maybe perspective is getting a little fuzzy for both you and your supervisor after working for so long on your research. It does seem like it would be a real shame to quit when you're so close to the end - at the very least, exploring the other possibilities seems worthwhile before taking such a drastic step. Sorry, I can't offer any more helpful advice than that, but good luck with whatever you decide!

Update:

I met with the head of department and she was incredibly sympathetic. We went over my work and she agreed it seems like I have enough material to write up, and that it's madness to be contemplating further methodological work at this stage. She was also aware that this is not the first time my supervisor has created problems like this by being too harsh on his students. She is going to have a word with my supervisor.

So I am cautiously optimistic, although I don't know how things will play out once they have their meeting.

Well done for getting another perspective. Sounds like you need to get writing up asap. As for your supervisor, if the realtionship between you is not good then you would have grounds for a change in supervisor. Good luck and keep going!

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread but I thought it would be nice to share the conclusion to this story for anyone else who finds themselves having similar problems.

Following all of those issues, I spent the next 5 months writing up my thesis and submitted it one day before the deadline. Last week I was awarded my PhD after a January viva that was genuinely a lot of fun. My examiners more or less said it was one of the best theses they have ever examined.

Don't apologise, after having read your initial post (just now) that's wonderful news to read. (up) Hope it all continues to go well.

Very well done! Great to hear there was a positive outcome in the end! thanks for coming back and sharing :-)

What fab news, and a great motivator for those of us who are writing up now! Well done! (up)

Inspirational news, huge congrats on your great achievement (up)

Fantastic news! Congratulations. So glad you posted as well-this sort of thing helps everyone in the doldrums!(up)

great news! i'm so happy for you!!!! congratulations!!!!

Congrats - some supervisors are just a pain :-s and I'm glad it's has been recognised and dealt with! That's half the battle! 8-)

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