Hi all - I'd like your opinion on a recent event that I went through with my advisor. I'm in the first year of my program.
After submitting a bad draft of a lit review I got *blasted* by my advisor. He threatened to stop supervising me and said some pretty abusive things. While he has been giving me some time once a month, he often cuts meetings short (1 hr or less), or else I always feel like I'm taking up too much of his time. He doesn't seem to want to hear about ideas I have or have discussions around what I am trying to do.
I appreciate his directness, but would like to know if anyone else has had a similar experience? There is a chance for me to switch supervisors potentially to someone who I think might be better all around for the subject area anyway.

Keep in mind that my situation is not rosy and he was right to ask if there was someting going on. I have been going through some motivational issues and questioning my career path and research aptitude (lately especially, but really always). I understand that this is par for the course for many phd candidates.

Any advice?

I haven't had a similar experience to share, but I just wanted to share some ideas. Perhaps you could try to have a discussion with your supervisor about the supervision process and what you both expect from each other - maybe you could work out some ground rules together? If he is not willing to discuss that then it's up to you to decide who you think will offer you the best support for your project.

I suppose you also need to think about why your progress has not been that great and what you might be able to do to improve it. Everyone experiences doubts about their choices and their abilities during a PhD. Try to put these to one side and focus on your work. Sorry, I know that's not easy! I think you just have to try to think that everyone is in the same boat and all you can do is do your best. Try to concentrate on getting small tasks done rather than worrying about the bigger picture.

As I said, I haven't experienced your situation but I hope this is helpful and I hope things work out for you.

I would get away from this guy if you can! That's totally unconstructive behaviour and if you're having doubts anyway won't help you think clearly about what you want to do next. Do you not have a secondary supervisor you can discuss the situation and your work with for something more productive? I think you need to get someone else on board and if there's an option of a change of supervisor I would strongly suggest you consider it. Good luck.

Hi,

I think I might have been in a similar situation. I did switch supervisors and I regretted doing so! Sorry - this is conflicting advice! It might be worthwhile trying to work out why he is saying what he's saying. Is there any value in it - even if he is not saying it in a nice way? (there is no excuse for him to be rude or to bully you though).

It sounds as though you feel he isn't listening to you - maybe he feels you're not listening to him? Can you analyse it a bit more?

I hope you manage to sort this out. IF I had my chance again I wouldn't change supervisors - but of course all cases are different. Hope that helps!

======= Date Modified 26 Aug 2009 18:37:39 =======
Hi Peaches,



Errmm, I swapped supervisors and it was brilliant! My first wasn't committed to supervising my project, and she shouted, 'forgot' essential equipment, and made public criticisms, blaming me for her mistakes. My second is very professional, skilled, about as well connected as could possibly be, and enthusiastic about what I am doing.



But I've always been very motivated for this, I've always known I have the aptitude for research, and am passionate about what I am researching. So, I think you need to assess how much of your sup' s behaviour is down to lack of professionalism, how much of that you can tolerate, and how good the alternative options are: if you have a wizzo supervisor in mind/lined up, then swapping may not be a bad idea anyway.



This is just a reflection of my experience, I hope it helps!

P.s. I also got the 'maybe you ought to look for another supervisor' line, and took that to be a massive red flag. After trying, unsuccessfully, to see her in person to discuss that comment (she had thrown me out of her office, in an emotional tiz, at the time), I emailed her about it and she didn't reply! hence, I hot footed it.

I second the people here who suggest speaking, in person to your supervisor to clarify things, especially regarding the comments about no longer supervising you...

Peaches

I wonder if you've got someone like my former supervisor (I've now finished). She was a very nice person but really hated me springing discussions on her when I hadn't written it all down and given it to her ahead of the meeting, so that she could think it through and give me advice properly rather than off the cuff so to speak. She was very clear about this from day 1. She wanted written work ahead of each meeting and that was that. I found it quite hard at first as my MA supervisor had been a very chatty person. However, to give the PhD supervisor her due, her advice was much more concrete, directed and ultimately helpful than the MA supervisor's was. I just thought it was worth raising in case you've got into a communication mismatch and that's part of the problem: something like he thinks you're being lazy for not writing and just wanting to chat, whereas you want to agree everything with him verbally before you start writing.

Otherwise I guess it depends what you call abusive. Your post sounds like you agreed that your lit review wasn't really up to scratch; was your supervisor telling you that this wasn't PhD standard and that you needed to get your act together to pass upgrade or something like that? If so, and I thought it justified, I might be inclined to just get my head down and produce a brilliant second draft to prove him wrong. If though it was much more personal abuse, then I think maybe changing supervisor (or seeing if you can add a more emollient person as a second supervisor to relieve the tension) might be worth investigating. Can you talk to any of his other students to see what they think to his supervisory style i.e. is his bark worse than his bite?

If though you really are just not enjoying doing a PhD at all and this incident is just what is bringing a lot of doubts to a head, it might be worth a visit to the counselling service to talk things through with an outsider to try and figure out what the real problems are and whether they can be solved. A PhD is so different to u/g and masters degrees that I think a lot of people, who have enjoyed their earlier degrees, do find themselves hating the isolation of a PhD. If it's really the PhD not the supervisor that's the root cause, then there's no shame in deciding it's not right for you.