======= Date Modified 12 50 2010 14:50:01 =======
Grrrr. My supervisor is brilliant, and we get on really well. But, she keeps on moving the damn goalposts! First I need to do a one-year follow-up on my quantitative study, then we decide not to due to time constraints, now she is insisting I include the follow-up again. It's not just an extra couple of weeks we're talking about- it's an extra 6 months of testing! And now I need 15 people for my qualitative study instead of the 10 originally suggested. It doesn't sound a lot, but for an in-depth qualitative study an extra five people is an extra 2 months in terms of testing, transcribing, analysing, writing up! She's great but I could strangle her sometimes- I'm not far off halfway through my PhD and can't just afford to add an extra 8 months of work at the drop of a hat. I have mentioned this to her and her response was to smile and remind me that supervisors are there to make more work for their PhD students, not less! Arrrgh! Anyone else have this issue?!

Best, KB

Yep, sounds familiar. My PhD is based on the development of an economic model and half way through my supervisor told me that I should focus on the housing market and not the labour market as he had originally suggested because the labour market had been "done". I'd been having difficulties finding a gap in the literature but as I am not a trained economist I just assumed I was being dumb. I could have cheerfully finished him off at that point.

Problem is we're in no position to do anything about it so we just have to smile sweetly and say 'whatever you think is best'. ;-)

Poor you KB, sounds like you're under a lot of pressure, but I really don't think she'd ask you to do it if she thought you weren't capable - from what you've said before it sounds like she can be difficult with others but thinks a lot of you, I'm sure she has every confidence in your abilities. Good luck with it though, at least you're driving again now so you can get on with all this testing! Nx

Not quite the same situation or response but similar in a way...mine has responded a few times to my queries and requests about time lines and tasks-
'yes but research isn't like that'... or when I had another supervisor during the first few months during the research methods component...'well I'm afraid Dr XXX and I don't eye to eye on that one'- this when Dr XXX was the one marking the specific methods component and was a stickler for time but supervisor was still official supervisor. From what I can gather Dr XXX and she just had a big argument and any grades required for that component were just put on hold until I complained 8 months later to admin and they took my case up. Final one is 'research is messy'- used many times when I've been trying to pin one of her requests down to something more precise! Fully empathise...but you know, KB, when your study is complete and it is really really good, all this will be water under the bridge, cheers