I am the only PhD student in a small department (life sciences). My supervisor who is the head of department meets me in his office regularly but he never guided me in the lab. He don't give me protocols and I have to waste a lot of time for mearly searching the protocols. In addition he expect a lot of results every week. If the technique is not working he thinks that I am not hardworking (it happens oftenly as I need to optimise the protocol myself). He has worked in UK/USA during his post-doc/early career and he used to say people work independently in UK and USA. I am a bit frustrated. Is the attitude of my supervisor normal?

hmm, doing independent work is understandable; but it helps to have a co-worker. Are you the only researcher working in the lab? you can ask for their help.. Your supervisor is not understanding, some people are like that, so it is very important to choose a good supervisor.

Explorer, trust me I feel your pain! I'm in a very similar situation, and the expectations just seem rediculous.

I wish I had some advice I could give you, but all I can say is that you're not alone, a lot of us find ourselves in this situation, but good on you for doing your best, and just keep working hard.

Is your supervisor open to you maybe talking to him about it? Maybe you could tell him that you feel you would be able to produce results much faster if there was someone experienced who could maybe show you once how to do things, just to give you an idea.

Anyways, good luck, and keep us posted on how things go!

It's very exasperating to see how some of us get basically no input into our projects while other people get a lot of support. I don't begrudge those that get support - but it does seem unfair that some of us are left re-inventing the wheel and developing protocols and methods which could very reasonably be expected to be taught. I sympathise. Your supervisor does sound top of the range demanding and unreasonable. Are these new protocols? If that's the case it would be understandable - but if you are just re-inventing protocols that are already known - that is quite diferent and very annoying.

I think in situations like this, it is just a case of making the best use of the resources around you.

If your supervisor isn't going to lift a finger to help, there isn't really much you can do about it. However, there should be other people in your department who can help. lab technicians, postdocs.....

You really need to take the initiaitive and be proactive on this.

In my first year of my PhD I was afraid of asking for help and therefore spent a long time banging my head agianst a brick wall when all I had to do was ask for help