Dear all,

Do you have quite a formal or informal relationship with your supervisor? For example, would you start an email with 'hope you are well', or not?

I am a mature student which may change things. My relationship is as mentor mentee (?sp), first name terms and very informal on emails.

At our induction we were told that the nature of the relationship should change towards being collegues as the process goes on.

Hey! My relationship with my sup is pretty informal- we've been on first name terms from the beginning, and she also texts me now and again, and we have recently become friends on facebook, although I am not convinced that is a good move...we shall see! We send each other jokey emails and texts etc. I think starting an email with 'hope you are well' is fine...it would be hard to be offended by that! Best, KB

Hope you are well is always a good start.

I have a very informal relationship with my sup... if you call mature over 25 i'm near deaths door (pushing 40 too hard). So my sups and I are near the same age.

I think its like every relationship you start off being polite but friendly and then see what develops. I think they, like anyone, will let you know fairly early on what sort of relationship they want and expect.

Chuff

I have a fairly informal relationship with my supervisors, I think it helps that I've been at that university since my UG degree so they know me really well, one of them supervised my UG dissertation. I am only starting my PhD in Jan (finishing my MSc now) and they're already really supportive, like one of them is on sabbatical at the moment and I emailed him for some advice about something as I didn't know he was away. Instead of ignoring me he arranged for us to meet for coffee in town to discuss my work and then said that he's been saving interesting journal articles etc for me for when I've finished my MSc, I thought that was really nice of him.

I start emails with something like "hope you are well" if I haven't spoken to them for a while, then they normally reply with something like "good to hear from you". They are facebook friends with some of the other PhD students but I think I'll wait for them to request me! Overall though, I think in the department the relationship between PhD students and supervisors is quite informal. My lead supervisor responded to an email the other day in text language which I thought was quite strange as I never use it!

I like both my supervisors but my relationship with them is formal. I wouldn't dream of sending jokey texts or emails. I like the relationship although I imagine it's not to everyone's taste. I've not heard any other phd student say anything negative about these supervisors because they are genuinely nice people but they expect a certain professional conduct and I was explicitly told not to use any other email address other than the official university one to communicate with them.

I think everyone's experience will be different.

Totally depends on the supervisor. And the supervisee. Am very close to mine, totally respect her, and have grown to share lots of silly thoughts and stuff (she recently called it my gibber gabber) in addition to intellectual seriousness. And yes, send her nice quotes or stuff and she sometimes sends too, and pics of her kittens.

Should add - she is an international superduper star in my field, but v v v v approachable and friendly.

:-)