Hello All,

Just starting a thread to find out people's opinions on meetings with supervisory team. I am due to start PhD in Sep 12 and need to start thinking about how often I will need to see my supervisory team.
I have a team of three supervisors. My Director of studies likes the use of social media to maintain contact i.e skype etc and I really like this too as I am quite a way from the University itself. The other two supervisors may prefer Face to Face meetings which I agree is a definite necessity as well. SO... the question I am asking is, how often did you see/are seeing your supervisory team?

Thanks (up)

I live in a different country to my sup (due to a change in my domestic situation) and I see him maybe once every 2 or 3 months. We email when we have something to send each other that's not directly linked to the thesis but that doesn't happen all that often. I do my writing at home (obviously) and when its a decent amount I send it and set up a meeting a week or two after to talk it over. It's worked out well for me to be honest. But I am a humanities student and all we do is read, write, and redraft.

Generally you will see your sup loads for the first year, less for the 2nd, and almost never in the 3rd as the relationship develops and he or she trusts you! At least that has been my (very positive) experience.

I would suggest setting up a regular meeting with your primary supervisor at least. Face to face, at least once every two weeks. I don't have this, I simply knock on the door of my supervisor when I need help and hope he's in. He knocks on my door when he needs to tell me something. I sometimes don't see him for weeks, sometimes I see him every day for 2 weeks! This works for me but I would suggest it is highly unusual.

Most academics are very disorganised and/or very busy. This means they often resist regular meetings. If you can get them to have regular meetings with you from an early stage however, then you can hopefully defeat this. The most common complaint on here is that people cannot contact their supervisor. A regular meeting avoids this.

To sum up:

1- Try and get a regular meeting, I would suggest once every 2 weeks

2- If this can't be done then make sure you can knock on their door and/or pester them when you need them.

Thank you for replying; very helpful indeed!

Lee(up)