Hi peeps,

I have been registered on the forum for a while but i have never posted a message, I am more of a reader than a writer.

Anyhow, heres my dilemma.

Ill try and give you's as much details as possible and then ask a few q's at the end.

I am currently 13 months into my PhD and did my upgrade to full PhD level about 4 months ago, up until then I was completely motivated and knew what I had to do to achieve this transfer to full PhD. However, since then I have been completely and utterly unmotivated to do anything, I completely hate reading anything and just cant get that urge or spark back to do much. I kind of think its mainly due to having do stick to deadlines. at the min there is none

I have started implementing my proposed framework (original contribution) but cannot decide specifically which angle to tackle.

I have three supervisors, A, B, and C.

Supervisor A, my main supervisor is always on my back about not being uptodate and i should have more done and have made more progress, if i take a day of hes ringing me to see where I am. Which is actually very nice of him, but when we are in uni hes very little help, if i give him anything he says its very good and no problems, but when i give it to the other two they go through it with a fine tooth comb and fine faults and mistakes everywhere.

So questions are:

is my supervisor A actually reading anything and depending on the other two to sort of do his work for him??

Hes full of great ideas but at times i dont know if hes just bluffing me.

Do i just decided what angle to tackle, sit to and implement?

Basically i want this thing over and done with ASAP, which may not be easy, but to speed the process up would i start writing some chapters of my thesis now in conjunction with my framework.

I may need to spend alot of time extra per day, but to get this over and done with im willing to put the time in.

Or do i just kick the bucket and quit?


Any advice would be greatly appreciated peeps


NeoMagic33

This sounds tough, but just so typical of a PhD experience. My feeling is that you will just have to work around those supervisors.

Your sup A sounds just a bit like someone in our department. One of his students also felt that he did not read his material properly and hardly found fault with it, which scared the student when it came to thesis submission, but actually he just passed his viva, so in the end it worked out ok, and obviously the standard of the work was sufficient.

Keep at it, don't give up, I say, and count yourself lucky that someone (Sup B & C) do read your work and give some feedback. It might be annoying, but fact is that different sups just have different attitudes to making comments/criticising. If you sup A has lots of good ideas, great, and you "just" have to work out yourself what is worthwhile doing and what is not, what fits in with your work, what does not. As long as you can justifiy why you did what you did, you should be fine...

Also, I think your stage of the PhD can be hard, try to work through it without getting too upset that maybe sometimes there is no clear end, it's the journey that counts!

All the best:-)

======= Date Modified 18 Nov 2009 12:06:18 =======
I'd recommend keeping going as well, but you need to figure out how best to use your various supervisors. If Sup A isn't good at written feedback then rely more on Sups B and C for that for example. Equally if Sup A is good at keeping you on track then use them for that.

As for finishing ASAP, you're only a third of the way through. If I was you I'd aim for coming in under the 3 year mark if you could manage that. Make realistic goals for writing chapters, and allow plenty of time for your Sups (especially B and C, the good ones for this!) to read your written work, and then for you to rewrite it.

But you must take care not to burn yourself out. A PhD is a marathon, not a sprint, even if you're aiming to complete in 3 years. Don't push yourself so hard that you can't keep going at that pace.

Good luck!

If you have the motivation to crack on and do it quickly(ish, PhDs really are a marathon) then go for it! Only give up if you truly don't want to do this anymore, hate your subject and/or have something else you'd rather be doing. The patches where you have zero motivation and just don't care are par for the course, and having no targets is the worst thing for getting you into that demotivated state (says she, currently immersed in such a state).

As for the supervisor issues, having such different team members is frustrating and confusing, BUT it's also a bit of a Godsend. It's rare to get one supervisor who's good at everything (proofing, checking in, motivation, connections), so having a team with different strengths is a real safety net. In my team I have "Prof distant but expert", "Dr enthusiast with poor English" and "Prof language whizz - no knowledge" individually they're very limited, but they make an ok team. One of the main skills in a PhD is actually managing your supervisor/s, so exploit yours ruthlessly! Use each one for what they're good at, and feel free to ignore them a little on topics they're not so good at.

My post is not going to be of much help. Just want to say that I'm feeling exactly like you in the first part re demotivation. Have a presentation coming up in 1.5 weeks and just feel totally drained and nothing more to give. I'm seriously considering to quit PhD after I figure out the source of my burnout. My supervisors are great, always supportive. It's more of a very personal reason that I'm thinking of quitting. My priorities seem to have changed and I want to focus my remaining strength on something different. Just feel like PhD is an unnecessary burden for me I can deal without.

Thats everybody for your helpful and informative replies.

Ill be taking everything that everybody has said on board and putting it into practise.

Many thanks

NeoMagic33

It's hard to form clear goals when several cooks want different things from the PhD broth. I have two supervisors who regularly contradict each other, Sup A saying, great, I like this angle, go with it, and Sup B saying what are you thinking going down this path? Each of them have their own hobbyhorses, and I have mine. The only way I've found to deal with the frustrating blessing of their differing opinions is to remind myself that it's MY PhD. I tend to agree with the one who is closer to my own opinion, I like his style more, so I adjust the work to his standards and not the naysayer's. The naysayer is great for pointing out problems, but I don't have to take all her advice. I do however find myself blaming her when I'm not getting anywhere, thinking that it's her fault for imposing impossible demands. I've got 4 months left, and I am finally starting to feel comfortable in this good cop bad cop arrangement, simply by embracing the status quo. Everybody needs a scapegoat sometimes.

As long as you can motivate your decisions and state to all three, this is the goal I've set, you're all giving me different advice that is useful in its own right, but to reach my goal I can't accomodate everyone. If you don't do this, it's more likely you'll lose the plot and start to hate your PhD. It's hard to protect your developing intellectual property in this way, especially when you want to listen to everyone's advice. But you have to keep it yours. You could even talk to all three, saying you're not sure how to deal with their feedback when they're all focusing on different aspects. This should at least elicit something from them about how they see themselves in the pecking order and make them aware of each other's different points of view. But don't give up! At least not until you've really tried all you can to patch things up and make it work for you!