I have just started a research masters in Literature, but my supervisor is on leave for the first term of my course. This means that I am left completely on my own, and to be honest I'm really not too sure what to do.
I am only a week into my course to date, so I'm not in any real danger of getting terribly behind (I think), but what do I do? I haven't received any communication from my supervisor yet, and to be honest I don't really expect the supervisor to make the first contact - I do believe that I should do it first, but is that the normal way/etiquette of things? Do I wait for my supervisor to contact me, or do you think it wise for me to make contact first?
Also, what is normally expected of a research student in the first term? Do I just get on with answering the main and sub questions in my proposal, or are there other things I'm supposed to be doing?
During the last week, I've been reading some primary and secondary reading to do with my topic so that I have at least done something, and I have taken my self to 'research methods' lectures and other lectures organised by the department, but is this enough? I'm quite keen to get on with things in more depth now.

Has anyone else experienced this at the start of their course, or is this (slow pace) normal to begin with?

Hi cobweb,

I think it's fairly normal. My advice would be:
1) make contact with your supervisor. He might be busy/slow off the mark/forgetful or not getting in contact for some other reason that is completely out of your control. So a quick email to remind him of your existence and the fact you could use some guidance is a good idea. And in my experience people value proactive students, so don't worry about being 'pushy'.
2) make sure you have fulfilled all your paperwork obligations e.g. formally submitting your proposal, signing up for training courses, registering with the library/graduate school etc - ask existing students or the departmental secretary if your supervisor isn't around.
3) set yourself a reasonably small but achievable research goal. Probably something that will help you begin your literature review. you could start compiling a list of references, group them under headings and make a start with some reading? Don't just sit at your desk trying to tackle the whole research question at once - it's impossible. Also don't start comparing yourself to everyone else - it really doesn't matter how much it seems like the others are doing.

hope none of this sounds patronising - I struggled a lot at the beginning, too. The first few weeks are often the worst, honest!

Hi Cobweb! I'm in a different subject to you, but my primary PhD supervisor was on academic leave for the first semester of my PhD which I was quite stressed about. I think you should definitely make contact. My sup was very good and we set up a system whereby I (and her other 4 PhD students!) would email her every Monday with a bit about what I had been up to that week, what I had been reading about, any questions that I had, and any written work I had produced. This worked well and she was very good at putting time aside to reply properly to each of us. We also organised a couple of skype conversations to clear up issues that were too complex to sort out by email. It might be different for you- I was in the middle of preparing a detailed proposal and needed a bit of advice with practical issues etc, so if your work is all literature based then you might not need such frequent contact. But I think it is a good idea to have a piece of paper by your desk to scribble down questions/ideas that pop up throughout the week and then you can cover all of your queries in one email rather than sending 2 zillion emails one after the other which would probably get a bit tiresome for your sup! And of course, not all sups are quite as accommodating as mine, so might not want weekly updates- see what works best for you and your sup! All the best, KB.

Thank you so much for your advice. I made contact with my tutor last night and he got back to me within 30mins to arrange a meeting for the very next day! (today).
I have had the meeting now, and I suppoose it went ok - not sure.
Does anyone else get really nervous when you meet up with your sup? I guess it will disappear with time, the more I become familiar with my subject, but it can be so distracting because you never really say what you planned to. Does anyone know what I mean?
The meeting started off quite bad for me because I went bright red for some stupid reason, then I went back to normal for a bit, then I got all stupidly nervous again, then had a random moment of blurting out some great ideas, then nervous again....and so on. What a freak.

:$

But then again, it was my very first meeting with a tutor at postgrad level, so I suppose it can kind of be expected at this early stage...
How do others manage? So often I see really overly confident people who can ramble on and on about their research, etc, etc
Sometimes I wish that I could be that confident in my ideas.

Anyway, on a good note, I did manage to take away a lot of positive things from the meeting, and I now know what I'm doing! I've even been set my first deadline too which I'm quite excited about. Got something to focus on now.

Sorry if much of this doesn't make a lot of sense. Been quite a long and tiring day.