I know sevral students that have changed supervisors and they are very happy now, although the process is really hard. I tried to do it so, but I was starting my third year and I thought that was too late for me, because I am now starting my fourth year and I only want to finish with this torture. My biggest mistake here was to not change since the beggining, verything was fine but suddenly started to be a nigthmare and my decision (or when I was ready to decide that) was too late. I did not find any support from professors that I talked with like if you drop from a lab there will be a black spot in your CV, or people will question you why you left. So discouraging and so incorrect to tell those things.

I encourage you to leave and change supervisor as fast as possible, you will find yourself better and is very early in your career to get so much negativity. Enjoy research as much as you can in another place.

Good luck!

Hi Tudor,

I am a graduate student at the states although I am not a postdoc and I am not from UK but I am from Europe, so I cannot help you in that matter, my experience has not been very positive here, but I know other students that are doing pretty good being foreigners as a graduate students or postdocs, it is very related to the PI. The supervision as well depends on the PI, the PhDs here some are very controlled (like me) and others are not supervised at all, same with postdocs. The expectations depends on the lab, there are labs that want to publish in Nature and others that do not care about it although they have a high level of work, I think that you should find some references if you are looking for a lab at the states, maybe this website can be helpful, https://www.labvisor.net/?lang=en, there are several references from US labs.
Personally, I like better the research in Europe and how people work there, in some way is very different because here, anyone can do a PhD and it does not matter the background because you have two years of classes and exams to provide that. I do not like how it is organized here and I think that research level and preparation of researchers is quite better in Europe (from my personal vision). However, here there are a lot of opportunities, and they value a lot a good worker and economically the situation is much better talking about grants, so if you are lucky with the lab I think that the experience can be very positive.
Hope this helps in some way!

It gives the impression that a lot of students are under this PIs behavior, including my experience. My recomendation as others have said is to continue!!and ignore your advisor as much as possible, finish and you will se how happy you are with your children following you! I have a mentor who neglects me, unsupportive and a lot of more things and I thougth about leaving, but it was like this is my fight and I am going to win, although I am not going to stay in academia I want to pursue a PhD and now that I am almost a year to finish, I am not regreting to fight against this horrible lab an experience that it should not be like that but it has been so... I am alone too so at least I have good friends here, they are PhD students too with a lot of complaints and I think that the abuse from PIs is something very normalized, it should not be.
My best luck to you and continue fighting!

I loved the story of inviting a friend over the reading and sitting where the supervisor should be!awesome!!!!

Hi everyone,

It is being hard this year after and before my candicay and now that I passed that phase and I am working on my project and I am more focused on finishing (that´s my goal every day) I am thinking on leaving science due to the very bad experience in the actual lab that I am doing my research.
The last thing is that I am going to send an abstract for a poster in a conference and my lab does not have money, so I am asking to my university for a grant that they have for travelling expenses (and the same conference have awards fro travelling expenses too) and students told me that is pretty easy to get funded for that concept.
My advisor did not show any excitement about it or any support when I told him that maybe I can go if I get those grants awards, in fact I think or it seems that he is jealous that I can go to that ( I will be when the time of the conference in my 4th year and I did not go to any conference!).
It has been a real struggle being here everyday, I am happy about thinking in graduating and leaving this place, and also thinking about leaving science, I am realy tired.
I will think about this more along (I hope) my last year because a bad experience cannot make me decide about my future but I am not enjoying my graduate time in the lab, at least I have great friends outside...

Anyone with the same problem?Has anyone thought about leaving research?

Thanks for the support.

Congratulations!! YOur story is very inspiring for me and every student tha can read this!!!
I have that too in some kind, my co-advisor usually tells me you are not ready yet, you are not ready to do your candidacy presentation (I did it with a lot of compliments from my commitee), you are not ready for your candidacy exam (I did it, I prepare it in a week and passed it with great compliments again).
I can continue like this, I have feedback from my advisors I cannot complaint about it, but sometimes the feedback is full of huge negativity and not supporting at all, BUT it does not matter if you believe in yourself and do nod let those comments get into your head, although I am tired!!!!! but I plan to graduate in one year.

Hi puccagrannie,

Thanks for posting this, I think that is very important to have visibility in this issue, and not only students between students suffering sexual assault, you have to deal with advisors and professors where sexual assault to students is very usual and nobody talks about it, and they protect each other, it is kind of crazy but I hitnk that students have to start supporting each other as a community when those cases arise.

I am very sorry that you have to face that. I had some troubles with my PI not that huge though...he was really enjoying time with me, testing me messages when travelling with his wife...making me really uncomfortable, I never said anything to him but I started to be very rude to him and no smiling...nothing...it is being two years and our relationship is not bad but neither good, but I prefer it in that way. He sometimes makes bad comments about me or my work but I do not care, I just want to finish my PhD and leave. I am thinking about writing a complaint a letter after leaving, I am not sure yet but maybe I will do it.
This is happening in US and I have help from a student therapist.. I think that therapy should help you to get your confidence back and see that not everyone is like that and if you like research do not let that experience to take you apart of what you want, work in yourself and take some time to recover to come back stronger, I am sure it will work.

Hi everyone,

I am a third year graduate student and I am pregnant. I do not know if anyone here has been through a pregnancy while doing her PhD, but I wanted to ask how your advisor react ti to that and if you still work facing chemicals that are dangerous for the pregnancy.
I have a lab partner that she is decided to help me with every chemical for me to avoid so she is being great to me, but my advisor still thinks that I can manage them under the hood.
I am going to talk with a guy from lab safety to make us clear what to avoid from the lab but I did not know if I should talk to him privately to just make sure that tells my advisor that I should avoid chemicals in every way because the hood does not protect us 100%. My advisor takes the pregnancy news pretty well but still seems that he does not understand how dangerous can be the exposure to certain chemicals (because security in the lab is not his thing in general...)
Does anyone here have a experience with being pregnant and dealing with dangerous chemicals? How the advisor react to it?

Thanks!!

Hi doradorawis,
I am sorry tohear what are you going through, it is really hard but I think that you should expalin to your advisor what is going on with you, because he/she should know your personal situation and how is affecting you, and your advisor can talk with someone of the board or department and give you a second chace or advice about it, and look for a counselor, usually every university has one.

Hope to help and think doing little steps.

Thanks rewt for your response! I will leave after my graduation I do not discard a collaboration in the future but I would like to change, I am international student so I would like to try other labs, if they offer me to stay for a postdoc I will think about it but my idea is to leave.

Hi rewt,

Thanks for your response, so I am the only graduate student at the lab :/ but it is fine, I know that the university/country sets the stipends but it will be nice to write our budget outside our stipend, but my PI did not ask.. it is ok!
Do you mean about the post-doc opportunities like if I come for a good lab with grants it will give me more opportunities to find a good place?

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I have this doubt because my PI just got a grant with A LOT of money, it will be this first year and it will continue for five years depending on the progress.

We are a team of several people and everyone is getting their part (as raising salaries) but I did not have anything on it except my stipend that will be the same. I have fees to pay but my PI told me that the budget is already closed and that he did not know that I got those fees to pay, but nobody asked me about my own budget to include it in the grant and I did not know that I could do that (like ask for some fee payments or raising my salary).

I understand that the grants are what we get our stipend for our PhD but it is anybody that knows if it is possible to raise the stipend or ask for a student budget? just to have that on mind for the next time because I struggle with my stipend every month.

At least I asked to my PI to go to conferences with everything paid.

Thanks!

I was reading the other messages (sorry I missed one from you pm133) and well...I am uncomfortable because I think that he has feelings or he likes me around him. One morning that I did not say ¨Good morning¨to him he told me literally ¨the next time that you arrive to the lab you come and say good morning to me because that makes my day¨so i was really confused about it at the moment but now I think that it was really odd/creepy. His comments and not only the text message saying good morning in the sand of the beach at 7.30am that I can deal with that, is the way he looks at me (I usually put my lab coat to avoid his looks), I try to wear clothes that are not like marking my body, etc...I have to change my normal behavior because of him and that is not fine...I cannot tell him ¨what are u looking at?¨ I mean I can but I do not know the consequences...he is old and I think that he is bored and whatever, but this is unnecessary. The way he treats me now when I stop playing ¨his game¨and I am not nice to him is consuming me because I am not being myself, and that is a kind of abuse.
He never touched me or hug me or any personal contact (I am grateful for it) but I think that there is a line that you cannot cross...comments or behavior can be abuse.

I think that talking about him about I am not fine with this kind of comments it is necessary, I am waiting for a next time or maybe use the other person that works in the lab (but they like each other a lot...) as a witness of the conversation if I do it...

Thanks again and sorry for all the messages!