DocInsanity
How can a Supervisor offers you guidance if he doesn't know what you are doing?
What I have realized is that most PhD students unsatisfied is due to supervisors that are over occupied. And my question is why these supervisors accept PhD students if they don't have time to perform their functions as supervisors? And the main problem is when the head of the school is also a supervisor that don't care about of what his PhD students are doing.

Pd1598
I raised the problem to the council because i was starting to be very depressive to feel alone in the lab with know one around to speak or share ideas, and from the council they told me, 2 years ago, that they would open a group for PhD students that have the same problems. I'm still waiting for this group exist! I also try to approach the postgraduate society but apparently this group is only to gather people in bars to have drinks. I even exposed to my supervisor that I was feeling alone and need more meetings and until now I'm waiting for his interest in what I'm doing. Like I said when the head of the school is also a supervisor that don't have time for his PhD students and don't know what they are doing is really difficult to seek help from other sources because they will cover each other. This makes you feel so little and without power and as a PhD student who am I to say to my supervisor what are his functions. Its why I want to understand what universities do when they find in their surveys PhD students unsatisfied? Because 2 years ago there was a survey and I expose how unsatisfied I was with my supervisor and none was done since then.

Chikpea
The blog his for PhD students that have already finished their PhD so they want be harmed. And the main purpose of the blog is to help people avoid supervisors that dont meet their obligations. Someone can create a blog where people could expose their best supervisors, it would help a lot!

Im a PhD student doing my research in UK. Its really impressive as I speak with other PhD students to realize that most of Supervisors don't have the skills to guide a PhD student. Students are left alone in the Lab and the worst thing is the completely lack of interest from supervisors about the project.

This needs to stop! There is public money being invested to do science and in this scenario what kind of science are we producing nowadays? And what kind of experience and knowledge are students getting?

Does Universities know how many PhD students are unsatisfied with their supervisors?

Does Universities care at all about this issue? Or PhD students are just numbers to get profits?


I created a blog for all PhDs students that have finished their PhDs to expose their worst experiences with their supervisors and help other students that want to do a PhD to avoid choosing these supervisors. Public money should be invested in supervisors that meet their obligations with their PhD students. In this way we can do good science and students can improve their knowledge and experience.

http://phdsupervisorexperience.blogspot.co.uk/

Universities need to be aware of the lack of supervisors skills in order to create rules so that students can get the best support to do their PhD.

Nowadays, PhD journey is a way of getting experience in the field, acquire knowledge , learn how to design experiences , share ideas in congress, but for all of this happen there must be someone – the so called supervisor – to guide you in this enrichment experience. We are not in the past where people would go for a PhD when they had already experience in the field. Nowadays, students go for a PhD without having any experience in the field. This means that a PhD is a sample of how to be an independent researcher in science and again for this we need a structural training and support from supervisors that are supposed to be expertise in the field and know how to do science.

PhD students are just numbers for universities and this is not the purpose of doing science. To be a number?

Science should be taken more serious if we are talking about publishing results in qualified journals. Otherwise what is the meaning to do science?

Im really pissed with my supervisors and I never imagined that they could be so cold and unconcerned about what was happening with me. I didn't improve much in my PhD and because of my severe anxiety I need to do things slowly. I will finish this PhD but I don't think I will continue doing science in this way, where everyone is concerned about their life and there is no sense of teamwork. Doing science should be a teamwork, change of ideas, excitement, but also persistence, positive thinking and effort.
Doing a PhD is not a hobby, is not like we are in the secondary school playing science. Nowadays we have so many information and so many people specialized that we are not using all this resource to progress in science, to get good results even if negative. I don't trust in many of the the publication that come out because of this situation. Its frustrating when you want to give your best, to do good science, to give a contribution to science and what you see is bad science, is all about publication without being authentic.


"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together"

I don't want to be fast , I want to go far!

The only way that I could progress in research was to do a PhD. Before going to a PhD I spent few years doing research until I found the area that I would love to spent 3 years working on it. If you work with passion working 12h in the lab are amazing. But this you will only enjoy if you have a good supervisor that give you feedback about your results, that knows what you are doing, that helps you thinking in others ways. The relationship between supervisor-student need to be dynamic otherwise who will suffer with the lack of dynamic will be the student. And supervisors need to remember that most of the students in Uk are foreign people away from their families, friends and it is a real pain in the ass when you don't have a supervisor, you work alone with any colleagues around, when you try to meet people and they are cold. I have experienced the worst feeling of loneliness.
I went in a severe anxiety and told my supervisor who didn't care about. But he didnt care about what Im doing for a long time, since I start my PhD. I try to add more 2 supervisors in my 2nd year but was also useless, I try to find a doctor to medicate but the health system its sucks. I try to speak with the counselling about the lack of supervision and was useless and when you are trying politely to ask for help and you don't see any return, anyone that will give you support you collapse. Its inhuman when you expose yourself that you are fragile and what you receive is disdain.
The University should protect their students and give them the best support. The University doesn't have any clue about the level of dissatisfaction of their students. They just care about numbers of PhD graduated and publications.

I'm in my 3rd year of PhD and this has been the worst experience that I have. I arrived in Scotland super motivated with the research that I would do for my PhD. Nowadays most of the PhDs projects are written by the supervisors and it makes sense because most of the students when they finish their degree they don't have enough knowledge to write a PhD project. In the past PhD people would do a PhD when they had at least 5 years of career which means they would have acquired enough knowledge to understand what they wanted to do. So in this way Supervisors nowadays need to change their concept of PhD and they cannot leave a PhD student by their own and suddenly expect from the student to be a genius. Supervisors need to share their knowledge and understand what are the trainings that the student needs in order to succeed in his PhD. Most of the PhD students that I have meet complain that their supervisors don't care about their progress and some don't have a clue of what they are doing. We are using public money to train qualified people. So what is the purpose of spending public money is supervisors that don't have the skills and sensibility to train a PhD student? I'm sick of this bullshit , I'm sick of the lack of humanity! Maybe because of this we will find in the literature opposite results, maybe because we are publishing data that our supervisors don't know how we did it. If this doesn't change we will be spending public moneys to do bad science!!