Managing PhD Supervisor Issues: Overcoming Bullying And Challenges
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- čas přidán 18. 04. 2019
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If you watching this video, you likely are experiencing relationship problems with your PhD supervisor or thesis advisor.
You might be feeling that you are trapped in this relationship because you have very little power. you also might be feeling like you're the only person that's experienced problems like this. This is untrue - you have power and others have experienced poor relationships in academia. This is why there is a chain of command in the university.
There are many things that might be happening with the PhD supervisor:
Stress in family life.
Stress due to tenure constraints.
Stress from social comparison.
Keep in mind that you are also stressed during the process:
You are uncertain about your job prospects.
You really don’t know what the expectations at the job.
This is your first-time dealing with research.
What can you do when your PhD supervisor is not treating you nicely?
Have a discussion with this person about how you feel. You need to voice your issues in an upfront manner. If you don't voice your complaints, nothing is going to change. However, it is important that you address the issue in an appropriate way.
At that point, I would also start keeping notes of their behavior, and how you feel.
I would also have several discussions with people that you are close too, and see how they would interpret the situation.
If this does not change the supervisor behavior, then you probably should speak to either the department chair or a senior professor who you believe would be a confidant. Be open to how you feel during the process.
If this all fails, you can speak to the Dean or even the Ombudperson at the University.
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I just recently graduated on December 2020 last year with my PhD.
Unfortunately, the way I finished up my PhD and graduated is NOT like a normal PhD student.
Normal PhD students would basically have good relationships with their PhD advisors, where the good relationship would be beneficial to both the PhD student & the PhD advisor such as publications, PhD student defended oral dissertation smoothly in a large audience, PhD student graduate PhD in 4-5 years, PhD student gets good job or postdoc position immediately after graduation, which overall would be good for PhD advisor and for the school.
With my case sadly, complete opposite of a "Normal PhD Student". I took almost 8 years to get my PhD. I got stressed from the work. But sadly, my advisor did not help mitigate my stress. Instead, my advisor neglected me. I tried my best to do well. But I feel no matter what I do, my advisor seems to be not pleased with my work. He did tried to help me, but his "help" seems to be not much & more flaking than actually helping. I did submit drafts to my advisor for both my dissertation and my publications stuff. Overall, he seems to be ignoring my publications. As for my dissertation, he flakes more and edit not much. Majority of the time he did NOT respond to my emails and when I see him in person, most of the time, he was busy and ended up rescheduling... Overall, I feel my advisor is neglecting me, which made my stress worse, which later cause a lot of trouble such as negative rumor spreading about me, social isolation/neglect from other students around me, and worse of all, I was called into Title IX and HR for questioning... I did NOT hurt anyone around me and I NEVER would do such a thing. BUT, I was in terrible distress and that terrible distress made others around me feel uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that's where they jumped to conclusion I'm a bad person and reported on me to Title IX and HR.
Fortunately, Title IX and HR saw passed my problems and suspected my problems was a cause & effect. So instead of expelling me, they are keeping close eyes on me to make sure that I am NOT a bad person like what the negative rumors about me is. I did my part in seeking psychiatric help and comply as much as I can with Title IX's request. Of course, my advisor eventually knows about my Title IX incident and not surprisingly, it infuriated my advisor. The Title IX involvement did made my advisor more neglectful at me. In fact there is a case from Title IX where they told me my advisor wants me expelled and he claimed that I am a mentally unfit person and I would pose a danger to myself and my surroundings. However, Title IX saw that behavior of my advisor is unacceptable, especially jumping to conclusions that I am a unfit person instead of really helping me to do better. That's where Title IX later notified me that my advisor is now at fault for not fulfilling his duty as an advisor that they decided to demote him. He was Department Chair during the time my problem arise and after Title IX's involvement, they demoted my advisor.
So the good news was that I able to do my dissertation defense. However, Title IX was involved. Instead like a normal PhD student who would defend in a live audience with inviting my friends/family to support me, my defense was done via Zoom (due to pandemic) and the audience was just my advisor, my committee, and also school administrators, where the school administrators are keeping close eyes on ensuring no hostility arise between me, my advisor, and my committee. Overall, I passed my dissertation thanks to the involvement of Title IX and I graduated with my PhD on December 2020 last year.
Although I got my PhD successfully, the negative repercussions then happened: my advisor seems to refuse to help me get publications by he ignore my emails. In addition, I am now having difficulties finding a job and/or postdoc positions. Title IX did notified me that this is not surprising & they suggested that I should avoid including anyone from the department as my list of references due to fear of retaliation and negative repercussion on my career.
So, that's my story, although I got a PhD, the overall results gave me mild PTSD. After watching this CZcams video and other videos on CZcams of other PhD students struggle, I learned that I am not alone and that this Dark Side of Academia seems to be a norm.
Do you have any advice regarding about landing a good postdoc and/or job position after my graduation with the PhD? Especially in my difficult case where I have no publications and I was strongly advised to not list my advisor or anyone in the department as my list of reference due to fear of retaliation from them?
Thank you for your video to show that I am not alone in this matter. Also thank you for letting me share my tragic story.
It is exactly my story... ignoring, isolation, bad rumors and racism... i have another year to graduate and i am doing my best and fucking up those psycho supervisors. 💢😪👊
The way I handle this situation in my grad. school is like politics.
Good example: US v. North Korea or Iran. Political relations split into 3 phases:
Phase 1: Attempted peaceful negotiations & compromise (avoid anger during communications as much as possible)
Phase 2: Sanctions
Phase 3: War
This technique can be applicable for PhD advisor/PhD student relationship as well:
Phase 1: Attempted communication, agreement, negotiations, & compromise between student & advisor (same here: avoid anger as much as possible)
Phase 2: Have university's dean, or Title IX office, or chancellor or other professors involved
Phase 3: Lawsuit & courtroom
Of course, nobody wants to do Phase 2 or Phase 3 & want to keep things peaceful & in Phase 1 as much as possible. But should there be crossing the line & disrespecting other people's boundaries, then no choice but to slowly proceed to Phase 2. If the boundaries continued to be crossed, then no choice to proceed to Phase 3.
Good advice. I think this is quite helpful for others!!!
The relationship with a supervisor can be complicated! The bullying might not be obvious, signals of any kind of bullying can be very subtle.
Absolutely! You have to look out for all signs.
yeah my advisor only acted like an insane screaming person when we were alone. The other professors, dean and chair did not believe me. Screaming at me and calling me stupid and slow, becoming angry when I wanted to discuss ideas, not providing basic supplies, or not looking at my data or providing any training or advising nobody at the college would believe me. They were happy to take my tuition money though
thank you so much for this. There are a lot of established academics out of tenure who are higher up who really are invincible and they close ranks if you complain so the chain of command can be contaminated by these people.
We can go through this guys. Peace.
my previous supervisor left the uni. The new one probably takes me as a burden to his work life (my work is irrelated to his research field）. At the beginning of that two years, he did not reply to my email, my initiative of appointment, refused to meet me. For that two years, I was doing my project alone. I thought that he also preferred it that way. Gradually, I feel he dislikes me. He probably thought I disrespect him by not approaching him for advice. I was also frustrated about our relationship.
Mines is failing me in my dissertation course. I have been trying to talk to the school and they are coming up with excuses. I’ve had conversations with mine. She is intimidating but also insecure so I’m trying to be respectful. She isn’t respecting my boundaries either.
Maybe it’s time to talk to someone.
at the university level...
Contact the union. Talk to other PhD students about your situation, find support from friends and family and do NEVER give up! You can do it!
My adviser likes to compare my productivity with his other new student. I found out by asking this other student that he was getting tuition assistance, housing stipend, and was working 20 hrs a week doing work directly related to his research where I was working 45 hours a week doing work not related to my research, no tuition assistance, or housing stipend. I later learned my adviser uses this strategy a lot to push his students. The student before me was pressured and he took it out on my computer equipment when I was the new student. I ended up needing to remove myself from his lab it got so bad. There is really nothing in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening and there is nothing in place from stopping it form happening.
I'm glad you got out of such a toxic environment. I really hope you're doing better now! It's a shame that many in this situation see themselves as the issue ("I just have to work harder!") when in fact the manipulative supervisor is the one with a toxic mindset. Unfortunately, oftentimes the system is set up in a way that those who succeed in their PhD and make an academic career, will treat their own future students the exact same way because they observe that it lead them to success ("a little bit of pressure and competition helped me back then, too!"). And they never have seen or experienced a positive example of how to achieve success while being truly fulfilled and happy at the same time. It's sad, really.
@@xycritic you nailed it!
@gamer zone DO NOT GIVE UP! YOU CAN DO IT!
Many thanks.... I already feel alone as an Iraq War Vet on campus. My program is unstructured and that I think has given my advisor Challenges. Thus it goes downstream. Thanks for your words.
Thank you for serving our country! I am so honored that I helped you.
Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences! :)
Thank you for watching!
Got a issue with a PhD female.