changing phd advisor after 2 years academic stack exchange

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. Advisers may want to publish as many papers as possible so that they can win more grants and move their research programs forward. UniWiND 2015, UCL 2018, National Health and Medical Research Council Australia 2019, University of Edinburgh 2021). So my two other supervisors are yes men and working under him to further their careers. @AtomJZ I think I disagree somewhat. With all this in mind, I decided recently that I will leave the PhD and do something else (I actually have no idea what yet). The bullies tend to retaliate. So like Andy Putman suggested you need to talk to your supervisor. @Damodar You don't need to bad mouth him. There are no real breaks. Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products. @FourierFlux A PhD advisor is not an employer, they are a mentor and resource to your learning. Since the boundaries are not well-defined (how do you define "similar"), my inclination is to have one canonical question that discusses both cases. Are there conventions to indicate a new item in a list? Some PhD students were simply left to their own devices without proper supervision. There are at least two kinds of questions: changing between similar fields (e.g. You seem to be already burnt out. Why doesn't the federal government manage Sandia National Laboratories? Here's what the research says, Barbara A. Wanchisen, Heidi A. Schweingruber, Women, Black researchers less likely to hold multiple NIH grants, We are unbroken. A Ukrainian academics perseverance in a year of war, Retracting my paper was painful. In this blogpost, well give you an overview of why PhD students typically change advisors, how difficult it might be, and whether it is the right thing to do in your situation. The study underscores a fundamental disconnect between the interests of advisers and advisees, Shibayama says. Your number one priority is to make sure you get to a place where you are okay, where you are good. Suggestions to improve the use and the findability of canonical questions. I am doing good in my Ph.D. but I do not like my supervisors. Any disadvantages of having a PhD supervisor who is working only part-time at the institution? 1. The most progressive or advantageous of PhD regulations will e.g. This will be released on the 15th of November. Lets face it: it is never ideal to have to change your supervisory arrangements. Any related idea which goes against the "vision" of my supervisor is dealt with fierce questions. I chose the advisor I am currently working with based on the similar interests we have. Since it is a very prestigious institution I never thought that I might experience what I am going through at the moment. Also Helfer et al. Do EMC test houses typically accept copper foil in EUT? Another student had just switched because of the same reason and therefore my current supervisors had to change their attitude as this became a recurring phenomenon. Duress at instant speed in response to Counterspell. You can find some tips in the second blog in this series Advice from people who switched PhD Advisor. The area in which I work is also quite small in the sense that very few (in fact, only one that is comprehensive - as far as I am aware) textbooks have been written on the basics and even my supervisor admits that these few books are exceedingly dry. None of the other factors consideredincluding age, gender, years of study, country, and department and peer qualitieshad such a strong effect. What you can expect from your PhD supervisor. My supervisor openly claims that he is a great researcher and expects students to worship him. So, a prestigious academic pedigree may help you get where you want to go after graduation. Help News from Science publish trustworthy, high-impact stories about research and the people who shape it. These range from the most collegial of agreements to the extremes of bullying. Australian Government (2007), Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science (2014), Swedish Research Council (2017), German Research Foundation (2019), UK Research Integrity Office. For us, the ultimate question to ask is always the following: If you dont change your supervisor and just continue as is, would your PhD completion be in danger? Be calm and respectful, but be honest about the reasons youre leaving. Dericks and his team didn't find any evidence that showed that's an effective strategy, though: After taking adviser supportiveness into consideration, students' satisfaction levels weren't correlated with their perceptions of their Ph.D. advisers' intelligence, knowledge, intellect, and scholarly abilities. Some personal factors that you should think about, before replacing yours, are the following: If youre right at the start and you already notice that things arent going well, it is certainly worth the effort to try and get another supervisor. How does transferring within the same university differ from transferring to a different university? What are the challenges in changing a PhD supervisor after 2/3 of PhD is done, We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup. I need to either quit my Ph.D. or look for another supervisor. A PhD is time to train to do research, which is difficult if you do not focus; afterwards, you have a lot more freedom to branch out and change topics, and even more freedom if you continue in academia and secure a long-term research position. However, problems often occur if the main supervisors are not living up to their supervisory duties. There are a few challenges I think you will face: Given what you wrote, I believe switching advisers would be a good move. Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products. I don't know of any examples where someone transferred from one university to another and used prior work towards a thesis, but transfers between universities are rare for PhDs in general. Following up on the discussion in the comments. Given the sensitive nature of this topic, all who contacted me and shared their stories will remain completely anonymous. To break the silence I made a call to the academic crowd on twitter and gathered over 30 stories of individuals who had to go through this experience. I guess my question is whether others on this site (PhD students or PhD supervisors) have had a similar experience or have any advice regarding this situation? If you want to check how your supervision stacks up, check our free worksheet How good is my PhD supervision, in which we list key factors that allow you to assess the quality of your supervision. Some departments have rules that limit the availability of funding from teaching assistantships once you have been long enough in the program. But advisees are best served if they are given the space to make mistakes and develop into capable, independent scientistsa process that can take time, and that is more likely to pay off after a student has left an adviser's lab. Are you willing to switch to a lab whose focus is in a completely different scientific field, with a whole new set of techniques to learn, or would you prefer to go somewhere you can do similar work to your current lab? Shibayama recommends that prospective Ph.D. students look for advisers who let their students play a role in study design. It is possible that asupervisor is not an expert in the area in which the PhD student works. Is variance swap long volatility of volatility? The team measured student satisfaction by asking the survey participants to rate the degree to which words such as "good," "happy," "terrible," and "disappointing" described their overall Ph.D. experience. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. In fact, this desire not to rock the boat is exactly what allows perpetrators to foster. If you realise that you are suffering from poor supervision, by any means, change your supervisor if it will help you do better research and have a happier PhD life. Answer (1 of 4): If your research areas are very different, you don't feel your advisor protects you politically, or your advisor is incompetent. Depending on how specialized your current labs focus is, the latter may not even be an option. See also Natures 2019 PhD survey. Like any workplace, scientific institutions are not free from misbehaviour from (in this case) superiors. If so, please leave a comment on this answer explaining which field needs handled separately and why it has different considerations. But don't think that such a calling is necessarily tied to a career in academia, because I think that this is increasingly not the case, and probably never really was. Universities have formal proceedings that take place in order to exchange a supervisor and it might happen more often than you think. Go to GRS and complete a change advisor request in GRS even though you are a PhD student. When it comes to student satisfaction, the single most important element is adviser supportiveness, according to a study published this week in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. This would be a much better question if you deleted the entire enumerated list, which is largely irrelevant for the question asked in the title. How can the mass of an unstable composite particle become complex? What matters in a Ph.D. adviser? In such a case, there is transparency around the process and you will be able to find out what you have to do and who you need to talk to in order to change yours. Changing advisers is common in some fields of study and less so in others. Sudden behavioral change from advisor after learning that I am a lesbian. Youve undoubtedly made mistakes along the way, and learning from them can help you maintain a good relationship with your future advisor. The reason for the move is that I have become increasingly interested in the formal verification of mathematics and have devoted all of my spare time to writing a proof assistant. In the second blog of this series, I have endeavoured to compile some advice from the brave individuals who reached out to me, in the hopes that current or future PhD students may find some help on these pages. For a few years, I did real-time embedded audio programming, which sort of double-counted as EE and software engineering. Not to mention the tremendous stress associated with the isolation and the guilt-tripping behaviour of some supervisors. I wouldn't mind using the same advisor but if they aren't interested in my interests I see nothing wrong with switching. 2023 American Association for the Advancement of Science. meetings only happen twice a year), if meetings are sporadic rather than regular, and if no substantial feedback on work or progress is given. I have no responsibility to continue and don't see any obligation. The problem is more motivational: it turns out that I just don't have any interest in my particular area and so I spend most of my time either worrying about working or worrying whilst working - very inefficient! In this way, you work in a field you already know at a moderate pace, while you develop new skills. By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. "What we found in the literature is that when your supervisor just monitors your progress, and is willing to make time for you when you really need help, that is really all that is needed for students to succeed.". I have seen a lot of people switching advisers during my PhD. During the meeting, be proactive. Maybe it was when she changed your project for the sixth time in six months, though your thesis proposal deadline was rapidly approaching and you had nothing to present. Changing advisers is easier if your department encourages students to work with multiple faculty members and you make changes early in your career. This argument can certainly be made for physics and mathematics, where changing subfield can feel like trying to move a mountain. If you need to switch to a very different field, you should expect another 2-3 years as a beginner. Academia Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for academics and those enrolled in higher education. If so, please sign up to receive our free guides. Have you thought about changing your supervisor for some time, but cant make up your mind? Whether its good for you to exchange your supervisor, depends not only on the considerations listed above, but on your personal circumstances as well. Most of these are duplicates except for the fields in question. Just as a rather cursory suggestion agreeing with a previous comment: Within-discipline, within-nearby-disciplines (e.g. Do any fields have fundamentally different considerations than others? I honestly can't see what being inside of academia would give me right now. I will never bad mouth anyone. Now I do exclusively software engineering. It depends on his relationship to his colleagues and position within the department if he can make good of his threats. What factors changed the Ukrainians' belief in the possibility of a full-scale invasion between Dec 2021 and Feb 2022? These are all factors to consider. In principle, this is a great way to counterbalance weaknesses of individuals and ensure a high quality of supervision overall. Dont make things worse than they already are. Don't deny the suggestions in a disrespectful or unprofessional way. Even if it is, labs that do similar work tend to be in close proximity to one another maybe even on the same floor of the same building and are more likely to collaborate. These extreme cases damage careers, they damage lives. Well let you know what makes PhD candidates want to change advisors, what you should consider in the process, and whether it makes sense in your situation or not. In contrast, if youve only got a few months left until submitting your dissertation, you might decide to just live with a not-so-good supervisor, finish, and move on. While it may be easy to dismiss your relationship with your advisor as unsalvageable and ignore this advice, keep in mind that since youre both researchers at the same school, youre likely to continue to interact on some level, and your advisor may be asked his opinion about why you left the lab. If you are going through this, I am so, so sorry. Talk to Your Bad Academic Advisor. I'm generally a bit concerned about trying to strike the right balance between good curation and accessibility. That said, prestige can be a relevant consideration. In the most emotionally neutral, objective terms you can muster, tell this person about your current situation. Make sure your new adviser can support you. And agree this should be limited to early career (i.e., between getting a PhD and getting tenure). Am I being scammed after paying almost $10,000 to a tree company not being able to withdraw my profit without paying a fee, Applications of super-mathematics to non-super mathematics. In this case, the financing is independent from the supervisor. Insufficient encouragement and interest in the PhD candidates work are further factors (see also Helmholtz Juniors 2019, p. 22). But given how much faculty-member production differed between universities, they suspected that faculty positions weren't given out on merit alone. Changing PhD supervisor 18 months into 4 year PhD [closed]. rev2023.3.1.43269. In all the stories I read, there was a forest of unfortunate circumstances that brought people to change advisor. Besides, nobody trains committee Chairs to deal with bullies and ill-natured actions. If a supervisor engages in behaviour calls into question these commonly acknowledged practices, or violates them, this will negatively impact the PhD candidate, the quality of their research, and their relationship. Should these question closure instructions be included in this canonical question? Is there a more recent similar source? Not the answer you're looking for? Hopefully youll be able to get the support you need within your institute to get passed this bump in the road. Please make a tax-deductible gift today. I'm interested in another sub area of the same general field though. Multiple people I talked to were even harassed by their previous advisors, some were called names in collaboration emails, others found that their science results were in limbo and couldnt get published as their previous P.I.s made claims over their work even though they hadnt contributed. I am currently having my PhD in UK and on a scholarship. As a matter of format, I agree that it makes sense that a canonical question would aggregate common considerations in a few broad categories. How to know if somebody else is also working on your problem? Your tax-deductible contribution plays a critical role in sustaining this effort. Dericks and his colleagues homed in on the importance of adviser supportiveness by surveying 409 Ph.D. students85% of whom were in the sciences and engineeringat 63 universities in 20 countries. In some labs, graduate students are "treated like laborlike robots in a factoryrather than independent scientists," he says. I think you should speak to your advisor. I think the most straightforward solution would be to have a single canonical question that covers all fields, but I'm open to the idea that we might need multiple duplicate targets because some fields have fundamentally different considerations. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. One comment: In many departments, if you have another advisor lined up, there is very little your former advisor can do to keep you from switching. Suppose you have written part of a thesis(normally a PhD thesis in my field has 2-3 parts, each part may be different from the others). "They are just told to do some experiment and they have to stay in the lab day and night, 24/7." Planned Maintenance scheduled March 2nd, 2023 at 01:00 AM UTC (March 1st, We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup. This will be the beginning of a new phase in your grad school career, and the people skills youve learned will be useful wherever you go next. Prospective students will differ in their specific preferences, but overall, it's probably best to find a balance and avoid overly hands-on and overly hands-off advisers. Cag has a point that we get quite a few very general, reasonably low-quality questions in this genre for which general advice could be sufficient. Thanks for reply! But working with PhD candidates over the past 14 years, weve also encountered some for whom this is not the case. PhD candidates often wait too long before they initiate the process of changing supervisors. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. You would graduate later. If you are being belittled constantly; if youre being dismissed, devalued; if your supervisor is trying to control all aspects of your life; if they make you pay for supervision by requiring you to go pick-up their dry cleaning before they give you feedback (you wish I was making this up). Then of course you need to get out - but this is not easy. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. How to get the closed form solution from DSolve[]? Talk to previous students to learn about their teaching style. Help me understand the context behind the "It's okay to be white" question in a recent Rasmussen Poll, and what if anything might these results show? He maneuvers students and gives veiled threats if required. In an ideal world we'd have the canonical question. Likely depends whether you changed topics. If that is not possible, be prepared to transfer to a different graduate school. All rights reserved. Many Higher Education Institutions, funding agencies, or governmental bodies have developed codes of good scientific practice (see e.g. It only takes a minute to sign up. If you find yourself in this situation, take heart that youre not alone many, many students have switched labs, and done so successfully. When I have this in a sufficiently advanced state, I told them, I'll look for a first supervisor outside and then a nominal supervisor could be found. Academia Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for academics and those enrolled in higher education. That might be administratively simpler than finding a new supervisor. Therefore I conclude it is possible to make agreements. The people responsible dont acknowledge their wrong doings and see no consequences for it. No. Youll stay up-to-date with our podcasts, webinars, workshops, downloadables, and more, delivered to your inbox every fortnight. New advisors are usually more hands-on than those who have been around longer, so you may want to factor that into your decision. How much does the problem with your supervisor affect your ability to work, and your potential to do excellent research? By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. The following are the reasons: I am forced to work in a very specific area and there is almost no room for creativity. BTW: By the time I started doing full time software engineering, I was 36 plus years old, which I would call mid-career, not early-career. Strange behavior of tikz-cd with remember picture. The number of distinct words in a sentence. Do you want an advisor who will spend a lot of time guiding you through your project, or would you prefer one who will mostly leave you alone? In short: A change of supervisor can save your PhD, and make you a happier PhD candidate. At what point of what we watch as the MCU movies the branching started? Some only speak up about a problem when they literally cant take it any more and are desperate. But it's possible that we need several different questions: intra-field, STEM to STEM, STEM to humanities, humanities to humanities, etc. mention that you can add or exchange members of your thesis advisory committee at any point in time during your PhD. Below, weve listed some illustrative examples which highlight typical reasons you may want to replace your supervisor. They could also be happy to admit you if you have taken it already at your current school. Like in the above example, many PhD candidates are afraid of the conflict that will occur once they speak up, and the damage this might do to the reputation of their supervisor. You should also try to think about options, preferably some area where you can still use some of the knowledge you have already acquired. I have no doubt that this post will almost instantly be marked as "off-topic" - however I really think that it is difficult to obtain the opinions of professional mathematicians on other forums whereas (quite often) they respond to questions of this type on this site. Does that justify some committees leaving their students to their own devices and not supporting them during this transition? These will normally include meeting to discuss your work, reading drafts and being available to respond emails and other forms of contact within a reasonable timeframe. In these cases, when students had made substantial process, their prior work was included in their thesis when they moved to a new advisor within the same program. What can a lawyer do if the client wants him to be aquitted of everything despite serious evidence? According to the researchers' findings, switching from an adviser who was strongly unsupportive to one that was highly supportive would be expected to increase the Ph.D. satisfaction score . Also, there are still PhD candidates who pursue individual projects and have only a single supervisor, which increases the dependency on that one person. It's also important to figure out whether your working style is compatible with your prospective adviser's style, says Anna Sverdlik, a psychology postdoc at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada, who studies conditions that promote the success and well-being of Ph.D. students, and co-authored a review article on the topic published in September 2018. If I do work with another supervisor at this stage, what could be the challenges? Ackermann Function without Recursion or Stack. When looking for an adviser, prospective students often seek out well-known researchers who are highly cited and respected in their fields. 1) When choosing advisor When you apply for your project, make sure you enquire about your prospective advisor. Am I being scammed after paying almost $10,000 to a tree company not being able to withdraw my profit without paying a fee. Your interests may change (the most reasonable explanation), you may not be able to develop good rapport with your advisor, your advisor may be on leave, a new person may have joined the Department whose interests are closer to yours. You should choose your future adviser from the faculty he cannot influence. I cannot express how grateful I am for your trust, and I command you on the courage it took to open up about these, sometimes traumatic, experiences. Update: A candidate for this canonical question now exists here. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. Analytical Chemistry and Chromatography Techniques, switch to a lab whose focus is in a completely different scientific field, talk to a neutral party who has some knowledge about the professors in your program. Adviser supportivenesswhether an adviser was caring, considerate, encouraging, and sympatheticwas the most important factor for student satisfaction. I dont want to scare you, but if you are a similar situation you have to be prepared. It's critical to find "someone you can relate to, who is going to be supportive in a personal way," Dericks says. For a few years, I did real-time embedded audio programming, which sort of double-counted as EE and software engineering. You may see it as not wrong, but I reiterate to you that it seems quite rude to me. Applications of super-mathematics to non-super mathematics. Take note of the topics you should follow up on, and their . This can happen if a PhD advisor was originally allocated for administrative reasons (rather than scientific expertise) or if the PhD students project develops in a different direction over time. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. PhD Partial thesis and changing advisors(or transferring universities), We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup. Harassment, discrimination, or abuse, even in milder forms, constitute a breach of good scientific practice. I will finish the project I started, but I won't continue after that in this area. If we've learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic, it's that we cannot wait for a crisis to respond. (1) This is a fair observation. But I wish to explore my ideas too. I think this is a fair canonical question but a bit fraught. It would be a good idea to take a vacation before. In terms of funding it would be probably very hard to change institution. Good supervision is extremely important, so overcoming some obstacles in order to replace a less than good supervisor can be absolutely worthwhile! rev2023.3.1.43269. The most you should say about your adviser is that your working styles clash, and you would need a little more freedom to chose methods and explore your own ideas. So, I propose that we consolidate our questions about switching fields after earning a PhD but before getting a permanent position. Is email scraping still a thing for spammers. (about changing fields post-PhD) that we would want to preserve / curate / generate / leave . Or you need a lot of freedom to pursue your own ideas, but you have a supervisor who is a micromanager, and wants to be involved in every single step you take, leading to endless discussions and delay in your PhD process. Depending on the college, you might be . ", Sverdlik adds that it's best to find an adviser who is willing to devote time to nurturing your development during critical phases of graduate schoolduring the transition from coursework to research, for instanceand who otherwise will give you room to grow on your own. Maybe they were made fun of in school for being nerds. Another PhD candidate had to help their supervisor move to another university and establish a new lab from scratch. Strict hierarchical settings and tough competition may exacerbate bullying behaviour or abuse of power (see Max Planck PhDnet, 2018). As long as a canonical question handles those without the community becoming overzealous on closing unhandled questions, the canonical question seems like a decent cost/benefit tradeoff. In another case, the science just didnt work out early in the program. And while those are important characteristics to consider in a future advisors work style, youll want to be a bit more specific. Adviser supportivenesswhether an adviser was caring, considerate, encouraging, and sympatheticwas the most important factor for student satisfaction. Advising offices have different processes for changing advisors. Please enter your email address. You will need to change your committee (and your advisor) in GradPlan if you have an accepted program plan.

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