Is my PhD supervisor taking the ****?
- Thread starter OpenToSuggestions
- Start date
When I did my PhD my working hours were 8am-10pm with lunch had at the desk while continuing working, plus at least a few hours each day of the weekend. Don't expect a PhD to be an easy ride - my was extraordinarily hard work and it didn't help most of my (non-academic) friends thought I was doing bugger all and swanning off for foreign trips four or five times a year (to work or conference).
As for being a dogsbody, unfortunately thats what a first year PhD is like, try to make sure that you tell him you will do it until the end of the year when you really have to put the research first. I concur with the comment about demonstrating, it really is an excellent skill to have - bulks up your CV nicely, plus (in my case) got me away from the computer during the day.
As for not working for him, thats a bit of a tricky one. I would considered (especially at the beginning of the project) that you would be working for him, as it will be his research project which was proposed and which you are working on. Later on as the project evolves you will find that more and more of the project really does belong to you, and you will start suggesting directions for it to go.
Talk to your supervisor now in a off the cuff manner explaining how you feel, and how this additional work is affecting the quality of your research BUT keep him onside - you don't want a strained relationship for the whole three (or four years). Oh and also make sure to save some of your stipend as DO expect to be working on your thesis with no stipend in the fourth year - it is extremely rare to finish in three years - most of my best work was done in the third/fourth year.
As for being a dogsbody, unfortunately thats what a first year PhD is like, try to make sure that you tell him you will do it until the end of the year when you really have to put the research first. I concur with the comment about demonstrating, it really is an excellent skill to have - bulks up your CV nicely, plus (in my case) got me away from the computer during the day.
As for not working for him, thats a bit of a tricky one. I would considered (especially at the beginning of the project) that you would be working for him, as it will be his research project which was proposed and which you are working on. Later on as the project evolves you will find that more and more of the project really does belong to you, and you will start suggesting directions for it to go.
Talk to your supervisor now in a off the cuff manner explaining how you feel, and how this additional work is affecting the quality of your research BUT keep him onside - you don't want a strained relationship for the whole three (or four years). Oh and also make sure to save some of your stipend as DO expect to be working on your thesis with no stipend in the fourth year - it is extremely rare to finish in three years - most of my best work was done in the third/fourth year.
Sounds like I've got a good deal.
I can work whenever I want, take holiday whenever I want (with no limit on the total days taken) and I take care of my own budget / ordering. My supervisors' secretary handles all communal ordering, services and repair work / technicians. Teaching is optional if I want a bit of extra cash, but at £20 an hour I'm not going to say no.
Admittedly some weeks I work 60+ hours carrying out the experiments I've planned, but it balances out with the other weeks where I go in to do some reading for a couple of hours when I'm waiting for my cells to grow.
I'm transferring on Thursday, so I expect the workload to increase as there's nothing until my final viva!
I can work whenever I want, take holiday whenever I want (with no limit on the total days taken) and I take care of my own budget / ordering. My supervisors' secretary handles all communal ordering, services and repair work / technicians. Teaching is optional if I want a bit of extra cash, but at £20 an hour I'm not going to say no.
Admittedly some weeks I work 60+ hours carrying out the experiments I've planned, but it balances out with the other weeks where I go in to do some reading for a couple of hours when I'm waiting for my cells to grow.
I'm transferring on Thursday, so I expect the workload to increase as there's nothing until my final viva!
Soldato
It's good and bad. I spend a lot of time at home (well, college!) as it's comfortable and it's smack bang in between the two departments in which I have an office. It's more difficult to work at home where you have distractions, but that's countered by having things like food, drink and friends around. I think it's good to meet supervisors regularly though; I meet one of mine every week and the other once a fortnight or so. It's good to check that you're on the right path and it's good to know that what you're doing isn't completely wrong
A friend who sits on the opposite side of my bench goes to the abbatoir once every month or two. She waits at the conveyor belt where the intestines come out, and she squeezes all the crap (literally) out of them, and then hokes through that for parasitic worms, whilst getting spattered with miscellaneous pig fluids (blood, crap, etc.). She then comes back to the lab and tears her hair out trying to extract DNA from the samples.
Your girlfriend is lucky beyond words.
be **** at it?
Pay hugely over the odds for barely sufficient equipment or just buy from the worst rated retailers you can find on-line?
Choose Saturday delivery for every item when you know nobody will be in and have multiple re deliveries?
Continue till he stops asking you to do stuff
Pay hugely over the odds for barely sufficient equipment or just buy from the worst rated retailers you can find on-line?
Choose Saturday delivery for every item when you know nobody will be in and have multiple re deliveries?
Continue till he stops asking you to do stuff
The teaching would have been paid for the one he refused to let me do. The one for him would be unpaid.
The purchasing takes more time and is not paid.
He expects me in the office 9-5 but it is full of distractions as it is mainly post-doc researchers in there. I will work evenings once or twice a week, plus I am a first year PhD and I realise the workload increases massively very soon. People who are further than me into a PhD (some have recently finished) tell me that the first year can be kept mostly 9-5 hours.
Thanks for the replies so far guys
. It would be interesting to know what each of you do for a living as I am getting plenty of different opinions.
The teaching would have been paid for the one he refused to let me do. The one for him would be unpaid.
The purchasing takes more time and is not paid.
He expects me in the office 9-5 but it is full of distractions as it is mainly post-doc researchers in there. I will work evenings once or twice a week, plus I am a first year PhD and I realise the workload increases massively very soon. People who are further than me into a PhD (some have recently finished) tell me that the first year can be kept mostly 9-5 hours.
Thanks for the replies so far guys
boo-hoo
I was required to be in the office 9am-6pm monday-friday. Actual hours were 7/8am-10-11pm monday-friday with 8am-6pm saturday & sunday. The last 18 months or so I barely had a single day off work, no vacation, no weekend, no time for a sick day.
Working into the small hours was a regular occurrence. 16 hour work days common place.
You ARE a slave to your prof. That is how it works. That is what it means to do a PhD. We have all been there before. A PHD is one of the hardest things you can do in life, it is not a 9-5 job.
I know full well that a PhD requires a lot of time and effort but the hours that you put in sound completely over the top!
Working long hours for your PhD and working extra hours peeing around with stuff that has nothing to do with my PhD are two very different things. I do not mind putting in extra time for MY work.
The Prof got the funding for the project and gave you a position in the lab and accepted to supervise you. You are in turn expected to do work for him. Evenings and weekends are when you can catch up on research.
A PHD is so much more than simply doing the research and reporting it.
Sounds like you were a free secretery to your supervisor!
A PhD is to do some unique research, not to do the extra work your supervisor cannot be bothered to do.
I am graduate school funded, my supervisor does not pay me anything. My department doesn't even pay me anything.
Those extra work activities are a requirement to get a PhD, that is what it is all about. Probably only about 40% of my hours were on anything related to my thesis.
I've known people to spend 6 months full time (60 hour weeks) working on a project for their professor on entirely unrelated to their work which didn't get a single word in their thesis.
If less than half of your time was spent on your thesis then you were doing something seriously wrong!
I was just thinking something similar. Granted, I do the odd bit of dogsbody stuff for my supervisors, but 95%+ of my time is working on my research.
We get pulled up very quickly if we aren't putting that kind of time into our thesis work.
Every PHD student in the university did the same hours and same work.
It does not really matter where the funding comes from. A PHD is much much more than writing a thesis (which is usually hacked together in a couple at the end tying up loose ends from your published articles).
No, I was doing a PHD where there are obligations to do alternative work.
As has been suggested, how much work you have to do for your PhD depends very much on what you're doing, where you are and how much talent you have.
Of all the PhD students I was friendly with, I'm struggling to think of a single one who needed to do more than 9-5 (or more realistically 10-4) until they started writing up. And even then, a lot of the work was done in a very laid back fashion!
Of all the PhD students I was friendly with, I'm struggling to think of a single one who needed to do more than 9-5 (or more realistically 10-4) until they started writing up. And even then, a lot of the work was done in a very laid back fashion!