Is my PhD supervisor taking the ****?
- Thread starter OpenToSuggestions
- Start date
you were a soft touch then. I didn't ever do anything for my supervisor, and I don't know anyone in the dept. that was a supervisors lackey.
Associate
Come on, in the nicest possible way this is a ridiculous attitude. It basically says I have zero team working skills. No he shouldn’t let himself be used by his supervisor and should try not to get side tracked with silly jobs i.e. ordering coffee machines. But working with your supervisor and playing off each other skills (and everyone else’s in the research group) is how the best research is done. Put it this way, would you say that in your next job interview, be it academic or private?
Soldato
Who was based in the open office - just students or admin/other staff as well? I ask as the labs where I have a desk is also open-plan, but it works very well and is usually very quiet. The desks are for MPhil's, PhD's, postdocs and some undergrads doing project work, with the research staff and Prof's in rooms located around the edges of the open office.
No, I got a PhD. You must refer to me as Dr.
Heck, some people pay $50,000 a year to do a PhD!
If I didn't do any of those extra activities I would have been fired pretty quick, and I would have also missed out on the most important skills learnt during my PhD.
I don't think you understand what it means to do a PhD. What do you think of people paying to get an undergrad degree?
And I never said I didn't get paid. I did get paid a fairly generous stipend. But that is irrelevant to the discussion.
You don't do a PhD to get rich quick.
Soldato
It's not about being a soft touch... It's about working in your own research team for the benefit of the group. Maybe coffee machines isn't the best example but form what you have both described it would seem you wouldn't be willing to help with topic related things either?
What's with that
very strange attitude if you ask me... MPhil/PhD students with Postdocs, Admin, Researchers in offices to the side. Doesn't work in this instance and everyone know (bar the PhD students) know it, hence why I moved. I now have an office to myself effectively as the other couple of people are writing up and are never in... Lush
Soldato
And if you spend more of your time whinging on OcUK than you do order a bloody coffee machine, something is seriously wrong!!!
Jesus man, 3 hours to buy a coffee machine? Are you kidding? No wonder he's given the job to you, it gets you out of the way so the rest of them can get some work done
ITT: Warped perceptions of the world.
There's a difference between helping out, and essentially doing tens of hours tedious labour per week because a supervisor is too busy / can't be bothered.
Obviously it's hard to say no, but some academics will just use you as a dogsbody/P.A./whatever, when your primary focus should be your actual research.
Obviously it's hard to say no, but some academics will just use you as a dogsbody/P.A./whatever, when your primary focus should be your actual research.
Soldato
Ordering a webcam?
Buying a coffee machine?
This is tens of hours of tedious labour? REALLY?
Buying a coffee machine?
This is tens of hours of tedious labour? REALLY?
![[FnG]magnolia](/styles/overclockers/avatars/9.png){kind=avatar}
Caporegime
OP doesn't appear to be very open to suggestions.
*shrug*
That's all I've got, sorry
*shrug*
That's all I've got, sorry
Associate
There is a danger of this happening, but that depends on your supervisor. From the OP, a few hours a week on lab/research area management isn't over the top. However, this should be on a rota system and you can't expect your supervisor to do it. The thing to avoid is marking as that is time consuming. That said, a little is a good learning experience and assuming your supervisor is fair, your contribution will be made know to the wider management which is useful if you wish to go for fellowships etc. Its very easy to be an unknown face in a department as a PhD student.
Nor did I suggest such, but what you were describing was doing a full time job outside the phd. Most people don't do £100k free work on top of their phd going by this thread. While titles are a nice novelty, I could buy a knighthood for that much money.
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Yes. He didn't ask for anything, except for maybe the odd academic paper printed out (which was useful for me as well).
Since you said 'totally unrelated to their work' I don't see how you can extract any information about what I would do topic-related wise.
Unless by topic-related you mean not related to the topic of my phd, but related to someone else's work. In which case, no, I wont do someone else's work for them!
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I do a few hours of paid teaching a week, the odd hour of marking, and do my own work on something like a 9-5 Monday-Friday basis with the odd weekend and late night when I have a talk or report to write. Seems like you have it bad.
Who said I did the work for free? I got paid a stipend to do my PhD which includes doing additional work for the good of the lab. A PhD is not a private thing, you learn to become a researcher and academic in part of a team where we are all expected to help each other. That may mean proof reading a colleges paper, reviewing a paper they were supposed to if you are more suitable or have ore time, assisting in setting up a conference or workshop at a conference, inviting key speakers for seminars, brainstorming, sharing expertise like statistical techniques or programming skills, etc. etc, or it may mean fixing the printer, buying new projectors, setting up office furniture, installing a backup server or SVN/GIT repository, buying new computer hardware for the lab, buying a coffee machine... or it may be teaching some lectures for the Prof who was away, marking students course work, supervising student projects, trying to get school children excited by science, technology, computer science and robotics
And then there is the really useful stuff, such as helping write a patent for your prof, helping write a funding proposal requesting 10s of millions of dollars, explaining to an EU review commission how your project is millions of euros over budget and years behind schedule, dealing with the world press such as explaining your work to the BBC, New Scientist, Discovery channel and being filmed for such organizations, showing politicians and heads of state around the lab and giving demonstrations to show the value of investing in science, organizing a team of 30-40 people spread over 5 labs in 4 different countries speaking 3 different languages, doing accounting for a project of 10 million euros.
The latter comprises some very useful skills with far reaching benefits whether one continues in academia or works in industry. What i am working on now within industry will be patented and thanks to the extra curricular activities of m PhD I know how to write a patent. We are also applying for venture capital funding, guess what, I have experience because I did that work during my PhD!
The actual thesis writing and research that goes into that is not that important overall. before one even start a PhD they should have a solid ability to conduct scientific research to a level suitable for publication (that is what it means to get an A grade in an undergraduate final year project). Nothing that goes into a thesis is anything you couldn't have done before, it is just larger in scope and deeper in content, without a supervisor holding your hand.
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