During the past week, I have listened to PhD students in my cohort, talking about their supervisors in a manner that I do not think they would use had their supervisor been present. There are many stories from both supervisors and students, were each side was recalling a situation when the other party was highly offensive both in behavior and written and spoken words. This blog is not about that, it is about having a decent relationship with your supervisor.
My supervisors
I am in a very fortunate position to have two supervisors who are great people and are very well known and regarded within their fields. They are active in progressing my career, getting me to conferences and helping me in publishing articles within journals. I understand this is not the standard for everyone PhD student, but I believe that this is due to several factors.
I am enthusiastic about my subject which, although in law, covers other fields such as economics, business and finance. My supervisors recognize this and are very supportive and proactive in guiding me through every stage. They pay close attention to my reading, writing and the direction I am heading in, which is beneficial in so many ways.
My supervisors and I will hopefully have a positive relationship for years to come. When I think about it, they might be my referees for the next couple of decades. This means that our interactions are always respectful and calm. To maintain this discourse, I have some obligations to fulfil, such as showing I have read enough of the material to understand the depth and knowledge required of my subject.
These are some of the requirements that I have to maintain the relationship with my supervisors, but this is a two-lane highway, and it is useful to consider this relationship from the supervisor’s perspective.
Supervisors and the University System
Supervisors work in the academic system even though they know it is broken. They are continually battling the system, as they struggle to cope with their other responsibilities. In some respects, they have a thankless job. They need to seek out grants at every opportunity. To progress in their career, they volunteer for all sorts of activities and international collaborative projects.
Some supervisors in certain fields, need the PhD students more than the students need them. The supervisors need the students in their labs, putting the hours in and doing the research. The supervisors are under pressure to apply for grants, to keep bringing the money in, to increase the ratings of the university and to deal with all the politics that occurs in a university. Some supervisors can be frustrated with this system, some scared, but very few of them love this broken system.
When your relationship has issues
There are countless stories surrounding the power imbalance between the supervisor and the student. I do not want to write about horror stories that I have heard about how bad a supervisor is for two reasons. First, there are at least two sides to every story. Secondly, I was not present when these situations occurred, so I cannot comment.
What should you do when there are issues between you and your supervisor? I am assuming that you did what I did before I submitted my proposal. I investigated my supervisor thoroughly, I spoke to former pupils, I read their thesis and asked about them in academic and industry circles. In the first meeting between us, we both laid out what our expectations were. I made it very clear that I am not there to be unpaid labour for my supervisor, and they made it very clear what their expectations were of me.
I have a very good relationship with both of my supervisors, but if I did not, I would raise the issues and be calm and respectful. Please remember that your supervisors are human beings. They have families, relationships, they have days when they do not feel great etc. There will be days when they will protect you from the various imbeciles in the administration of the university.
If you disagree with a direction they believe you should go in, remember it is your thesis. But if they are an experienced and respected supervisor, it may be advisable to listen to them. You do not have to argue with them but establish your own thoughts and priorities. You may not convince your supervisor. Do not try to. They already have a PhD, and they may be supervising 10 other pupils, so arguing with you is not on their to do list.
If feedback, either positive or negative is something you require, then I suggest supplying your supervisor with constant small pieces of writing. Assuming this was discussed, in your initial meeting it may be beneficial in the early months of your PhD. If you give yourself a daily word count and submit regularly to your supervisor, it will benefit your relationship in several ways.
It will develop your relationship and provide you with regular feedback. It will keep you engaged with the material and show that you are engaged. What is more, it will show the supervisor that you are not expecting them to do more work than you are doing. Another great benefit is that it improves your writing. Your writing will become more refined and better the more you practice.
Why does the relationship breakdown?
I have heard about supervisors taking months to reply to emails from their students. Whilst this is evidently wrong on their part, I want to list some scenarios which may prove to be reasons why a supervisor has given up on a student.
Supervisors are incredibly busy individuals. They prepare for and deliver lectures, they mark papers and exams, they have to partake in the administration of the faculty, they are reading, doing research and supervise PhD students. If you miss a deadline, then this can cause headaches for a supervisor who may have to shuffle their calendar around to accommodate you or work late or at the weekend to review your work. Just be conscious of the timing involved.
What if there is a student that has not been active for a couple of years? The supervisor has reached out to them and received nothing back and now, as the end of the PhD is approaching begins to demand attention from the supervisor. This is not a very respectful demand of the supervisor’s time.
As the end of the PhD approaches, a supervisor might say to the student, ‘look, if you do not change this and that, you will fail. I have been telling you this for years’. It is your responsibility for your thesis but remember, your supervisor may be advising you from a position of great experience. If you keep ignoring this advice, this may begin to deteriorate the relationship.
If you present your supervisor with huge pieces of work for review and you are doing the minimum of hours, are you somewhat guilty of expecting the supervisor to work harder than you? What if you hand it in on a Friday afternoon before the deadline the following week, or just before the end of term? Are you expecting the supervisor to work weekends or over holidays whilst you are not?
There are times when a student will make claims over the originality or the significance of their thesis. The supervisor may advise that these claims are not substantiated or that extra work must be done to reinforce these claims. Similar issues occur when a student does not understand the genre of the thesis or the does not display the depth of knowledge of the topic.
This is your thesis, but you as a PhD student also have a responsibility to work in unison with your PhD supervisor to establish boundaries and expectations, to align what you wish to get from this PhD and to do the required reading and writing and to present it in a format that considers the schedule of the supervisor.
If you do these things, I believe that your relationship with your supervisor will be a long lasting and fruitful one that will benefit you both for years to come.