I think this is a much, much larger undertaking than just having a few broad subcategories in the canonical question. Most of these are duplicates except for the fields in question. This kind of emotional statement can lead to future altercations with your advisor that can ultimately deteriorate any semblance of a relationship you have left. @Damodar You don't need to bad mouth him. Are there conventions to indicate a new item in a list? Help News from Science publish trustworthy, high-impact stories about research and the people who shape it. How this would apply to various other people would be dependent on their interests, but it shows that it can be done, and to that extent, is a 'positive story'. We'll 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. 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. Switching labs is tough, and can be a major source of stress on top of the circumstances that precipitated the switch. I now for the wisdom: it really doesn't matter. But I wish to explore my ideas too. My supervisor just does not care about what I need anyways! Ackermann Function without Recursion or Stack. Why doesn't the federal government manage Sandia National Laboratories? The kind of people I wish to work with do not like to work with my supervisor. (Also, there is a reason your advisor is called an advisor.) These question askers are the people whose advice you might value. on-topic at Academia.SE? Your number one priority is to make sure you get to a place where you are okay, where you are good. There are plenty of reasons why a PhD student wants or has to exchange an advisor. I struggled in the first year of a PhD in computer science but I succeeded at the end and gained a scholarship. Do EMC test houses typically accept copper foil in EUT? Also Helfer et al. Shibayama recommends that prospective Ph.D. students look for advisers who let their students play a role in study design. He maneuvers students and gives veiled threats if required. There could be some useful specific answer depending on the question that goes beyond general advice. as in example? 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. Don't deny the suggestions in a disrespectful or unprofessional way. These extreme cases damage careers, they damage lives. Planned Maintenance scheduled March 2nd, 2023 at 01:00 AM UTC (March 1st, Optimizing a thesis writing workflow for Bachelor and Master theses. Some have tried to intimidate students by telling them lies, e.g. There are fundamental character traits or ways to work that do not match well, and are a reason for perpetual annoyance often on both sides. Sometimes things dont just go wrong, they go bat-shit insane. The United States, Australia, and countries in Europe yielded the most survey responses. A high percentage of PhD students today are enrolled in structured PhD programmes where supervisory committees consisting of 3 or more supervisors are mandatory. "A bad or even just mediocre adviser can make your time as a doctoral student miserable or simply not pleasant, which could undermine the excitement that got you interested in research to begin with," Clauset notes. rev2023.3.1.43269. A stroke of bad luck in your life or that of your P.I., a failure of the system, a lack of management Lets be honest, it sucks. The role of my primary supervisor has been substantially reduced. To figure out what a professor's approach to advising is, Sverdlik encourages students to ask a lot of questions of prospective advisers and their advisees when they're interviewing. Would it be possible for you to select another (additional) supervisor as primary supervisor? My main supervisor only accepts those ppl under his wing who are yes men. But as it is, we are not generating those types of answers; we provide only the same general advice over and over (is my impression, at least). Supervisors may also be relieved that they can end a supervisory relationship with a PhD candidate they knew was unhappy with their guidance, and are glad that a colleague will take over. So be nice. Can non-Muslims ride the Haramain high-speed train in Saudi Arabia? Adviser supportivenesswhether an adviser was caring, considerate, encouraging, and sympatheticwas the most important factor for student satisfaction. But working with PhD candidates over the past 14 years, weve also encountered some for whom this is not the case. (If not, should we have one?). But on paper, I am progressing well because my supervisor had his way with me. So my two other supervisors are yes men and working under him to further their careers. Then talking to the other one. 9. Are you uncertain whether it is even possible to replace your supervisor and if so, how to kick-off the process? Earning a Ph.D. takes years and poses many challenges, so it's important to choose the person who will shepherd you through the processyour Ph.D. adviserwisely. They are in a situation where they experience problems with one or several of their supervisors. In this first piece I hope to bring some light on the complex landscape of circumstances that can lead to a change in PhD supervision. If that supervisor fails to give good supervision, the PhD student flounders, and may be left with virtually no support. Should we have a canonical question about the relation (or lack thereof) between plagiarism and paraphrasing? Not the answer you're looking for? Multiple people reported having P.I.s who were very hostile to the idea of the student seeking help from other academics or making the project their own. by answers? Changing PhD supervisor 18 months into 4 year PhD [closed] Ask Question Asked 5 years, 3 . (2019), cite it as one point of dissatisfaction with supervisors. It's completely normal to have doubts and frustrations during your PhD (and the timing seems about on schedule for it, as well), but this is a strong emotional response that you should take seriously and seek help dealing with. You should also avoid spreading news of your decision to leave its better if your advisor hears about it directly from you rather than through the grapevine. @AtomJZ I think I disagree somewhat. That can surely be sorted out, but it might need a bit more discussion to come to a mutually beneficial solution. And if he's unhappy with you, he may not even want to stop you. 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. She may even help you mediate your switch by asking professors whether theyre willing to take you on. See also Natures 2019 PhD survey. Dot product of vector with camera's local positive x-axis? even helped the student find a new advisor! Is that an excuse for departments to sweep things under the rug? My suggestion: Yes, but with some type of PSA in the question regarding how to use it as a duplicate target. 1. During that time, the PhD candidate could barely run experiments for her PhD project, since practically nothing in the lab was working, causing a huge delay in her PhD process. Would you be significantly better-off with another person? Insufficient encouragement and interest in the PhD candidates work are further factors (see also Helmholtz Juniors 2019, p. 22). In all the stories I read, there was a forest of unfortunate circumstances that brought people to change advisor. If I answer them all, then I am told that until someone else with reputation does it, I should not try it as I do not have a proven track record. Other students can also be valuable resources, since they work more closely with professors and likely know information your program director doesnt. Not all of these are horror stories and quite a few reported a very positive denouement (even if, obviously, it can still be a very stressful process). Strange behavior of tikz-cd with remember picture. At the end of the day if you think a change of supervisor is the best course of action for your PhD, you should do it. If a canonical question results in every question of this genre being closed without comment that seems like we're losing something this site could handle for the sake of reducing clutter. Just tell them things aren't working out in your group for you. So, a prestigious academic pedigree may help you get where you want to go after graduation. If a law is new but its interpretation is vague, can the courts directly ask the drafters the intent and official interpretation of their law? I personally got a PhD in Electrical Engineering, specifically DSP. At what point of what we watch as the MCU movies the branching started? "Students have to find someone who goes beyond their own interest," he says. Note. How to: Change of research field after thesis. It usually requires that you follow departmental procedures. 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? (1) This is a fair observation. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. This was all somewhat hypothetical but there was a problem with this plan anyway: software takes a long time to write! Either way, it's best not to have an overly hands-on adviser because that can handicap your future career, says Sotaro Shibayama, an economist and senior lecturer at Lund University in Sweden and the author of a new study of how advising style influences Ph.D. students' long-term success, published in this month's issue of Research Policy. Subsequent to this they have also agreed, at least in principle, to let me take my PhD to the mathematics department, and possibly my scholarship with it. Less of an income, probably. I see that the question has been created and tagged with a new tag. So like Andy Putman suggested you need to talk to your supervisor. I will never bad mouth anyone. In my experience, she is not of the understanding or empathetic kind, but rather resentful. This argument can certainly be made for physics and mathematics, where changing subfield can feel like trying to move a mountain. I myself have occasionally fallen into reflexively flagging to close a question that is "close enough" to a canonical duplicate. Update: A candidate for this canonical question now exists here. If you need to switch to a very different field, you should expect another 2-3 years as a beginner. I'm interested in another sub area of the same general field though. 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. But given how much faculty-member production differed between universities, they suspected that faculty positions weren't given out on merit alone. The road ahead may be long, and your journey will be unique, but you are not alone. Ask the P.I. The researchersled by Aaron Clauset, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Colorado in Boulderdidn't have any data on the quality of scholars who were awarded faculty positions. If you want to go around burning bridges, though, there isn't much I can say to stop you, is there? PhD candidates who went through an exchange of supervisors often tell us later how relieved they were, how much more positive they experienced their PhD life to be, and that it gave a big boost to their motivation to complete their project. "They are just told to do some experiment and they have to stay in the lab day and night, 24/7." If I recall, Timothy Gowers wrote a year or so ago that mathematics is a calling. By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Much as you may want to yell your decision over the rooftops, announcing that youre leaving while in a heated argument with your advisor isnt going to make your transition any easier. Please enter your email address. Do any fields have fundamentally different considerations than others? Yeah, I would agree with @AtomJZ's concern if we could point to (m)any examples of high-quality answers from the last 10 years that specifically address the nuances of the field pairing in question. How is it handled if you change advisors? Does this require a replacement of your main supervisor? I have seen a lot of people switching advisers during my PhD. I do not recommend the Internet over talking to people over concerns such as yours, but if you do twenty minutes of good web searching, I imagine a question very much like yours has been asked in different fora at least ten times before. This is not because I am "stuck" - I am not really at a point where I have been able to engage enough with the work to even become stuck. Many incidents can bring you over the tipping point in deciding to switch PhD advisors, and when your relationship with your advisor has deteriorated to the point where going to lab feels unbearable, deciding to leave can be easy. is there a chinese version of ex. In an ideal world we'd have the canonical question. If you don't, talk to their students and postdocs before switching. Strange behavior of tikz-cd with remember picture. 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. My major concern about whether this is advisable is more about how our community will make use of the duplicate target. Was Galileo expecting to see so many stars. Because we know that problems with a supervisor are tricky to handle for PhD candidates, we want to give L., and everyone else who is in a similar situation, our advice. Be calm and respectful, but be honest about the reasons youre leaving. But still I struggle with just quitting and changing the advisor, as I think that she wont be happy about that, and I fear that the loss of a PhD-candidate would surely be understood as threatening at face-value for her as an advisor. Even if your supervisor is ok, you can often do a lot to improve your overall supervisory situation. Determine if your stipend or salary will change at the new institution. Stack Exchange network consists of 181 Q&A communities including Stack . Heres how we adjusted, How to get what you need from your Ph.D. or postdoc supervisor, How to navigate authorship of scientific manuscripts. PhD candidates often wait too long before they initiate the process of changing supervisors. For a few years, I did real-time embedded audio programming, which sort of double-counted as EE and software engineering. Is email scraping still a thing for spammers. Practical aspects -- how to change subfields between PhD and postdoc? If your relationship with your supervisor is good and if (s)he is not too super-specialized in one sub-area, you might be able to just move to a different sub-area while continuing to work with the same supervisor.
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