A reasonable PhD advisor wants their students to enjoy the subfield they are working in and will be happy to either suggest alternate directions or arrange a change of advisor if necessary. A lack of supervision includes insufficient guidance and support and irregular interaction or feedback on the progress of a PhD project. They can't go back in time to get revenge on the people who picked on them. When his students come to him looking for advice about who they should work with next, he tells them not to weigh prestige too heavily. Learn how your comment data is processed. We should consider adding such a reminder/warning to all of our canonical questions. You are e.g. How to know if somebody else is also working on your problem? 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. But the latest research on the topic points to things to look for when making a decision, as well as pitfalls to avoid. Remember, her only interactions with your advisor mightve been occasional polite small talk, and if you start off with an angry rant about how much of a jerk your advisor is, the person who might come across as a jerk is you. Physics PhD switching fields after short career break? Shibayama recommends that prospective Ph.D. students look for advisers who let their students play a role in study design. If so, please leave a comment on this answer explaining which field needs handled separately and why it has different considerations. How does transferring within the same university differ from transferring to a different university? Most of these are duplicates except for the fields in question. How do I fit an e-hub motor axle that is too big? There are plenty of reasons why a PhD student wants or has to exchange an advisor. Otherwise, my assumption is that it's possible to write one answer that addresses most/all possible switches (the advice for intra-field switches vs. switching to a remote field might be different, but we can address both in one post). Once youve begun taking steps to find a new advisor, break the news to your current advisor. In some labs, graduate students are "treated like laborlike robots in a factoryrather than independent scientists," he says. I wish you the best of luck and hope that you dont fall into the next category. Be honest with them and don't worry if they may end up not taking you. He told me about other students facing similar issues and offered me to help. "It's far more important to have an adviser who supports your career goals and development, and who has your interests at heart, than it is to have a degree from an elite program.". Strict hierarchical settings and tough competition may exacerbate bullying behaviour or abuse of power (see Max Planck PhDnet, 2018). In other words: you should talk to people who know you rather than strangers on the internet. 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? Switching fields in a postdoc after PhD, is that possible in psychology? 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. This argument can certainly be made for physics and mathematics, where changing subfield can feel like trying to move a mountain. You got more freedom, I read. In another, where a supervisor went as far as threatening the student with sending defamatory letters to their potential new supervisor (amongst other things), that same student heard their Chair refer to the situation as bad chemistry. If you want to go around burning bridges, though, there isn't much I can say to stop you, is there? Should we have a canonical question for "should I quit my PhD"? If that supervisor fails to give good supervision, the PhD student flounders, and may be left with virtually no support. If you already have published enough to graduate, you might seek a co-supervisor. Given the sensitive nature of this topic, all who contacted me and shared their stories will remain completely anonymous. Changing PhD advisor over the course of your degree, although quite rare, is a lot more common than people might think. If you don't, talk to their students and postdocs before switching. Practical aspects -- how to change subfields between PhD and postdoc? 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? What's the difference between a power rail and a signal line? I need to either quit my Ph.D. or look for another supervisor. I am forced to continue on previous PhDs, which I did and have satisfied. Do EMC test houses typically accept copper foil in EUT? 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 scoreon a scale of one to sixby nearly two points. 68 for suggestions on how to pick the perfect co-supervisor. In one case the advisor had not graduated a single student for 20 years. to verbalise their expectations. I have no responsibility to continue and don't see any obligation. Now I have no interest in further continuing this association. In our blog post no. Stack Exchange network consists of 181 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. Shibayama tracked 791 life scientists who earned a Ph.D. in Japan between 2000 and 2010, counting the papers they published in graduate school and up to 9 years after graduation. I think it's more likely for a program to make an effort to try to honor previous work and not penalize a student when circumstances are mostly outside the student's control. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? I imagine the title would be something like: "(How) Can I switch from field X to field Y after getting my PhD?" Strange behavior of tikz-cd with remember picture. Update: A candidate for this canonical question now exists here. I personally got a PhD in Electrical Engineering, specifically DSP. 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. Or maybe it was when he screamed at you for not updating the lab Facebook page, even when he told you that morning to work on your experiments instead. 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. So it does not seem that we risk losing something valuable. 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. If no policies or formal proceedings exist however, the process of how a supervisor can be replaced is in the dark, and that can ultimately make it more difficult to get what you want. Duress at instant speed in response to Counterspell. Is there a more recent similar source? Dot product of vector with camera's local positive x-axis? There are a few challenges I think you will face: Given what you wrote, I believe switching advisers would be a good move. Should we have a canonical question about changing fields after PhD? 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. If it is done well, the damage can be limited and no one has to lose face. "You'll have setbacks. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. My creativity has no room and I hardly learn anything new. 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. In this case, giving notice to the graduate school that you would like to change one of your supervisors and follow the outlined procedures is all that is needed. Nacaps (2019), a national longitudinal observation of PhD candidates in Germany, showed that 18.6 % are not satisfied with their supervisory situation. 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. Indeed the cases mentioned in the good part of this piece can quickly turn bad (or even ugly) if theyre being mishandled. How did StorageTek STC 4305 use backing HDDs? As reported by the Helmholtz Juniors (2019), about 20% of PhD students mention a supervisors lack of expertise in the field of their PhD as one of their problems. The results that were published would have constituted part of the PhD candidates thesis. So, a prestigious academic pedigree may help you get where you want to go after graduation. I think this is a fair canonical question but a bit fraught. Your tax-deductible contribution plays a critical role in sustaining this effort. After two years, I have lost interest in my work and the passion has gone. Following up on the discussion in the comments. Like any workplace, scientific institutions are not free from misbehaviour from (in this case) superiors. 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. When you visit the office, ask what you need to do to start the change process. But unfortunately, this is the reality that some students may face. You will need to change your committee (and your advisor) in GradPlan if you have an accepted program plan. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. 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. ", 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. 2- Talk to new potential advisor in private. These extreme cases damage careers, they damage lives. 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. (If not, should we have one?). The presentation is a bit of an overkill, but if you have one, you can ask if they would like to look at it. If that is not possible, be prepared to transfer to a different graduate school. A clear sign of a lack of supervision is if one does not have regular meetings with a PhD supervisor (e.g. Has 90% of ice around Antarctica disappeared in less than a decade? 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. It depends on his relationship to his colleagues and position within the department if he can make good of his threats. Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products. In the Helmholtz Juniors Survey Report (2019), there are 25.3% of PhD candidates who are in the categories rather unsatisfied to very unsatisfied with their supervision. I am currently 18 months into a 4 year PhD in Algebraic Number Theory in the UK and I am not at all enjoying the work (I haven't been for about 6 months now). Adviser supportivenesswhether an adviser was caring, considerate, encouraging, and sympatheticwas the most important factor for student satisfaction. He has lots of grants and publications, but I am amazed as to how little he knows in the field. 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. - user21264 Aug 6, 2017 at 6:21 1 However it is sometimes necessary and in the best of cases this is resolved professionally, without any bad blood. You may need to take a qualifier exam there again. Update: a candidate for this canonical question now exists here the PhD thesis! Of your degree, although quite rare, is that possible in psychology 's the difference between a rail. 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