i saw my supervisor yesterday and she threatened to resign if i didn't follow the approach she was interested in. the threat was totally unprovoked because i had totally agreed to all she said. any one ever experienced this?

Resign from her job, or from being your supervisor? And surely she can't do this? Isn't she contractually bound?

what on earth?!

I cant beleive she would resign from her job, must be as your supervisor. Is she your overall supervisor? Or is she lower down? Did she get the money for you in a grant? Or is it department funding (or self funding). If the former,I cant really see how she could resign. If department, she would surely have to give a better reason that the fact you didnt do what she wants. If self funding then perhaps she could get away with it, but again she has surely signed something to say she will look after you.

I guess if she did resign you would get someone new to look after you, I doubt they would through you out. Very strange though.

Academics, a funny lot arent they. Obviously at the back of her mind she thinks you are going to wander off and do something she doesnt want you to do, so she is threatening you to keep you in line.

resign from being my supervisor.., am self sponsored.

i guess she is relying on my previous supervisors reports. i don't know, but all i know is that i wanna graduate and get on with my life. there must be more to life than figuring out supervisors....

ouch, did i say that? guess am frustrated. should take some time off today and tomorrow before getting back to things .

actually you're not alone. my supervisor had a bit of a huffing session a while back and told me if i went ahead with a particular idea they would not be my supervisor anymore either. i briefly considered going ahead with the idea out of badness with the logic that i don't really want a supervisor who acts like a 12 year old when it suits them, but annoyingly enough, i realised they were right about that particular idea and it should be dropped. so it may not be the best approach to getting me to do something, but i suppose in the long run it was worth it.

npsych

the same here, every time I havent agreed with my supervisor and did what I thought was the right thing, I regreted it later and changed to his idea. But he never threatened to resign....Sounds really infantile thing to do...

Isn't the point that you learn by making your own mistakes?

Well, exactly, Matthew. This is just a ridiculously puerile attitude! If you have an idea of something else to do, or a different way of doing it, the supervisor should discuss it with you, and explain to you why it's not such a good idea. If you're still convinced it'll work, they should let you do it - if it doesn't work out, they should be there to get you back on track.

There's obviously limits, and they should tell you (nicely!) if you're just being an idiot, but you're still learning, you may be passionate and thoughtful about your subject, and may just be over-imaginatvie. Nothing wrong with that at this stage.