I am on my second year of the PhD and when I started last year my supervisor without ever guiding me or telling me anything just said that I had to supervise the foreign master students that come to study. I took them over and had immense problems with the first ones due to them not knowing the system and me not knowing the system either (I come from a different system and they were from a different system too).Long story short, I never got any supervision or guidance as to how on earth do I deal with these students. I had to figure everything out myself. But now, I realized how bad that was. I had one student whose thesis I supervised and gave him feedback and in all honesty thought that he was doing a good job, and deserves to pass. Now, I did not tell him that I think he deserves to pass but as I was back and forth giving him my feedback I would let him know that he has been progressing. When my supervisor read his thesis she said that it is super bad and she failed him. She then emailed me saying that I should be "less enthusiastic" with the students and "harsher".

I honestly do not understand why he had to fail. I don't think his thesis was superb, but he deserved to pass according to me. But now this has got me questioning everything. Am I fit for this road? What if I will never learn? Never be good enough?

Yes, I know the opinion of my supervisor does not define me, but I feel like shit and I need to hear some words of support. I know a PhD is a journey in hell, but these supervisions has been taking so much of my time and energy and yet it seems it's all for nothing. I am still bad at it apparently.

I have lately started to notice that I am slowly starting to grow distant from my best friends. They both work and have stopped with school - meaning they finished their bachelor and master degrees and continued working. Meanwhile I am doing my PhD and everytime we talk I notice that we almost don't speak the same language anymore. We don't have the same problems. I mean, they're putting down payments for their houses and getting married and big weddings and expensive vacations - while I on the other hand am paying rent, using my bench fee money to attend conferences, traveling for work, writing, doing fieldwork and generally being invested completely in my PhD - while trying my best to make the ends meet.

Whereas I am completely aware that all our journeys are fine - I cannot help but notice that I don't even think they understand me anymore. Whenever we talk I cannot ever get into detail about my PhD because they either don't understand it or they don't really care because they don't value it as important. I mean they say how proud they are of me but at the end all our conversations revolve around mortgages, vacations, trips - mainly things me (and my partner) cannot even start dreaming of.

This is causing me a bit of trouble because I don't wanna grow distant with them. I love them to bits and I don't wanna allow my PhD to ruin our friendship. So I guess my question is - has any of you been there? If so - what's your advice? Even if you haven't been there - what would you do if you were in my place?

Thanks

Have you told this to your supervisor? I doubt he/she wants to have a paper rejected either, so if you go to her/him with your thoughts on this then you can find a middle ground. Very often us students know these details (rules of submission and certain formats) much better than the supervisors, so if you tell her about them she might be open to trying the other journal. I know if I were in your place, and I had this issue - my supervisor would accept my proposal and we would submit in the journal I proposed. But, only after making my case eh?

good luck.

Well, that's quite alright. I don't think anyone has the same quality of work from the beginning. I am sure lots of postgrads look back at their first year and wonder "why on earth were they thinking". So take it smoother. It also seems that your supervisor is pretty cool with that and that should help you. Also,I am sure self-criticism can work in a good way too. So good luck. It will be great.

Hey first of all don't panic. Or panic, but know that panicking is as effective as trying to solve and algebra by chewing a bubble gum.

Second of all, would it be that bad if you just explained this? Like, added a paragraph at the end of the chapter as well as the discussion stating they are equivalent? I mean, since it doesn't change or affect the results than why wouldn't you make it clear? Either way you run the risk of the committee figuring it out themselves and I think that'd be much worse because it would portray you as not careful and they would automatically assume that you didn't notice this. But if you address it yourself beforehand, it's a different story.

Good luck and let us know how it goes

I think you would regret it later in life if you graduated in absentia for reasons like these. To me the PhD graduation will mean much more than any other day in my life, and I am assuming is the same (or at least similar) to all PhD students. You have gone through 5 years of thick and thin and made it. That is a huge accomplishment that you should be able to celebrate and cherish the way YOU WANT! So as the others have suggested, tell your dad the place and time and then you go and rock and roll. Celebrate it with your supervisors, friends, yourself and if your dad is there - great. if not - great again. It will be his loss - not yours.

Good luck and congrats for making it. Have an unforgetable day.

How about taking some days to read something for fun? Do you have any fiction books that have been staying on your shelf for a long time now? Pick them up and read them. Do something not related to your PhD for a bit. I think this helps big time.

How about giving us a bit more details on why does it keep getting rejected? Did you get comments and address them properly? What does your supervisor say? With this little info it seems to me that it might be getting rejected either because you're not getting proper feedback, or you are getting it but not addressing it properly. So tell us more in order for us to be able to assist you in any way we can.

Hey @Tudor_Queen, if you cannot do it, no one else can! Come on, you've got this! What works for me when I am stuck is reading something related to what I am writing but that is not necessarily academic. I am in the middle of writing an article too and I got stuck real bad last week and I just started reading newspaper articles about the topic, watching some videos of studies and picked up the flow from there. Not sure if it helps but it works for me. Good luck and let us know how it goes :)

Hey Bluesky. So sorry to hear about what you are going through - but remember...there has to be rain in order for the sunshine to be appreciated after. I guess we all have different struggles throughout our PhD journeys and yours seems to be a bit too much now. My suggestion would be to talk it out. Sit down with him and tell him bluntly everything you wrote here and more. If I were you that's what I would do. I would tell him how his behaviour makes me feel and ask for explanations why. Maybe there is a reason why he is doing this, you never know. I am not saying a valid reason - but a reason nonetheless. I seem to believe that many problems can be avoided if only people are blunt to each other. Maybe it won't work, but even so at least you would have exhausted all your remedies before taking the next step of changing supervisors. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

It's more serious than simply going nuts.
If you are getting yourself into this state over completely trivial things like this in only your first year and don't immediately do something about it then the PhD will break you.
You need to learn really quickly how to develop some resilience because it reads to me that under the slightest pressure you are caving emotionally.
Good luck.[/quote]

You might be right but the thing is everyone deals with these things differently. I have had lots of pressure in other aspects of my private life (including finances and long distance marriage) that have added to my feelings of insecurity and overthinking. But precisely because I know that if these small details affect me so much - I will lose it for the bigger ones, I am trying to start early and try to find a way to deal with them better. So yes, I am trying and I am sure I will manage to find a way to develop some resilience. Thanks for your honesty though. It always helps!