My supervisor is horrible. She don't read my works. She always put the blame on her students. Since my enrollment, half of her students dropped off, the other half finished late due to her. I have several clashes with her, but generally i believe the student has to be independent so our relationship was still on working term.

The issues started with her suspecting me of not doing experiments and make results up due to some unknown ill advise. It can be easily proven by ask some students but she was not interested in investigating it. And our communications started to deteriorate as she will put her microscope on everything. Basically we will still discuss about the planning, despite the experiment already has been done.

So i try to seek supports from the local level in college , the aim is to clear out misunderstand, and basically so we can agree on my progress and move on. But that's when hell break loose. She thought that i was taking it personal, started to accuse me: of refusing doing what she tell, exaggerate my mistakes and downgrade my works. The college listened to her and request an earlier thesis-defense~ish session and i have to provides a short summary of my works.

The initial feedback seemed to be positive. And I could see my supervisor surprised at the actual amount of my works too. But then my supervisor started to falsely credit others for my works and once again implied that I may have made up these results both in front and behind my back. The result is: my works were judged to be inadequate.

I have 3 options now: A) make an official complaint regarding those false implication + everything else (and request to work with other supervisor), B) accept the result and continually work with someone who publicly did and possibly will continue to undermine my works. Or C) use A as a threat and suggest her to take a step back. What should I do based from your experiences?.

PS: my other supervisor is useless

That's a difficult situation. I would't suggest C. She can be annoyed and it does not hep your situation. Even if she steps back for now, you'll be in trouble later. Remember you will need her support even after Viva.

I'd personally do my best to have misunderstanding resolved and try to have my supervisor happy. I would go for option A if nothing else works.

Hey thank for the opinion.

Generally, I think the whole event was sort of a success. Because whether my actual work is good or not, it's still better now than into my 4th year and then she act up, you know. Not to mention, I have a feeling that she learnt as much about my works during that presentation as any other guys in the room too

Anyone know how bad will it be for a supervisor or the college to get/have a failed student? I means yes i will call her trying to "put me in my place" is to suit her ego. But other than that, crediting others for my works and implying that I may have made up these results won't help me or her in anyway. Unless she just set up the stage to set me up to fail and then push all the blames on me..

Honestly, I would contact former PhD students. If there are enough people backing up that she does stuff like that often and can be regarded as incompetent, than this will end bad for her and she probably knows that. I am not sure about law in other countries but I am pretty sure that you could even sue her for defamation if she accuses you of making up results without any proof and maybe it is time that somebody does it. This is a serious accusation that can ruin your reputation in academia.

I also agree with Mathcomp that there is not so much sense in just threatening her, as you will need her support in the future. I think there is no other way then changing supervisors. She will never give you a good reference and probably makes your life a living hell.

Yeah forgot about the reference. I almost forget that there's a life after postgraduate. that's another thing to worry.

Thought so many times about suing her up in the past few month. Even tried to look for similar case. But generally feel like it should be the last option (no time/money and won't gain much). Make the complaint to the school is more favorable, but wonder if they will be on my side? Of course I chat with the former students many times and many things they said can be used against her. But letting them to actually speak up or have it in writing form will be difficult.

But I was shocked too when she just casually and make remarks implying that i could have made up results in front of people. I means that is clearly wrong right? Like is there any excuses that she can give in this case? Is there any exceptions that you know of? I means it's very blatant and it's not in private conversation too.

In the institute I did my master thesis at was also a professor that treated his students like shit. Literally a slave driver that pushed his people always to the limit and beyond. Many of them were quitting, almost everybody under constant, enormous pressure, people that were almost 30 years old and were terrified to present their results in the group meeting and messed up things like that. Everybody in that institute knew about that. That was an open secret. Most professors just mind their own business and don't act against colleagues. I would not be surprised if you can expect a lot of back up in case she is acting like this for a long time. As a former PhD student I would have no problem to testify if I really think that she behaved inappropriately. What do I have to lose if I already have a new employee?
Is there no legal advice at your university that you can contact or maybe some person in the institute that is assigned to stuff like that?

I may exaggerate a bit but I truly believe that these people can behave like this because nobody acts and prefers to suffer in silence until the next unaware student joins the group.

Although having a student failed is not something any supervisor wants but it also depends! If she is well-respected in the field or has had a good number of students who are now successful in their career and still have a good relationship with her, well I guess having a few students dropped or failed won't affect her reputation that much. But otherwise it is certainly not good for her.


Either way, I think it's good to only focus what is best for YOU.

You should consider that changing a supervisor in an angry way will cost you a lot even if you haven't done anything wrong. You'll go through tensions that waste your time and energy. Also it will be hard to find another supervisor specially at the same department.

Alternatively trying to answer these questions may help:
Does she genuinely think you made up your results and the credit of your results goes to others? Or she is just saying so?

If she genuinely thinks so, why is that? Is there anything you can do to assure her the results are obtained by your own work?

If she is just being hostile, why is that? Is there anything you can do to improve your relationship with her?

If you decided that changing the supervisor is the best option for you, then you can consider having this process done in a friendly way using personal excuses or showing interest to a specific area she does not have expertise in.

This is probably true. But getting a PhD offer is not easy, as a PhD student you sacrifice a lot and failing can have bad consequences. Would you have your PhD messed up for the sake of future students?

Isn't that PhD messed up already? Even if you get through it, you suffered years and won't go anywhere if she presents you as incompetent or fraudulent. The truth is, you can't buy anything with the title itself. There are PhD students like there is sand on the beach. Without a good reference you are lost anyway. I am definitely not the kind of person who searches for trouble and usually act deescalating, even if I think my actions were justified and right, but what is the point if she is already against you? That relationship won't change.

I don't know if it is not fixable. This is something only gingerbread can decide about, having a better understanding of the situation, knowing the supervisor's character and based on her/his own abilities, character and goals.

My office mates have a supervisor who treated them as if they were kids at elementary schools in 50s, shouting at them and stuffs. They hated him and were so scared of him. But at the end he turned out to be really supportive in finding jobs FOR THEM. Well, they are totally happy now but they had come from a same culture as their supervisor so it was not too hard for them to tolerate him. So it depends on both sides.



I agree. That's why it is important to do your best to maintain/fix the relationship with your supervisor even if you don't like her or she is mean/ rude/ not helpful to you.



Sometimes she is not really against you. It is simply how she is. It is in her personality and she knows no better or she is not realising how destructive her actions are. Being a professor doesn't mean she has the best character.

So I think one should first do their best and try all proper actions to gain the trust/friendship back even with a bad supervisor. And when nothing worked, you can decide to stop working with her/him without having anything to regret about in future.

I see your point but think that you have to distinguish between a boss that is “just” choleric and demanding and a boss that accuses you of fraud in public. You simply have to act against that, everything else seems like a confession. Who knows, in the end maybe the university initiates some process in order to assess your scientific practice. I don’t want to paint it too black but it is imo a different situation. But in general I agree, choleric boss does not mean that he or she is giving you a bad reference or blocks your way.

Hey, thank for the opinions guys.

On Mathcomp question. I don't know, I honestly think she tried to be hostile in this case. Simply because i contacted the school and tried to settle that whole communication issues, and then she just find every way she think of that can hurt me. Like i said, if she actually had doubt on my results, she can start investigate and prove that it's (not) true.

I means I had no choice, she was not helpful before, but my communication with her was stalled horribly and we still discuss on things that already 6 months old because of that. It actually getting worse than it sounds, as she basically know nothing about my progress. If I left it like that till the end, it will be the examiner who will fail me, not her.

I am really on a fence now, so i guess i will have to see if there's any chance to savage this relationship. But it's difficult you know. If I don't clear all of these false accusation up and any of the current students or staffs leave the school and become my future employer(s), my reputation there will be ruined with or without her reference. But there's no other way to clear it, other than to bring that to the college attention, and that will piss her off further, destroy any chances to make peace.

The only way is she admitting that she was wrong at that, and somehow the school can pressure her to keep the relationship professional. But knowing her, there's only 5% chance to happen. And i'm already generous

Phew - though case. Honestly, I am pretty sure I would throw the towel and start looking for another phD elsewhere - and start to battle against the accusations of fraud in the meantime. With this sort of supervisor, its like russian roulette when it comes to your actual thesis defense. Have you enough data to carve a small paper out of it so that the work was not completly wasted? And another question: How big is the field you are in and how well respected is your supervisor there?

You will lose some time - but on the other hand your supervisor seems to be not helpful at all.

It sounds positively horrific. I had a similar story, breakdown with my supervisor and changed supervisor, the consequence of this was that the whole department regarded me as dodgy and had to work hard at gaining trust again. The old supervisor blocked my way where he could. One thing that helped was having a few big name people (outside my uni) tiding me over. Without them it would have been truly game over, because also the Head of Department took the side of my old supervisor, even tho I had Student's Guild and third party evidence proving I was right.

Everyone always says of course: ! Think of the reference, don't make a complaint/waves. But then again I know that even without having made a complaint I am not in a great situation reference-wise so I just as well could have made one. Nobody ever says anything and this stuff goes on and on.

My advice would be to change supervisor, ignore her, do the formal things to stop her from mentioning that fraud thing & keep going, focus on the positive people & move on. Disengage. Go to conferences, try to meet other new people & focus on writing your PhD. As you mentioned in your first post, this must be known & in my case it was known too that my supervisor was 'that type' of person & I realized later on that it is maybe not as claustrophobic as it looks like & that there are some nicer helpful people out there even tho this might not be a direct help or consolation, but in the long run those contacts may be well worth more, this secured me a publication I would have had no chance in hell getting with my old supervisor & I'll get references from them as well.

but yeah, an awful situation to be in and I hope you find a way round it...

That said, on the whole I am well and truly shocked how little recourse we have when those things happen, how much power supervisors have and how easily 'ranks are closed'.

If you're in the UK it might be worth joining and consulting your union (www.ucu.org.uk) before making any decisions or taking further action. They support PhD students and may be able to offer some advice. Best of luck!