Bit of a rant here

I sent more or less finished chapters to my two supervisors in September, and heard nothing. After an intervention by the prof in charge of the faculty, one supervisor managed to get some comments back on the chapters I sent him, by the end of November, and I have duly changed some bits, and explained why I haven't changed others . The other one finally said, in November, he would be looking at the chapters after the end of term. On Sunday this second supervisor asked me to send him the chapters... suggesting that in over two months they haven't even downloaded them or printed them off. The first super has arranged for the upgrade viva based on these chapters, which should have been done by November for the end of Jan. (Something which again appears to be a far more complicated that everyone else has had)

If this second supervisor asks for loads of changes, which is possible as they have a different angle on the whole thing due to their specialisation, how can I possibly get these done in time or argue against making the changes when I doubt if I will get it back before the second week in Jan, I work full time, I am going to have to be at work longer as I will be short staffed for the rest of the school year, and have a load of A level pracs to deal with, and of course I will need to get the revised versions to the others who will be at the viva?

I was going to phone up the postgrad secretary, but I'm not sure what that will do, I don't want to send an e-mail to the one in charge in case it gets passed on, but feel that they are not doing what I pay them for (the other prof made this comment too, so it isn't just me who thinks it.) This is the last bit they have to do to a timescale before the final thing, and I feel that it shouldn't be me doing all the pushing and there should be more support from their end. It is bad enough being part time and unable to be in uni when it is open, but its worse when they are not doing their bit. :-(

hi joyce
yes it is not nice if they are not doing their bit!!!
hang them, don't worry about it, don't think about it
its christmas eve tomorrow Joyce
:-)
love satchi

Hi Joyce, I really empathise with your situation here as it seems to reflect my own Master's thesis only too often. I found that the PostGrad admin person sometimes helped push things along because she would email or make contact from the perspective of the whole 'timescale' thing. But her influence was limited.

What I also found when I stressed about these things to my superviser and others at the university, was that they were all sympathetic but had the attitude of 'this is real research-deadlines are not of the essence here'. I found this very difficult because (like you) I work within a school and deadlines are important and (like you) I wanted to work more intensely in my holiday periods and always seemed to be having to do major corrections at the same time as reporting or some other major work cycle. I did work in my holiday periods but not as much as I had planned for. I had everything planned to the nth degree and every plan fell through...no exaggeration...every one-all due to things that were completely beyond my control-which made it all the more frustrating.

In the end, I had to be philosophical about it even though I either wanted to cry or did cry every time one of these situations arose. Last Christmas it was forgetting to submit my ethics application-this Christmas it is being the last person awaiting an examiner's report-they have to hold over my results...

I also had work like a Trojan once my corrections came back and just have no life or break during those periods. It was really hard and I don't think it is the best answer or what you want to hear, but I did manage it, which is why I'm telling you now. You will be able to manage it...and it will end and you will submit your thesis. Hope you have a nice Christmas despite all the mahem. I need to have breakfast now and go out on an early morning forage for the last minute food shop before the big day-oh Joy! Merry Christmas Joyce-not meant ironically.

Hi Joyce
I really feel for you here, I've had the same situation myself. Well, slightly different, in that I had one supervisor who was actually marking stuff, but half my thesis was under the expertise of my 2nd supervisor who felt deadlines to be more of a very loose guideline, like your own supervisor. I did have to go to my main sup several times to complain about it, but each time my 2nd sup blamed it on me so it never really worked that well, I didn't have an independent postgrad secretary like you have. As for asking you to email the chapters again...the day before I was meant to submit my 2nd sup emailed to say I shouldn't as there were too many corrections to have done in time, and then emailed the next day for a copy of the thesis, as he hadn't even read half of it yet. And he did it again, the week before my next submission date, I literally had to refuse to leave his office and sit there while he marked half of one chapter, take it and do the corrections and come back to make sure he marked the second half. The day before I was submitting the second time round he appeared with a whole pile of corrections that he had 4 months to do before that. I did whatever I could, and then left the rest, I couldn't miss submission again.
I guess I don't really have much advice, except to say that I know how you feel and I empathise with you and how frustrating it is. The only thing you can do, apart from keeping other people in the department aware of when you are sending work and how long the delay is to get feedback, is just to keep pushing and prodding at your supervisors. It's annoying and ridiculous to be in the situation, but just keep reminding yourself that it WILL end, and one day soon you'll not have to deal with them in that way again.

Good luck!!

thanks for all the sympathy folks, one of the many things that is so good about this forum. The head of school is very supportive, but can only do so much without ruffling their feathers, for example he got round the first prod he gave them by suggesting that it was the review board that wanted an update, he was all for changing the supervising team, but they are leading experts in the field and I don't want any ripples to permeate anyone who might be examining the final thing in three years time. It is just hard when you go to meetings run by the dept and find that all the others are getting loads of feedback etc., you feel kind of left out. :-(

Hi Joyce,

Can't offer anything bar sympathy, not even empathy as i have been very lucky with my sups.

Have you / could you try speaking to him, telling him how you feel ?  Just being honest in the way that you have above, concentrating more on personal aspects than practical.  Could try asking him how did he feel when he was doing his PhD, see if he can cast his mind back. 

The way you feel is absolutely right and justified - unless he's a complete robot he's bound to empathize a bit .. isn't he ( or is this just too optimistic)

Hope you have a lovely Christmas and your sup gets a heart from Santa.  Chuff

Oh, my sympathies, that sounds very frustrating ( and perhaps more common an experience than people think...). How reliant are you upon these people for comments? Do you feel like you need their comments to carry on with your work, or can you continue with some measure of confidence with out them? ( sometimes feedback is not particularly useful or relevant!). Can you turn to others to try to get feedback--another colleague in the department, or elsewhere?

It might depend on the culture of your uni and department how polite persistence in getting comments would be perceived...but if you sent an email every four weeks or so, that forwards the original chapters and requests for feedback ( a perhaps not so subtle reminder that they have failed to get back to you for a long time) it might put the onus on the sups to reply. Certainly, it gives you a good paper trail of the requests you have made and the lack of response, should you need to show that to someone at some time.

Frankly, I am at a loss why anyone in academia thinks its okay to ignore emails and deadlines for responses...I know things get busy, but it takes little time to send an email acknowledging the chapters and indicating that comments will be forthcoming...about thirty seconds would do it, and no one is so busy they lack thirty seconds to reply.

In the business world, in my pre PhD life, businesses had a strict 24 hour policy for replying to emails and phone calls--even if the response was no more than to say, thank you for the email/phone message. I am busy at the moment, but wanted to let you know I received it, and will reply more fully in xx days...


Lack of responses in academia should not be acceptable....

The department is good, other people with other supervisors get lots of feedback, and if I take anything to the monthly meetings (neither of MY supervisors turn up of course) then feedback is given and everyone is very helpful. One of supervisors has now left to work elsewhere - and is therefore busy at their new place, the other has, shall we say,  a bit of a reputation for being more focused on other writing, However I feel this should not affect their responsibility to me, after all they took on the job. I don't really need them most of the time, as the area is very specialised, but I need to fit it into the wider context to show why it is so important but the main problem is there are a few things they need to do that I can't do on my own relating to reports etc.. My worry is that this should have been done by November, and I have prepared most of the material, done all the bits I can do, and it should have been on time for then, instead of which it will be March before it can go in because of board meetings and April at least before I can cross that stage off the list, and it is pushing everything else back. I have decided to phone the post grad secretary after the new year, to see what they can do.

hi joyce
how are you? how was your christmas day?
you still have some days before January before you call the PG secretary:-)
I'm sure everything will be ok

love satchi
(robin)

Christmas was good, thanks :-), and yours? I expect it will turn out alright in the end, it is just that others do not seem to have this trouble, and it is really annoying when you can't actually get to these people to make them get on with things. They are a bit like kids who haven't done their homework I think!