Hi everyone, I really need some honest advice from somone who knows a bit about how things run in academia. I am a current History MSc student (a fairly good one), who has just applied at the same institution to do my PhD in History/English lit., after a lot of encouragement and support from lecturers in History, and in English lit. (I have 2 people who have agreed to supervise me - one in each dept., my primary in History).

I was a bit shocked when I got a letter saying that I had been rejected on the grounds that there was no one appropriate to supervise me. I immediatey emailed saying 'But I have TWO supervisors', and they wrote back explaining that my primary supervisor (history) should be changed to my secondary - thus putting me i the English department, meaning a new application, and changing my proposal slightly. This is ludicrous. My supervisor has told me to just do what they ask and think of the bigger picture and just getting in, and he will do all he can to help.

I am suddenly worried though, that the problem is not me (just given all the encouragement i've had, the head of dept. even told me he was very excited about it etc)- do you think it could be the supervisor I have chosen?? He is fairly junior i think. I'm now applying though the English department, but can someone tell me honestly what they think the problem might be? Is there politics going on here? I'm not sure whether to stick with him and do as he says (go along with it), or just ask for another supervisor...

Hi Max,

I imagine from your proposal, it seemed that the focus might have been in the English department, or that you would benefit most from a primary supervisor in that field. If your History supervisor is teaching, and/or published, then I can't imagine they would go around rejecting good students on the grounds that he isn't up to scratch - surely they would get rid of him, or not let him supervise phd?

I know that a lot of politics DO go on though, so sadly I can't be of much help. Good luck.

First of all, there's no need to panic. Once you are in the University on a PhD, it is largely up to you whose advice you take, and whose advice is given priority. This is not to say you'll ignore your supervisors, just that you use them as you see fit. For example, I always have meetings where both my supervisor and co-supervisor are present. The only additional role my supervisor takes is administrative (organising PhD reviews, signing bits of paper to tell the management that I have done enough not to get kicked out) - the feedback on my work is from both of them.

Most research councils (in your case it would be AHRC) stipulate very clearly the conditions upon which a PhD student can be accepted - and they are getting stricter on this. Even if you are not funded by them, universities use their regulations as standard. As you mentioned, your preferred supervisor is fairly junior - I know that the AHRC is clear that if a supervisor is inexperienced (has not led a PhD student to successful completion within four years), then a senior member of staff must be co-supervisor. Might this be the case with you - that your potential supervisory situation is problematic? It could also be workload balancing - if your potential supervisor has other administrative duties (sitting on boards etc) then it may take them over a maximum limit if they act as main supervisor. Finally, and this is pure speculation, if your potential supervisor has not got a high enough research output/income-generating project then they may not want to 'burden' him with additional work.

So basically, it might not be you. There are other things at play which you won't be aware of. However, it may be that the dept is of the opinion that you simply cannot have him as a supervisor due to other issues; in which case you will need to find alternative arrangements.

Thank you for your replies. Sleepy head that makes a lot of sense. Any one of those issues which you pointed out are applicable to him. He is very busy, with post-graduate research seminars/classes which I know must be very time consuming. Also, I think he works in a lot of different fields, and since I am pretty sure he only got his phd 5 or 6 years ago, I can't imagine he has led many people if any to completion yet. So perhaps that is why they want him to be the secondary supervisor.

Thanks a lot.

Hi Maxsamson - whatever the reasons for this change of focus and supervision in your PhD, I think you need to make sure you are entering the right discipline for you. If you want a career as a historian that will be very difficult with a literature PhD. Also, I know that even in the old polytechnics, to get a job in an English department you more or less have to have an Oxbridge PhD - a career in English literature is about the hardest option you can get in humanities academia. So I'd bear that in mind too - unless you are planning to teach literature in a school, a literature PhD outside of Oxbrdge is, from my experience and knowledge, risky. If I were you I would be thinking about where I wanted my career to go and researching how the discipline of your PhD will help or hinder that.