How often do you see your supervisor?
======= Date Modified 09 13 2010 21:13:39 =======
Just wondering how often do you guys tend to see your supervisor - planned or otherwise? My department likes the PhDs to be sociable by going for the daily half-hour coffee break, meaning that I see/chat to my supervisor nearly everyday. Our offices are also very close, so we also bump into each other a lot, which usually results in chit-chat because he's very friendly! One top of that, I have between 2-3 hours of supervisory meetings a month.. He is amazing and we get on very well, but it's a bit of an overload! :p Ye guys the same or do you have/keep some distance?
During my part-time PhD I saw my supervisor once every 3 months or so on average. The meetings were very productive, and we were in touch regularly by email as well. I'm at a distance though, not based on campus, so wouldn't see him at coffee etc.
I live 3 hours away from my uni, so am not on campus much. I meet with my supervisor about every month for a couple of hours to discuss my work, and we're in email contact just about every week, more when we're working together, like jointly writing an article. Works well.
About once a month, which is nice because it means that when we do meet up I always have loads of fresh ideas to throw at him. I think we will be having more and more meetings as time progresses though, but I will definitely be keeping my distance and keeping it professional, friendly, and polite. I do feel really lucky to have him as my sup though - couldn't have chosen anyone better really. :-)
Beginning to see why I've reached overload :p Ye guys have much more distance than me alright!
Ahh, this coffee break thing is.. Most of the PhD's stopped going for a few weeks and we all got sent an email saying that we more or less expected to go to be sociable! Academics do seem to like to chat over coffee.. :-)
======= Date Modified 10 Jan 2010 12:03:03 =======
Hey! I usually have planned meetings with my supervisor about every 3 weeks, which go on for about 90 minutes normally, although she's often abroad at conferences and things get a bit more scatty then. I also see quite a lot of her informally as my office is next door to hers, so she's often popping in and out (usually when she wants one of us to do a job for her!), and we are in email contact loads too. We also have team meetings every month or so, where we meet up (about 10 of us) to discuss progress and issues which affect all of us, such as participant recruitment, ideas for new studies etc. This usually works really well...sometimes I get to the stage where I really do need a supervision meeting and it's still a couple of weeks away, particularly when she's away for long periods of time, but she's very good on email anyway so it's not too problematic. I don't often meet with my second supervisor, but then I don't really feel as though I need to, one is plenty enough for me! KB
I'm part time, rarely at the uni during term time, so there is no bumping into each other! There is no regular pattern to our meetings. I joined in one of his MA classes, because he asked me to go along, so for a while I saw him every week, but not a lot of time was spent on my stuff. We had a meet up a couple of times a term, but now he has moved, so I don't think we will be meeting up in person very often. We do keep in contact via e-mail though, and I send him stuff when it is at a suitable point for his comments which seems to work fine. I've got the whole thing planned out in rough, so I know where I'm going. If I need any help I just e-mail, if he wants to know how things are going he does the same. The thing is, being part time I work in chunks rather than having a steady pace, so there may be nothing written down to report on for a while, progress goes in fits and starts depending upon what else is happening, so a regular meeting wouldn't be much use. We are supposed to meet up every six weeks, but hey, rules are there to be broken! :$ :-)
hi again I just remembered something: since I was meeting my supervisor almost every week, of course there was the Christmas Break so I didn't see him for some 2 or 3 weeks.
And----!!!!! guess what
I really MISSED my supervisor! hahahaha
has that happened to anyone? The relationship with my supervisor is strictly work-related but I missed him a lot during the holidays. Perhaps I just got so used to the routine (almost) weekly meetings.
goodnight
satchi
======= Date Modified 11 Jan 2010 08:33:47 =======
I have a routine meeting on every tuesday, which lasts for 1-2 hours each time, even when there is a long holiday weekend within that week. My supervisor is a very straight woman and we all little PhD students are being pushed a lot to get data/ new ideas out every 7 days. Part of it I found it very stressful indeed because of that, and I know some of my labmates have been scolded when she found them starting to get slowdown and lag behind; yet so far (and lucky) I managed myself well and being good for the last 2 years and I already have published 2 co-first authored papers, a patent, and a press-highlight from them... I am walking through my final year now and hopefully i can stay afloat and get published another one :)
I have two supervisors. My main one's more experienced and high-profile and is often away at conferences; my second one is a newer member of staff so is around more. They're both great, and offer lots of support. We meet about every week to ten days, depending on their availability, usually for about half an hour to an hour, and when my main supervisor's away at conferences I just meet with my second one. They ask me to submit something to them in writing about once a month. I don't see them very often outside these meetings - occasionally bump into them in the corridor and say hello, but we don't stop and chat or go for coffee or anything like that.
I'm studying part-time and I live outside UK.
I meet with my 2 supervisors every 3 months (3 hourly meetings each time), where we discuss my progress and they give me more tasks to do. Well, often during our meetings they have to remind me that I am part-time and that I don't have to do so many things, that I have to take it easy....I tend to do everything at once, and finish so quickly....
Most days :(
He has this habit of wandering into the lab to tell me something or to ask what I'm doing, and most of the time he'll either tell me everything that's going on in my results (kind of useful but it might be nice to actually analyse things myself occasionally) or/and he'll interrupt me right when I'm in the middle of something and end up talking to me for half an hour (that's probably a minimum estimate) while I sort of stand there trying to listen but really preoccupied with what I need to do next in my experiment. Basically it drives me nuts.
I only see my supervisor randomly most of the time, he never makes our meetings on time and often they have to be cancelled completely after him leaving me waiting for hours. Except when term is out or over the holidays (eg Christmas) when he practically wants to see me every second day and still expects me to have the same amount of work done as i usually would in a month. He has two offices, one on campus and one elsewhere which doesn't help.
