I’ve had a very hard time dealing with supervisor(s) in the last 2 years of my PhD. This is my third year and with the help of a postdoc I finally formulated a more generic scientific goal for my Ph.D. The postdoc likes it a lot and I can see how this generic formulation solves many problems including the ones that I’ve to deal with application wise in the PhD.
My primary supervisor is usually a very discouraging person. I’ve the impression that he talks behind my back to my other supervisor and the main professor. He has a narrow vision related to the application and never really helped me much.
In this country, we value the opinion of the main professor a lot in the PhD. This person was very encouraging and helpful. However, suddenly he changed his mind and formally asking me to focus on the main problem of the Ph.D.(which is application based). I suddenly lose motivation and as a young researcher, I’m also not able to stand up for myself.
Should I just work hard to realise my scientific aims? Or, should I find a balance of satisfying them and my own goals as well? At the end it all comes down to efforts and papers and they get to know everything that I work on.
