Timeline for How can PhD student repair relationship with supervisor after PhD student engages in independent research without supervisor?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
49 events
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| Apr 8, 2015 at 3:08 | vote | accept | Atena Nguyen | ||
| Mar 10, 2015 at 16:30 | comment | added | Szabolcs | As with most questions here, we're seeing one side of the story. It would likely sound very different if it were asked by the supervisor ... | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 16:28 | comment | added | Szabolcs | @NickS ... it was done on office hours or at home, using office equipment or a home computer. It does happens, but it's not right and shouldn't happen. Of course you're right that writing a paper is a big project and probably does take up a lot of time, also realistically it's very hard to determine how much time she's been spending "on work" or "on personal projects". So yes, there might be reasons for the supervisor to be upset. But we're walking a dangerous thin line here when suggesting that if she's being paid to do one research project she cannot also do a different one ... | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 16:24 | comment | added | Szabolcs | @NickS There are many ways to waste time and end up being unproductive at work: her work could be affected because she was dating, because she was playing computer games or because she was doing another research project. The latter is not any worse than the former. But this question isn't about not being productive: it's about the supervisor demanding that she takes her name off the paper. The supervisor has no right to do this, or to control what she does in her spare time. This is like a company claiming rights over any software their programmers wrote, regardless of whether ... | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 16:07 | comment | added | Nick S | ... Of course, there is a big difference between being unhappy and overreacting. | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 16:07 | comment | added | Nick S | @Szabolcs While you have a strong point, here is a question for you. Lets say that as a supervisor, your student didn't do absolutely any progress on his research for lets say 6 months. Suddenly, you found out that in this time your student was working "after he/she/it went home" on another project or two, completely unrelated to the PhD. Would you be happy with the situation? I am not saying that this is the case here, but if the student had a sudden drop in the production at some point, which can be correlated with this new peoject, I could see the supervisor being unhappy. | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 14:42 | comment | added | Bill Barth | @Szabolcs, I meant the work they do in the office, on the job, as covered by their GRA funding, of course. If this student worked on this paper without their advisor's knowledge while funded on an NSF (say) grant and did so during the actual working time of their employment, that could, potentially, cause problems for them if the funded grant and the work done here are not even plausibly related. | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 14:35 | comment | added | Szabolcs | @BillBarth That is simply not true. "there may be some trouble about working on things that could not be covered by those funds" <-- how about knitting sweaters? That's also not covered by funds. A student's life should not be controlled by their advisor to this extent. After she goes home she should be able to do whatever she pleases to. | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 14:10 | history | edited | Atena Nguyen | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 10, 2015 at 12:04 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | @xLeitix: ... Of course, much of this is based on implicit, "unwritten rules"; it certainly doesn't help that we are probably doing a bad job distinguishing between "what we think is internationally expected of a PhD holder" and "what may or may not be practically acceptable for a student in the respective culture". The least solution I can think of is to at least make sure we point out which - possibly culture-specific - rationale we see for our suggestions, especially when those suggestions are of a "this is not usually done" general style. | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 12:02 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | @xLeitix: I think it's a bit more complicated - probably, many of the commenters (without entirely excluding myself here) are assuming (maybe mistakenly so) that the title PhD is not just an arbitrary combination of three letters, but that it carries some meaning, which is, despite considerable differences between countries, somehow internationally agreed upon on a very abstract level - along the lines of "has a very good overview of the research in a particular topic", "can conduct publishable research", "has acquired the skill to act independently and make their own decisions". ... | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 10:51 | comment | added | xLeitix | We western people need to stop giving Asian students cultural advice. Many of the suggestions here are sound based on western standards, but sound like horrible mistakes for somebody studying in Asia. | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 9:57 | answer | added | Angry Lettuce | timeline score: 10 | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 8:53 | comment | added | Angry Lettuce | @gnometorule This is a very shallow analysis. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 20:04 | answer | added | user168715 | timeline score: 4 | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 19:45 | comment | added | RemcoGerlich | In Korea, do you work on a PhD as a job (for a salary), or is it more a student-like situation? If your supervisor pays for your time, he gets to decide what you spend it on. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 15:26 | answer | added | Peter Teoh | timeline score: 4 | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 14:11 | comment | added | TheMathemagician | Call his bluff. Tell him you're sorry him supervising you didn't work out and you'll switch to a new supervisor as soon as possible. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 13:11 | comment | added | Greg | It is a pretty anti-intellectual opinion on the side of the supervisor and completely against the principles of academic science, but I don't think it is something you can talk out. Most probably your professor has already rock-solid opinion on such "disobedience issues". | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 12:19 | comment | added | Calchas | Start looking for a new supervisor! | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 5:22 | comment | added | gnometorule | Your adviser is a jerk, regardless of culture. This is 2015, not 1895. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 0:32 | history | edited | Jeromy Anglim | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 9, 2015 at 0:03 | comment | added | user-2147482637 | This sounds like much more of a cultural specific issue than academic. In Korea, your supervisor is most likely looking at you as a student, not a researcher. Many of the comments here assume the latter. The best way to find out is to ask any other foreign faculty that have been in Korea a long time if they think it is a cultural issue or academic. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 18:13 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackAcademia/status/574634065187504130 | ||
| S Mar 8, 2015 at 14:59 | history | edited | Atena Nguyen | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:54 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Mar 8, 2015 at 14:59 | |||||
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:54 | history | edited | Atena Nguyen | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 80 characters in body
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| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:51 | comment | added | Bill Barth | @AtenaNguyen, I presume the Korean government has rules about how you can spend their money. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:51 | comment | added | Atena Nguyen | @O.R.Mapper: you are right in publishing policy of the conference, at least one author should be registered and present the paper. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:49 | comment | added | Atena Nguyen | @Alexandros: since this paper is main topic of my co-author and he is the fist author. this paper is sponsor by his grant as shown in ack section. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:48 | comment | added | Atena Nguyen | @BillBarth Thank you, but I study in Korea, | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:46 | answer | added | Nate Eldredge | timeline score: 43 | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:45 | history | edited | Atena Nguyen | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:43 | comment | added | Atena Nguyen | The main problem is he is very angry with me. I cannot explain anything to him at that time. Adding him as a co-author is not the solution as he mentioned. He want to have supervisor - supervisor collaboration which would never happened as I mentioned | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:43 | comment | added | Bill Barth | If you have a job as a Graduate Research Assistant that is entirely funded by a US government or similar grant your professor won, and this work is entirely unrelated to that grant, there may be some trouble about working on things that could not be covered by those funds. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:41 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | @Alexandros: Given the effort it takes to get something accepted in the first place, I somehow agree with a), YMMV on c), but I don't see any reason to assume b). The paper won't appear in the proceedings or the program listing unless they hand in the camera-ready version (and, seeing that the acceptance notification has arrived just a week ago, it doesn't seem like they're that far yet), and also, all conferences I've seen so far have invariably made it a condition for inclusion in the program and proceedings that at least one author has registered by the time of the camera-ready deadline. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:39 | answer | added | mac389 | timeline score: 25 | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:39 | comment | added | Alexandros | So you added your supervisor as a co-author? This was not in your question. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:38 | comment | added | Atena Nguyen | Thank you all for the feedback, @Alexandros: i'm not sure funding is the biggest problem. Since he is going to attend the conference to. And he will be in the author list. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:38 | comment | added | Davidmh | The point of a PhD is to be able to conduct and lead individual research. I think he is very wrong in his arguments, unless the paper is utter crank, in which case he should explain why. A different and legitimate issue is that he may not be keen on your spending too much time on other things. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:38 | comment | added | Alexandros | @mac389 The OP changing or not his/her supervisor is one issue. But sending a paper to a conference without attending it, is a) plain stupid and b) gives both students a bad name in the related communities c) It is highly unprofessional. So, It is major issue for the career of the OP, regardless of him/her switching supervisors. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:25 | comment | added | mac389 | +1 @O.R.Mapper a micromanaging supervisor is not the same as a scientific disagreement | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:24 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | Did your professor mention any objective specific issue with the paper (or possibly the target venue)? I am wondering because of the remark about "representing the lab and the university". If he didn't, you might want to at least think about trying to switch to another supervisor. At latest at the PhD level, you should become able to work on your own, and setting up your own collaboration and managing to submit a paper that gets accepted is actually excellent. A supervisor who goes as far as requiring to take your name off of your own successful work actively hampers that development. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:16 | comment | added | mac389 | @Alexandros I disagree that funding is the main problem. It seems that the supervisor's expectation of how the student allocates her time is the main problem. | |
| S Mar 8, 2015 at 14:09 | history | suggested | mac389 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
clarified wording, used subject-verb agreement
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| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:04 | comment | added | mac389 | Was your current supervisor your supervisor when you and your friend started the collaboration? | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:03 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Mar 8, 2015 at 14:09 | |||||
| Mar 8, 2015 at 14:02 | comment | added | Alexandros | The main problem is who will provide funding for you to attend the conference, if both of you have not notified your advisors. Obviously you can't go to the conference, since your advisor disagrees. If the situation is the same with your co-author, it does not make sense to submit a paper for a conference, when none of you can attend. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 13:47 | history | asked | Atena Nguyen | CC BY-SA 3.0 |