Questions tagged [advisor]
The one who helps students to select courses or an academic major, engages in short-term and long-term educational planning, assists in preparing the thesis necessary to obtain the degree; or a person who advises internship students on training in industry.
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subtle racism in the lab
I am a PhD student entering my fourth year. I have experienced subtle racism in the lab. My professor is Indian. In my lab, I work day and night to uplift the agenda, as a result I have more than 6 ...
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How to fix a non-trivial breakdown in a relationship with a former PhD advisor? [closed]
During the final year of my PhD, my relationship with my advisor experienced a significant non-trivial breakdown. However, for the years prior, we had a good relationship. The deterioration of this ...
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What should I do when I find myself in a serious dispute with my supervisor? [closed]
When I want to try new approaches, my supervisor dismisses them as a waste of time. For instance, I wanted to use an RDBMS (relational database management system), but my supervisor insisted on ...
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Postdoc supervisor has stopped helping
I finished my postdoc and joined in a faculty position sometime back. My postdoc supervisor is not responding to my messages and not helping at all now. He is the developer of a program/code that I ...
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What are red flags when it comes to choosing a PI? [closed]
I just finished my first postdoc and I had a terrible experience with my PI. Unfortunately, he is known in the field and I worked with him for two years and half. I've been to hell and back during ...
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What should I [34/F] do about my rude and mean supervisor [60s/F] when I want to finish my PhD?
Since the beginning of my PhD (in psychology), I have felt that my principal supervisor has an issue with me. She has always looked at me in an unpleasant way and behaved dismissively.
I have a lot of ...
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How can I recover from a psychological abuse from PhD advisor and move forward? [closed]
During my PhD, I encountered significant challenges that left me questioning my future in academia. My supervisor provided minimal guidance, and a colleague in my research group began treating me more ...
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Recommendations for how to discuss in-meeting communication with my PhD advisor?
I am going into the 5th year of my math PhD. In May, I discussed the idea of taking a 6th year with my advisor -- he supported the idea. To financially support my 6th year, I am preparing an ...
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How to Handle a Discovery after a Masters Completes
I am completing a Masters this week and whilst writing the dissertation, I believe I may have discovered a hitherto unknown data sequence. At least, I cannot find it documented in the literature.
I ...
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Forced to Leave Physics PhD Program - How to Salvage Academic Career?
I started my physics PhD program several years ago at a top-ten institute in the U.S. Recently, my supervisor informed me that he believes my talents and interests are not well-aligned with the ...
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Need help in preparing for first meeting with PhD supervisor [duplicate]
I have recently received a reply for PhD application from University of Alabama, USA. The PhD supervisor had replied with Thank you for interest in his group. He then asked me about availability for ...
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PhD without any direction
I am a PhD student in a third world country in Mathematics in my fourth year. I have some serious concerns regarding my PhD. My advisor is very little involved in my things. I have some small results, ...
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How to deal with a very perfectionist supervisor whose projects feel never ending and never get submitted?
I am a postbacc RA with several years of experience. I am paid by the PI's grants and there is no time constraints for the projects.
My supervisor is very nice but extremely perfectionistic, causing ...
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Submitting paper to lower tier journal instead of doing major revision at higher tier journal
I am about to submit a paper from my master's thesis, my ex supervisor is my co-author.
They are letting me choose between two journals: one is a top journal, one is a good journal.
I'd like to submit ...
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Is it rude to ask my PhD student to give a daily report?
I normally have weekly meetings with my PhD students. However, when I saw one student, I noticed that she simply did a few easy things before to the appointment. During the conversation, I felt her ...
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What should I do with academic misconduct of my advisor?
My PhD advisor shared research proposal materials with us that he has reviewed as a grant panelist. He told us feel free to read whenever we have time and explore these ideas. I don't feel comfortable ...
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Good postdoc position, but how to approach advisor about feelings of self-doubt?
There's a long text about context, so I will summarize with a direct question:
Question: I haven't been able to "extract" from my PI the help that I need about building confidence and ...
user193522
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Current advisor wants me to graduate with my PhD soon but I don't feel like I learned a lot or obtained enough skills. Should I discuss this with him?
I'm a soon to be 4.5th year Ph.D student currently in a 10 week internship. My advisor wants me to wrap up my dissertation as soon as I can. However, I'm not feeling good about where I'm at right now ...
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When do you know things are actually going poorly in graduate school?
When does someone know things are actually going poorly in graduate school? Each time folks post about being behind, it's always assumed that graduate students are such high achievers that they have ...
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As an advisor, how can I help students with time management and procrastination?
As an advisor, I've worked with students who have dealt with issues including time management, procrastination, and discouragement. (I've also dealt with some of these same issues myself.)
I ...
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Moving with a questionable advisor
I know variations of this question have been asked before, but it's nice to get input on a specific situation. I'll try to keep this as brief as possible.
I am a PhD student at reputable institution A ...
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Why should I meet my advisor even if I have nothing to report?
On Ravi Vakil's page for potential students, he states
I like to meet my students every week (except for exceptional weeks, of which there are many). You may prefer not to meet in a given week if you ...
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My advisor is toxic
I have recently defended my dissertation. It was not my wish to defend since I was only three and a half years into my PhD. The reason was my advisor was pushing me to graduate. Even though I thought ...
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What should I do if my advisor is incorrectly advising me?
I am a fourth year PhD candidate in theoretical physics at a U.S. institution. Two and a half years ago I began working with my advisor on a topic I found interesting, despite my limited prior ...
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Do professors normally explicitly state on their web page that they aren't taking new applicants?
Do they? Otherwise there is a big risk of applying to their departments and programs (implying paying the admission fee) and listing them as potential supervisors but later on getting to know that ...
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What should I call my graduated PhD advisee?
How should a PhD advisor refer to their PhD advisee after successfully defending and graduating? "Former PhD advisee" sounds like it didn't end well. "PhD alumnus" sounds too ...
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How to prepare to talk with my advisor about concluding our relationship before the defense?
I'm in the last semester of my PhD program and trying to pull together my dissertation, which has not been going well for the past 2 years.
I shoulder most of the responsibility for this situation, ...
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How to tell new grad advisor that I need to transfer after I just picked his university
So I recently chose between two schools. On the surface they looked really similar but one of them (school 1) was offering my degree in 4.5 years instead of 6 and also had some other specialized ...
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Potential PhD advisor may lack qualifications
I am an applied mathematics student and recently finished my MSc.
During my second year of the bachelors I had many personal problems and was at risk of losing the entire year. To avoid this delay, I ...
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Will the journal contact my supervisor without me knowing?
I sent my supervisor a manuscript, he did not have time to read it, gave me no feedback, and told me to put his name in the acknowledgements. I worked all by myself and one month later, my supervisor ...
user188013
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My master's supervisor and paper co-author is not willing to give a letter of recommendation for PhD admissions?
She is saying that since she has left the University and moved to another country and working in a full time job there, she won't be able to write the letter. She maintains she is very busy and is ...
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How to proceed if your post-doc advisor gives you terrible project ideas?
I'm currently doing research in computer science. It's been nearly a year since I began working on my project, as a postdoc, but we haven't achieved any tangible results yet. Initially, I was working ...
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Should I change my primary supervisor? [closed]
I'm in my second year and 8 months into my PhD, I am supposed to complete one SLR and two empirical studies to successfully complete the PhD. I am supposed to be working on a pre-existing database ...
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How should I discuss the idea of a 6th year with my PhD advisor?
I am a PhD student in mathematics, finishing up my 4th year. I am meeting with my advisor early next week, and we will discuss my plan for next year (my 5th year).
I see my plan as depending on ...
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Supervisor does not want me to do my own research
This is a bit of an unusual problem, I feel, but I am conducting a PhD at a university, where it technically is possible to graduate without any first author publications. So my supervisor wants me to ...
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My paper has been rejected for accusations of "gift authorship", what now?
I posted a month ago sharing conflicts that I had with my retired co-advisor about an article.
This article was the remaining piece left to complete the basic requirements to acquire my PhD.
This ...
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Whom to ask for a recommendation letter
I'm gearing up to apply for a PhD position in AI and aiming for one of the top schools in the US. Currently, I'm wrapping up a research project (based on my graduation thesis) and preparing it for ...
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I work on a meaningless problem, no idea how to proceed
When I contacted my advisor, he had an interesting project proposal. However, since I'm a foreigner, it turns out I'm not allowed to work in that area. So, my advisor changed the project to something ...
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PhD supervisor wants to assume my apartment lease and buy my improvements to the apartment when I move out
I am about to finish my PhD. I am moving cities when I'm finished to start a new job. I've told my supervisor and he asked whether my apartment becomes free then. He is currently looking for a second ...
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How to deal with an advisor that refuses to accept my evidence for a negative result?
I am in what should be the final year of my PhD. Essentially, the problem is as follows:
The goal of my thesis is to reduce the uncertainties in a study performed by a previous PhD student. I have ...
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How to deal with co-supervisor that does not contribute but requires coauthorship?
I'm a PhD student with two supervisors, one main PI which I has nothing to complain about, and a "co-supervisor" that had a long history with my PI. He was my PI's student, then post-doc, ...
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Switching advisors after they got a grant
I am a third-year PhD student, and I have lost interest in my research area; after finishing up a recent project, I have had trouble for several months coming up with a new project in my advisor's ...
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How to read when the professor changes mind and rejects you [closed]
In my PhD program, I would like to go abroad to visit a foreign university, and ideally engage in research there.
The thing is, I have met a relatively famous professor, who has agreed, in-person, ...
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I have good results from a project that my advisor told me not to do and refused to help me with. Do I have to make them a co-author?
My advisor gave me a published approach (algorithm) used to solve some type of numerical optimization problems (however, it is old and ditched compared to better algorithms that came out after it). ...
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Is it okay to ask your undergraduate final project supervisor for a letter of recommendation for Phd admissions?
She will be my third referee. First one is my Master's thesis supervisor and the second was my masters co-supervisor, both phds. The person in question has just recently undergone her phd proposal ...
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Why do people keep saying 'it is your responsibility' to make sure your supervisor uploads their letter of recommendation (or similar)?
It is very common to see statements like "it is your responsibility to make sure [someone with higher rank, like your advisor/supervisor/mentor] to submit/upload [something like a letter/approval]...
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Does it matter who your thesis examiner is?
I am a MS (research) student and recently finished writing my thesis. I have put a lot of time into it and tried to make it explanatory. At my institute, the advisor names five external tutors to ...
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Master's thesis on uninteresting topic not really related to my background
I have started a master thesis in applied mathematics with the aim of studying a paper of my supervisor. This paper uses some "basic" results of a theory (semi algebraic geometry i.e. SAG) ...
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What is the proper etiquette when my advisor asks me to add non-contributing authors to author list?
I am currently working as a post-bacc research assistant in theoretical physics group. I have been working on my current project for a couple of years, and it is finally finished. I have been going ...
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Changing Ph.D. supervisor or changing (applying for a new) PhD project
I have moved abroad to do a PhD in Europe (in a STEM field). Currently, I am in my second year, and I have realised that my supervisor has little to no knowledge about the fields (simulations and ...
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