Questions tagged [interpersonal-issues]
Questions concerning relationships and dealing with problems between people.
45
votes
7answers
11k views
How to explain that I do not want to visit a country due to personal safety concern?
I have been invited to visit a professor in a different country. I am very reluctant to go. The government of this country is currently under investigation by the UN for suspicions of crimes against ...
33
votes
9answers
11k views
My adviser wants to be the first author
I am working on a paper after finishing my Masters. I did all the lab research and writing of the manuscript. My professor was only involved to guide me throughout the research and read my writing and ...
0
votes
1answer
202 views
exam/teaching culture, possible abusive supervisor, research gatekeeping
Apologies for the length, I don't know how to make this shorter. I also don't know where else to turn for advice. :(
I've recently started an MA in what promises to be a brand new humanities ...
2
votes
2answers
364 views
Polite message for my supervisors who do unfair things that would totally leads me to lose my study [closed]
I am currently working on finishing my PhD thesis. For about 3 years and 6 months of my study, I am suffering from the absence of my supervisors. She always travels for 6 months, sometimes two months ...
1
vote
0answers
204 views
To what extent do doctoral advisors “pick” their grad students?
I am just starting a graduate program in physics. I have read a few posts describing what a PhD student should think about when looking for an advisor, but I have a question regarding the advisor's ...
3
votes
1answer
189 views
Question on whether I have committed plagiarism (modifying paragraphs from an unpublished document sent as email attachment for PhD thesis)
Background
My colleague and I are both PhD students (My colleague started about 8 months after me) from the same research group (and share the same PhD supervisor) in a UK university. We were ...
11
votes
7answers
10k views
Prospective supervisor wants me to do irrelevant videos as a condition for supervision. Can I say yes when I mean no?
This question is the reverse of Dealing with a PhD student reneging on an agreement to appear in social media, in which the student had agreed during interviewing to participate in social media ...
2
votes
2answers
299 views
How to deal with bad department chair?
As students we have the right to choose our semester subjects (for the new semester beginning in 2019)
So we went send an email to the department chair indicating what subject we would like to take. ...
3
votes
1answer
258 views
Supervisor asking me to list a co-author who has literally done nothing [duplicate]
I am in the final stages of writing a paper to submit at an IEEE conference. I am the primary author, in the sense that I did most of the work and most of the writing. I have three other co-authors ...
64
votes
5answers
14k views
What can be done about a disruptive classmate?
There is a classmate who repeatedly interrupts the flow of lectures in various ways. We assume he has learning difficulties of some kind due to how he acts and because he has an assistant with him in ...
4
votes
3answers
868 views
Supervisor gets PhD student to do his entire job
My master's supervisor delegates most (if not all) of his work to his senior PhD student. Let's name this student X.
X creates all the assignments, midterms, and exams for the courses this professor ...
10
votes
1answer
464 views
In the EU, how much protection do I have if I report an assault on myself by my department head?
I had a very ugly incident at my corrupt institute (I live in E. EU). In short, I was assaulted by one of the department's heads during my own group meeting on my own grant for daring to "back talk" ...
9
votes
4answers
2k views
Is it in the best interest of supervisors that his/her students publish their research results in top journals?
I am a math PhD student in a foreign country. When finishing my papers, my advisor (who is a big name in the field) always proposes me to submit them to a journal. The problem is that so far none of ...
0
votes
1answer
192 views
What to do when finding difficulty in resuming study?
Suppose, I completed two semesters and left a university two years ago. I want to resume my study again.
I e-mailed a specific guy in the faculty/department/institute. I need a readmission paper from ...
29
votes
2answers
7k views
Etiquette for a female PhD student to reject her male supervisor's invitation to meet outside of work
The role of supervisor is a key role. The relationship between the supervisor and the students should be healthy.
In this context, in India, there is a lot of difference between male and female ...
8
votes
5answers
3k views
Could I submit an abstract for a conference prior asking my supervisor permission about it?
I would like to submit an abstract for a poster presentation, I'm just worried that if I tell my supervisor before submitting, she might say I shouldn't do it, because she rarely wants me to be away ...
27
votes
7answers
13k views
My supervisor is making me work on something that is not my PhD project. What should I do?
My PhD project is a very little part of a big study that my supervisor is currently running. I am already four months into my PhD and I just have a 3 years position to finish my thesis. So far I haven’...
5
votes
1answer
232 views
How do I make the case to regain first authorship?
I am a senior Phd student in a very small lab consisting of me, my PI, and one other graduate student (one year under me). We began at an academic institution working on this paper related to my ...
5
votes
1answer
468 views
My supervisor does not want to publish my research
I just graduated from grad school and to say that it has been hell is just a euphemism. My supervisor has been a bully all the time and every thing that I did and didn't please my supervisor was met ...
6
votes
3answers
605 views
A potential collaborator and PhD student took a commanding tone with me (faculty) – how should I react?
Background about me
I am an early-to-mid-career teaching-track faculty (four years of cross-curricular teaching experience in engineering) in the USA. I teach courses both at the undergraduate and ...
8
votes
2answers
585 views
What can a PI do about a low-performing postdoc?
This is a hypothetical question inspired by a flip side of the situation described here.
Consider a PI on tenure-track position, facing tenure / promotion panel in a few years. The PI has just got ...
32
votes
5answers
5k views
How do I get over these (possibly sexist) feelings regarding an underqualified labmate? [closed]
Well, this is kind of embarrassing for me and I am judging myself as well.
I have just started my PhD. And there is another woman who has started in the same lab as me. Over the first week, I found ...
35
votes
7answers
7k views
1.5 years later, how to make sure unprofessional behaviour by former mentor has consequences?
I was a post doc at a large US university for a year and after took another postdoc position in my home country. My mentor was a tenure track assistant professor. It pretty soon became clear that ...
134
votes
10answers
37k views
I slept with my advisor's daughter and she is blackmailing me now. What can I do?
I am doing a PhD in the US. I am in my mid-twenties and will graduate next spring. My advisor was very good and nice to me. He invited me to have dinner at his home many times and then I met his ...
1
vote
1answer
110 views
How to reconnect a relationship with a professor
Today
I'm currently in my final MSc year, and I have finished working for my thesis. I am under supervision of professor X, which I find myself at ease and actually enjoy what I do. My field is ...
1
vote
1answer
131 views
prospective English doctoral candidate: advice regarding weird relationship with potential advisor
I recently got my BA in English from a top 10 university and am planning on re-applying to the same school's doctoral program this fall. (For personal reasons, I'm constrained to programs within a ...
1
vote
1answer
87 views
Can a master's student change their mind and look for a different project?
I am a fairly new Master's student (~3 months). A few weeks ago, my supervisor told me to work on project X. I reluctantly agreed to work on X because I was not able to come up with any alternatives, ...
-3
votes
1answer
317 views
Field-dependency of politics and public shaming in academia
I have recently been quite shocked to learn of the blog of an accomplished string theorist, which includes a lot of personal invective against physicists he disagrees with, as well as a lot of non-...
4
votes
2answers
530 views
How to ask a, probably angry, PhD supervisor for a letter of recommendation after graduation from uni?
I was on good terms with my PhD supervisor throughout my studies. After graduation, I gave a talk at a symposium and my PhD supervisor was in the audience. I was planning to add a few sentences of ...
25
votes
4answers
7k views
As a student, how can I negotiate comfortable and appropriate sleeping arrangements with a stranger for a conference?
I'm an undergraduate student that was offered a role researching for a grant. I was able to get authorship status on a paper and will be attending a conference for it later this year. The professor I ...
64
votes
8answers
18k views
While showing my work to my supervisor, an adult website appeared. Am I in trouble?
I will try to make this brief. I am a student at a prominent university in the UK, and while I was showing my thesis work, a website, to my supervisor, the website crashed. Then I was asked to close ...
15
votes
7answers
9k views
How to deal with sources whose authors I don't have good relationship with?
I used to have a good relationship with an author, but now it's broken. However, my work is heavily based on the work of that author, and I'm not sure if citing it without informing them is OK here. ...
3
votes
3answers
352 views
How to avoid personal issues interfering with my Ph.D. studies?
Background
My life had (and still has) difficult problems (chronic disease and its consequences: social isolation, anxiety, having to take extra measures to take care of my health...). As a ...
69
votes
13answers
32k views
Dealing with a PhD student reneging on an agreement to appear in social media
Inspired by this question, I have a similar but somehow different problem.
I recently assumed a tenure-track position. One of my strategies for a visible start is to have a strong presence in social ...
2
votes
2answers
177 views
Rescinding or deferring admission over a break up
I have a full ride for a grad program at a good school
I've recently gone through an awful breakup with a girlfriend of 7 years
I now want to take an extra year before going to school, for many ...
9
votes
2answers
329 views
Do I need to explain my reasoning when choosing between two offers
I have been lucky enough to have been offered different professor positions in different universities. Both departments have made a lot of efforts to try and convince me to choose theirs (who gets ...
37
votes
10answers
10k views
Is passion a must-have for a Master's student?
When I was accepted to become a Master's student, I had virtually no experience in the topics that my supervisor wanted to work in. Lately I've been catching up on background knowledge (I've been in ...
10
votes
2answers
748 views
Toxic colleague talks about me to Professors
I am a PhD student with a very difficult colleague - someone I thought was just socially inept, and rude. I was always friendly, giving her the benefit of the doubt, even though she offended me and ...
46
votes
11answers
24k views
How can I avoid inadvertently offending my female peers and getting into trouble for it?
Attention has been drawn recently to an incident that occurred at a scientific conference and its sequelae described in this article:
The fuss started when [Prof. X] and [Prof. Y] ended up in the ...
35
votes
5answers
4k views
Improving work conditions of student assistants, PhDs, Postdocs etc
I have been following threads on this website for a few months now. However it's my first time posting. I am a postdoctoral researcher from a Western European country who has done reasonably well ...
0
votes
1answer
112 views
Improve my relationship with this professor?
When applying to graduate school, I didn't asked for a letter of recommendation from a professor who offered one.
Now I have a course with him and he seems to avoid me. How I can fix my relationship ...
7
votes
3answers
210 views
Negotiating boundaries with a conflict avoidant advisor
My PhD advisor is someone who values workplace/personal life boundaries. Sometimes I feel that he gets mad at me for accidentally crossing those boundaries in small ways. The problem is that he doesn'...
15
votes
3answers
4k views
Problem with undergraduate research supervisor, how to proceed?
Setting
I am currently an undergraduate student in chemistry and I have recently started working on an undergraduate research project in a known laboratory in the US. I am very passionate about the ...
51
votes
7answers
14k views
Is talking to a professor about personal issues acceptable?
I've been struggling a lot recently with stuff thats been going on, I'm in therapy and receiving help but I'm still having a really hard time. I have a professor who's always asking if I'm doing okay ...
11
votes
2answers
1k views
Rules for notifying co-authors about re-presenting a project at a conference
I am a PhD student in molecular biology & bioinformatics in Australia. I have previously presented one of my projects as a poster at a conference. This was sent for review to all co-authors, ...
47
votes
4answers
6k views
Withdraw manuscript from peer review after finding a major error
I just received a major revision decision (1st round) for a manuscript I submitted to a reputable journal. After looking into one of the reviewer's comments I found a major error in my analysis. The ...
2
votes
3answers
574 views
How do I communicate to a Teacher Assistant that I would like to fix our relationship?
I am a final year undergrad student in mathematics. This is an important detail as usually there are not many mathematics students, and even less in their final (because of the dropout rate). Because ...
2
votes
0answers
315 views
I am having trouble with my advisor. Can someone help? [closed]
I am a 4th year Ph.D. student from India. I don't get any help from my advisor. He has always been demotivating me. In my entire 4 years, I have never got any moral support from him. I don't get any ...
5
votes
1answer
351 views
How do I tell my advisor that I lost interest in the subject?
I got my MSc in physics working on a certain subject with my advisor. I'm now starting my PhD studies under the same advisor.
The problem is, there's a tacit assumption that I'll do my PhD on the ...
8
votes
1answer
343 views
How to negotiate with collaborators on adjusting procedures to interdisciplinary projects?
This is an issue I frequently face. As a biologist I like doing interdisciplinary science. In fact I believe interdisciplinarity is the key to producing any truly insightful observation, at least in ...
