Questions tagged [interpersonal-issues]

Questions concerning relationships and dealing with problems between people.

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1 answer
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It is rude to offer a teacher the study guide you made for their class?

Is it rude to offer my professor a study guide I made for their class? I throughly enjoyed his class but the class he is teaching is extremely hard being it is a premed requirement. I made a study ...
John Doe 's user avatar
13 votes
5 answers
5k views

What to do when a senior co-author is very disrespectful?

I am a researcher and professional in the social science field, writing a paper in the field of Computer Science together with CS colleagues to be submitted to an interdisciplinary journal, which is ...
AkiPhD's user avatar
  • 421
22 votes
5 answers
8k views

How to Politely Decline Sharing My Research Proposal with a Fellow Student?

I recently finished my masters program and for my thesis, I was able to do something that not many people in my department had done before which was be able to conduct my research in Malawi (my school ...
Dahye Lim's user avatar
  • 231
5 votes
4 answers
6k views

How to handle a students' complaint of my teaching method?

I feel an international student has a grudge against me and has complained about me regarding my teaching methods etc. during lectures and that I read off the slides which I really don’t. The thing is,...
user avatar
15 votes
6 answers
5k views

How can I work well with a fellow student whose speech I cannot understand?

I am a graduate student, and I am having trouble understanding one of my cohort mates. They are an international student, and it is often impossible for me to understand their speech well. They are ...
Reed's user avatar
  • 251
6 votes
2 answers
4k views

How to deal with behavioural difficulties of other PhD students in the same cohort

I'm part of a first year PhD students most of whom either came straight from undergrad or master's (one student). Me and the other student are the oldest by age; a bit of an age gap between us and the ...
Caroline's user avatar
34 votes
10 answers
12k views

How to respond to "you must be reviewer #X of my paper!"

Say in a face-to-face conversation, if a researcher says "You must be reviewer #X of my paper!", which is true, how should one respond? (I doubt this would be field-dependent, but I'm ...
Timmy's user avatar
  • 696
3 votes
2 answers
373 views

Ghosted by research colleague. How to proceed?

I am finding myself in a difficult situation with a research colleague. We worked on two projects - one currently with the journal and the other I am working on. She has gone completely silent despite ...
H.H.'s user avatar
  • 31
0 votes
1 answer
89 views

Reasonable to ask 2nd supervisor for more involvement?

Next week, I will be meeting with both my supervisors (and the PhD course director) to discuss coming back to the PhD after a break. This, I think, is a good chance to voice a variety of concerns. One ...
RealDisinformation's user avatar
7 votes
4 answers
11k views

Second PhD after a not successful PhD and not being trained enough by professor [duplicate]

It is my fifth year of graduate studies in chemistry. I haven't had enough training from my professor and I don't have enough confidence to do even a post-doc. It is so close to my graduation, that I ...
Sahar Mohammadi's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
285 views

At what point does research criticism become academic hazing?

I've been collaborating on a paper with a junior colleague and a senior colleague, among others. The junior colleague is the lead writer on the paper and has done about 85-90% of the research. Junior ...
user2352714's user avatar
-3 votes
1 answer
342 views

Tricky situation with affiliation [closed]

I would like to hear an advice for a slightly complicated situation. I'm currently a postdoc working on a revolutionary project during the last year. During this year, my boss gave me a real hard time ...
Yair's user avatar
  • 95
4 votes
8 answers
8k views

Do I have an obligation to tell my brother that his paper may not meet the standards of a "legitimate" research article?

My brother has written a paper which is essentially a survey of different techniques to accomplish a certain security related goal. He has also managed to present it in some conference. Unfortunately, ...
Grzegorczyk's user avatar
32 votes
5 answers
12k views

Coworker hiding and stealing lab material

We found out that a graduate student coworker was hiding materials and even throwing them away when they realised they might get caught. With this they were not only stealing but also actively ...
Amanda's user avatar
  • 539
17 votes
4 answers
8k views

How to deal with bad undergrad researchers

I am a grad student in the life sciences. I have to mentor several undergrad students. One student in particular is just so bad and is always getting confused with protocols. He can't follow a ...
Miracle's user avatar
  • 171
21 votes
9 answers
7k views

How to respond to a professor asking for investment in their business?

A few weeks back the prof asked me to invest in his business. That is a significant amount for us, I do not understand why he is proposing that. I wonder what should we do with this proposal. What can ...
programmer_smart's user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
8k views

Drop from co-authorship of manuscript

I was on a internship abroad. We started a topic that is also carried out by their other student. The new research was repetitive, so I decided to take my time and automate the process. I spent some ...
farmaceut's user avatar
  • 376
2 votes
1 answer
559 views

How to respond to a professor not happy with me

I am in the final year of my bachelor and only need to pass one last course to complete my bachelor. The thing is I failed this course this year. Which means I have to continue for a whole other year ...
Qwerty123's user avatar
23 votes
7 answers
17k views

What do you do with graduate students who don't want to work, sit around talk all day, and are negative such that others don't want to be there?

I have a biomedical lab. There are graduate students who don't do their work. Instead, both of them spend most of their time talking (not about their research). They also complain a lot and make a ...
MamaD's user avatar
  • 255
1 vote
2 answers
256 views

Shall I quit as a co-author on this paper?

I was involved with a physician in the write up of a unique case report. In May 2022 we started the project. I wrote the introduction, case reports after interviewing the patients, prevalence data ...
Free Soul's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
217 views

My PI suggested that another postdoc draft an individual fellowship proposal centered around my original idea

I won a grant that I wrote myself, but it was awarded under my PI's name due to the rules that prohibited including my own name. Nevertheless, I was thrilled about it as it is highly beneficial for my ...
enne's user avatar
  • 21
1 vote
1 answer
318 views

How to kindly tell my supervisor that I will pursue my career in the industry?

I have received my MSc. degree at software engineering 5 months ago after a 3-year period of study and research. At the time of graduation, my supervisor asked me whether I would like to continue as ...
Tripoli's user avatar
  • 13
0 votes
1 answer
524 views

How to deal with supervisor that changes prerequisites for PhD completion?

I am currently facing a challenging situation with my supervisor, which has persisted for a considerable time. I wont go into too much detail but she more or less thinks of PhD students as slave. ...
Tasos's user avatar
  • 9
-1 votes
2 answers
282 views

PhD Frustration and plans [closed]

I have recently (a couple of months) started a Ph.D. in Germany in the field of reinforcement learning, which I try to combine with Optimal Control to give guarantees and /or analyze performance and ...
Constantine Phoenix's user avatar
12 votes
7 answers
12k views

I sent a Facebook friend request to my ex-professor, should I apologise?

Summary: after graduation, I sent my professor a friend request on Facebook, but didn't have response for a few days. I feel really bad and I really want to apologize. I just graduated and I have ...
algare's user avatar
  • 145
2 votes
1 answer
402 views

Can I request that my PI remove a poorly-behaving member from my research group?

I am a third year student at a R2 university that puts an emphasis on undergraduate research. This university requires all students to participate in an off-campus research project during junior year (...
anonymous255's user avatar
44 votes
4 answers
8k views

Is it wrong for students to report suspected / borderline plagiarism?

Last year I came across a student in our department (we are both PhD students) who copied a journal article in her final paper. To be sure, she didn’t copy the article word from word but did use the ...
Kayla's user avatar
  • 439
5 votes
1 answer
2k views

Collaborators have asked me to oversee another PhD student’s work, how to proceed?

A newer PhD student in my lab has begun conducting research very similar to mine. We are both working on a large body of research, and although the projects are similar, their research will ultimately ...
orion's user avatar
  • 53
2 votes
2 answers
282 views

Talking to a professor about a potential research idea [closed]

I am a Master's student in the US. I am in a course and was discussing an idea with the professor and TA for the course. Both of them seemed pretty excited about the idea and said it can become a ...
uucdh's user avatar
  • 21
3 votes
2 answers
522 views

How to survive a mean professor

I am an undergraduate student who has been conducting research with a professor for the past year. Unfortunately, I have been feeling defeated lately because the professor I am working with is ...
Elizabeth_555's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
261 views

Accidentally overlapping research projects

During my research, it appears that I have managed to stumble upon a new kind of solution for a problem that our lab has previously worked on. My classmate in the lab worked on that problem prior to ...
user1848065's user avatar
27 votes
2 answers
5k views

Being pushed out of a paper by a toxic postdoc - what should I do?

TLDR: I am being excluded of a paper for which I worked, and I am not sure how to proceed. Long story short, I am a theoretical physics PhD student and I was approached by experimental physicists ...
Dau's user avatar
  • 379
1 vote
2 answers
434 views

My assigned postdoc mentor is not a good fit. How to proceed?

I finished my Ph.D in applied mathematics in a US institution last May. I have now started my postdoc position at another US institution last Fall. My post-doc is funded by the department of ...
Fei Cao's user avatar
  • 191
16 votes
4 answers
6k views

My supervisor is suggesting implementing an idea that they previously rejected

I am in a very confusing situation. I am almost 3 years into my PhD project, and just today my direct supervisor suggested to me to read a paper in the best journal a PhD student would want to publish ...
blaha's user avatar
  • 169
4 votes
1 answer
323 views

PhD supervisor is getting too involved in my Postdoc, which is supervised by another academic close to him. How to diplomatically draw a boundary?

I had a rocky relationship with my Ph.D. supervisor. He has a my-way-or-the-highway style of supervision and was a relentless micromanager, so much so that I feel I "own" very few of the ...
BioMath's user avatar
  • 41
22 votes
6 answers
9k views

What should I do if I feel that a senior academic is trying to take advantage of me?

A while ago I asked a senior mathematician a question. He made some suggestions for some papers to read and had a broad outline for what steps might work. Then I read those papers and proved a theorem ...
cgb5436's user avatar
  • 3,864
2 votes
1 answer
311 views

How to approach disclosing a marital relationship when we both want to be post-docs in the same lab?

I and my spouse are planning to apply for a post-doctoral position with same professor. Since we both are eligible for and interested in the positions, we want to communicate the same to the professor....
satya's user avatar
  • 149
2 votes
2 answers
738 views

How to deal with my former MA advisor behavior

I graduated last year with a Master’s degree in history at a top institution in my field and received a very good grade for my dissertation. Unfortunately, my relationship with my advisor was not very ...
Cnp's user avatar
  • 57
-3 votes
2 answers
386 views

Is it common that a supervisor doesn't even read their students code?

My friend is very frustrated, he realized recently that his supervisor never read the code he was working on for the last year for his PhD. As he described the situation, his supervisor doesn't seem ...
metaUser's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
197 views

How to deal with bossy/micromanaging colleague (postdoc)

I joined my current research group as a postdoc about one year ago. That project I was assigned to work on wrapped up, and I was assigned to work on a different project for this second year. This ...
user18244's user avatar
  • 5,806
3 votes
3 answers
2k views

Baffled by online professor's response to my weekly reflections journal [closed]

I'm attending university 100% online. I have the same professor for three classes, which are all structured the same way. Every week there is assigned reading, videos, and a discussion board post with ...
Jennifer Hale Jen's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
325 views

Reference letter from the university professor rather than thesis guide

For my PhD admission in Europe I need 3 reference letter from my university professor.I also collected 3 reference letters.Among 3 letters one is my masters thesis guide.But my masters thesis guide ...
user19121278's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

Dealing with a passive-aggressive and seemingly biased advisor

I am an EE Ph.D. student at an R1 university in the US. Over the last six months or so, I have been seeing some passive-aggressive behavior directed toward me. I am usually very patient, and I have ...
Paddy's user avatar
  • 129
2 votes
1 answer
634 views

Last stage of PhD, hostile relation with PhD supervisor (Germany)

Currently, I am in the last phase, more or less of my Ph.D., two papers have been accepted and I am finishing up the last two projects, while also collaborating on other projects that do not affect ...
ArD's user avatar
  • 21
27 votes
8 answers
6k views

Patching things up with advisor? He has been avoiding me since I found a simple answer to a problem he thought would be challenging

I am international STEM PhD student in the UK. My advisor asked me to try and attempt a question that he has been thinking about for more than five years. He was always very encouraging, but wasn't ...
Ryan Hendricks's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
745 views

I feel humiliated and upset after a meeting with a collaborator, and I'm unsure how to proceed

Background: I am a junior postdoc who has been working for some years with an overseas collaborator who is much more senior. I have previously had no issues at all with this collaborator. For the last ...
hanktheshank's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
151 views

How to get rid of the awkwardness and feeling of inferiority for being a fairly old graduate/PHD student? [duplicate]

I am a first year MS student in an STEM area. For many reasons I didn't enter this subject area and didn't gain ANY research experience until last summer, when I was 26 (now 27). So starting next fall ...
Robert's user avatar
  • 941
4 votes
4 answers
956 views

How do I avoid answering too many questions?

Often in class, professors will ask questions to the class. Usually, I'll at least think I know the answer to the question, so naturally I want to answer it. The problem is that my hand shouldn't ...
2br-2b's user avatar
  • 353
-1 votes
2 answers
324 views

How should I approach my studies in the Humanities area if I'm a contrarian?

Before I start, I should mention that the closest thing I found here was this post, but the comments say something I really want to avoid, which is to sound like a [political ideology here]-nut. I am ...
Tet's user avatar
  • 19
0 votes
3 answers
518 views

How to write an apology message to a professor when you've accidently been arrogant?

I'm a first year and our professor was taking students for a research paper; we had to call the professor so he could ask us some questions. I was kind of nervous, and when he asked me if I'd done any ...
freshman's user avatar

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