OliviaV

Thank you all very much for your answers.

Hello, I am a fifth year graduate student in literature. I have 2 advisors. I'll call: Advisor 1 (famous and more experienced) and Advisor 2 (up and coming, first time advising) . I finished my first chapter after working on it for 9 months and with some dissappointment on the part of my advisors. In the meantime, I gave them a timeline with due dates for each chapter. I finished the first one on time, but by the time they got back to me and I did the necessary corrections, I had only 1 month left to finish the next one, and there was no way that I could do that. So I finished it in two months, working day and night. I proofread it multiple times and had others proofread at least 3 times. After two months of hard work, advisor 1 (famous and more experienced), sent me a very harsh email pointing not only at my work but my personality, saying that I understand very slow and he does not know what to do at this point. I have never heard of such a thing from any of my professors and I think it is disrespectful to point at someone's personality like this. After that, advisor 2 sent me a separate email stating that I should not be discouraged and persevere. My question is: I haven't replied to advisor 1 yet (it has been 2 days). Shall I just continue as if nothing happened and say I will send another draft in a week? Or shall I add that I worked hard but I am upset that I could not reflect the hard work in my writing. Would the second option burn bridges completely (given that he already burn bridges with me anyway)? Shall I show that I can stand up for myself or remain passive and respectful like how I was since the beginning, (seems that passivity is not working for me)? I appreciate any other advice because I feel very desperate, thinking of dropping from my phd program after 4 years of work Thank you very much for your help.

I am a phd student, ABD, writing my dissertation. I am planning to finish December, 2013. But I just learned that my advisor is pregnant (and I learned it from someone else and I asked her, she confirmed). I will be working on my dissertation over the summer and plan to make a timeline, which forces me to submit chapters and receive feedback over the summer. However, she is probably due in mid-summer and I am not sure how to approach the subject. I am happy for her, but I am worried about my progress as well. To complicate the issue, I should add that I will be moving out of this state and live in another state starting with early-August, 2013. Was anybody else in my situation as well? Thanks for your responses in advance.