Scary Situation

[SPS1000]

Hello,

I am a graduate student at a small rural school. I seem to have gotten myself in a situation that has me freaking out.

Currently I am working on a project with grant money I recieved from the university and am doing a survey. Sounds good, right? I am actually pretty far behind on my timeline that I put forward on my application for the grant due to an event that was completely out of my control.

Anyhow for the last two months I have been working very closely with my advisor on getting this survey out there and ready. Well I made some minor changes and finally distributed the survey. Something I should have done a month or so ago.

My advisor sent me at least five e-mails in two hours and called me once (there's even a phantom voicemail which I can prove I didn't recieve). I didn't recieve the e-mails til about 8PM last night and didn't see that my advisor called me til 8:30. I called my advisor afterwards forgetting my manners, and not even knowing it was my advisor's cell phone that called me. Now I have to have a so far unscheduled meeting with the department head and my advisor (because it happened so late). Anybody been in this situation before? Any advice?

My advisor is known by former advisees as a pain in the butt to work with and has been called a totalitarian jerk (more colorful language). My advisor does not respect anyone's opinion but thier own and has yelled at me for bringing in the advice of another professor who has had students apply for this grant before. My advisor is always too busy to do anything and takes completely unreasonable timeframes to get drafts back (upwards of a month), and does not give updates but flips out when you ask for one. They have delayed both of their previous advisees that I know of. One by over a year. It has constantly been a fight between them and I (like one out of 4 of our weekly meetings per month). I am really kicking myself for not going with my gut and chosing my professor friend as at least I would've got on well with that

Sorry about the rant at the end there.

EDIT: Oh I forgot to mention I have not even started my theis yet and plan on applying to PhD programs in the fall.

Edited June 23, 2012 by SPS1000

[ktel]

So you're in trouble for calling him late at night basically? Just apologize. It wasn't even THAT late, so I really don't think it should be that big a deal. As far as your advisor being in general a jerk, I don't know what to tell you! Either stick it out or leave, those are basically your options.

[emmm]

All you can do is apologize and say you hadn't realized how late it was (though I agree, that it not late). And try to switch advisors at the first possible moment -- can you switch now?. Good luck.

[crazygirl2012]

You're in trouble because you called him late? That must be a very tense work atmosphere if something that minor could trigger anything beyond annoyance! Unless it was like a 2 a.m. drunk dial (which it was not), I don't see why they're making such a big deal out of it. I think the best you can do is just apologize, say that you were eager to return his emails and phone call promptly, and you thought it was his office phone where you could leave a voicemail. That's perfectly reasonable. If you want to be extra cautious about sounding defensive, just go with a simple "I'm sorry, I should have known better, and it won't happen again."

[Eigen]

So your first post was unclear to me... Are you in trouble for calling him late, or something with the surveys and delay?

[TakeruK]

I also wasn't sure if you are in trouble because of the late phone call, or that your advisor felt like you ignored their attempts to reach you, or that you released the survey without final approval from your supervisor!

Are you in a 2 year masters program? If you are applying to PhD programs this fall, then you have until next summer to finish up your program, right? I don't think you need to worry about not having started your thesis yet -- it's still really early. I'm in a 2 year MSc program and I just started writing earlier this month, and I plan to finish by the end of July. My actual data is not completely ready yet but that was due to computer cluster issues (it's a simulation) but we have done enough preliminary stuff that I know what to expect so I can pretty much write everything except the results and discussion until next week (when it will be done). Most people in 2 year MSc's don't really begin work on their thesis project until the summer after they started, i.e. sounds like now for you.

[ktel]

Are you in a 2 year masters program? If you are applying to PhD programs this fall, then you have until next summer to finish up your program, right? I don't think you need to worry about not having started your thesis yet -- it's still really early. I'm in a 2 year MSc program and I just started writing earlier this month, and I plan to finish by the end of July. My actual data is not completely ready yet but that was due to computer cluster issues (it's a simulation) but we have done enough preliminary stuff that I know what to expect so I can pretty much write everything except the results and discussion until next week (when it will be done). Most people in 2 year MSc's don't really begin work on their thesis project until the summer after they started, i.e. sounds like now for you.

Love hearing this. Definitely true, I feel like I have not been able to make much progress while taking courses. This summer is key for me to start actually working on my thesis. I started in September.