Yet another issue with my advisor.

[WornOutGrad]

Where do I begin,

I'm a MASTERS student (not a PhD) finishing up my second year. I am sort of in a tough place right now. Before the Spring semester ended, my advisor seemed interested in my thesis and in helping me finish. I'm really trying to finish in the Fall, because I'm getting married next summer. I've made tremendous progress this summer as a visiting graduate student at the top research lab in my field (the purpose of the internship IS for my thesis), but my advisor has become absolutely aphethitic to helping me whatsoever. I'm not asking her to spend copious amounts of time on my work, just to look at it for a few minutes and give me feedback. A few weeks ago, she e-mailed me with a list of new things to do for my thesis (even though she told me in May that my work was about finished), and she told me that with these changes, my work would be "scientifically robust for publication." I did what she told me to do (and more), updated her, and her response was virtually "I have no interest in looking at what you have done, or read your thesis." It's becoming clear to me that she isn't interested in helping me graduate, just getting more publications for herself. She recently screwed over my colleague in a similar manner, AFTER HE DEFENDED!!!!!!!!

My internship also provides the advisor with a one week visit, which she is doing next week. I asked her if she would be willing to look at my intro and methods sections and provide feedback, and she said no, because she will be too busy meeting with all of the scientists here (even though the purpose of her visit is SUPPOSED to be to look at my thesis work, meet with my supervisor here, and help me develope a plan going forward).

At this point, I have no desire to do any more work, because it's clear that she isn't going to provide me any feedback or help me. What's the point in working on this stuff if it's meaningless.

I need to put my foot down or I'm going to be in my MASTERS forever! I'M GETTING MARRIED NEXT SUMMER, and I need to move on!

[fuzzylogician]

First of all, CONGRATS on getting married!

Second of all, OH NO! I thought your troubles with your advisor were over, I'm sorry to hear that they're not.

If your analysis of the situation is correct and indeed your advisor is not willing to help you, but is instead only trying to help herself, then it's time to make some decisions to help you make the best of a rotten situation. Something you need to figure out is, what do you want to get out of this degree? Is it just the title, or also publications and a lead-in to a PhD? What you should do next varies greatly based on the answer to this question. Also important to know - are there trusted individuals in your department who you could go to for support - a DGS, department head, other prof, etc? Another venue to explore is the question - what changed between May and now? Why is it that your advisor is suddenly not willing to help - did something in your relationship change? is it possible that you are misinterpreting the situation or that there is something personal going on in her life that is making her less accessible? Try and figure this out before you make any rash decisions. But assuming that your interpretation of the situation is correct -

If the goal is to just get the MA and get the hell out of there, I think the best strategy is to assume no support from your advisor. Do your best to get feedback from your host at the internship and maybe from someone else at your school, and schedule a defense as soon as you can. Assuming that your advisor is not looking to sabotage you, this is a way to cut your losses with minimal loss or aggravation. The thesis won't be as good as it could be, but it'll be done. A good thesis is a done thesis. Seriously.

If your goal is to go on in academia, then my advice would be more complex and possibly somewhat different (though I still think that getting the hell out of there and ruffling as few feathers as possible is best). I'd want to have answers to my questions above before I could think of possible solutions to your problem.

[WornOutGrad]

First of all, CONGRATS on getting married!

Second of all, OH NO! I thought your troubles with your advisor were over, I'm sorry to hear that they're not.

If your analysis of the situation is correct and indeed your advisor is not willing to help you, but is instead only trying to help herself, then it's time to make some decisions to help you make the best of a rotten situation. Something you need to figure out is, what do you want to get out of this degree? Is it just the title, or also publications and a lead-in to a PhD? What you should do next varies greatly based on the answer to this question. Also important to know - are there trusted individuals in your department who you could go to for support - a DGS, department head, other prof, etc? Another venue to explore is the question - what changed between May and now? Why is it that your advisor is suddenly not willing to help - did something in your relationship change? is it possible that you are misinterpreting the situation or that there is something personal going on in her life that is making her less accessible? Try and figure this out before you make any rash decisions. But assuming that your interpretation of the situation is correct -

If the goal is to just get the MA and get the hell out of there, I think the best strategy is to assume no support from your advisor. Do your best to get feedback from your host at the internship and maybe from someone else at your school, and schedule a defense as soon as you can. Assuming that your advisor is not looking to sabotage you, this is a way to cut your losses with minimal loss or aggravation. The thesis won't be as good as it could be, but it'll be done. A good thesis is a done thesis. Seriously.

If your goal is to go on in academia, then my advice would be more complex and possibly somewhat different (though I still think that getting the hell out of there and ruffling as few feathers as possible is best). I'd want to have answers to my questions above before I could think of possible solutions to your problem.

Hi Fuzzylogician,

Thank you so much for your reply! Your advice is excellent! In reply to your questions, there's good news and bad news about my situation.

First off, I just want to get the degree (actually an MS, but I don't think there's much difference at the masters level ), and use it to find a job teaching at a community college. I have no intentions of going further into academia.

The bad news is that after two years of working with this lady, I've determined that this is just how she's like. The purpose of my internship as I've mentioned is to pursue my thesis research, with the endorsement of my advisor and the host/supervision of a scientist here. While the scientist here has been FANTASTIC (I want him on my committee; he's gone above and beyond what I would have hoped for and I would be honored to have him evaluate my thesis!), my advisor has practically left me out to dry. The only time I've heard of her mention me was in bragging about me interning here for the summer. Both my supervisor and I have been spending the whole summer piecing together great work for my thesis, and my advisor has expressed no interest in looking at it or providing feedback. It's clear that it's an out-of-sight-out-of-mind issue (i.e. She's not paying me, so she doesn't have to put up with me). That's how I see it, and based on my past with her, I feel that this is the issue.

The good news is that where she lacks in support, others have made up for it. Our department chair (who is also DGS) is extremely supportive of graduate students, and I've had good feedback and encouragement (to the point of sympathy actually... there have been documented issues with my advisor in the past) from at least two professors in addition to the department chair. I also have tremendous support from my supervisor over here.

The problem is that I can't do anything until my advisor checks off on it... which she is pretty much refusing to do. I am pretty much gridlocked right now. I wish I could just go around her, schedule the defense, and go with what I have, but that's not possible (not to mention, while I'm pretty much done with this lady after graduation, I'll need some kind of positive reference from her and doing what I just mentioned would probably make her a mortal enemy).

The only other thing that has changed is that I have taken a TA position in the fall. She mentioned that while it might delay my graduation until spring, that she would support me either way... only to cut my funding after I accepted the position (even though the told the chair that she would still fund me). I guess the problem I have here is that she has had me grade/sit in on/answer student e-mails for her before (I did everything other than lecture) and she had no problem with it taking away from my research. I mentioned that I want to teach for a career and so experience prior to graduation is very necessary in this world. I guess I wonder if she is doing this to get back at me for wanting to teach.

[fuzzylogician]

Hm. I've heard that some professors don't appreciate students who choose to teach, that they feel as if they've "wasted" their time on someone who will not become a researcher. Maybe that's the problem. Or maybe, as you say, this is just a problematic person with a documented history of difficulties as an advisor. It's really important that you understand better what your advisor's attitude is all about, because some of you strategy will likely depend on it.

Given your reply, I think that the next two steps for you are (1) use the summer and the support of your supervisor to get as far along with your thesis as you can. (2) start forming a committee, and invite your supporters to be on it. If you have a strong thesis and you have several supporters on your committee, it'll be hard for your advisor to find reasons to object to a defense.

Once you're back at your university and have made some decent progress, start asking for advice about when to defend and how to bring the issue up with your advisor. If you're making good progress and have a solid foundation, you could try and come up with a schedule for the remaining work and ask if it makes sense to schedule a defense based on that. Once everybody else agrees that you should schedule a defense date, you could ask someone (in person!) to start an email with everybody cced on it which brings up the defense. Any pretense ("I need to book things early," "I think she can defend, what do you think, advisor?," etc) will work, and it'll be much better if it's initiated by another professor and not you. You're lucky to have strong supporters and unless your advisor is for some reason actively looking to sabotage you, she'll have no choice but to agree to a defense. If she doesn't, you'll need to decide if you want to publicly fight her or lower your head and try and find a quiet solution. You could ask (with everyone cced) what you need to do to make the thesis defendable, or if her replies are unhelpful, ask for outside intervention. Along the way, it's important that you be able to demonstrate that you've done your best to do everything your advisor asked for and that you solicited her advice frequently. At the end of the day - especially if this person is tenured - the other professors need to continue working with her after you have left. They may fight for you, but you should always remember that she is in a preferred position over you.

[SeriousSillyPutty]

I second strategic use of the email carbon copy. It can seem passive aggressive to bring other people into a personal battle, but with proper pretext it can hold people accountable. (At my work the girl who books the rooms for special events never replies to emails... UNLESS you CC somebody -- anybody -- else, then she replies.)

Maybe you could email your adviser and say, "Hey, I know you don't have time for my thesis right now, so I'm thinking about picking the brains of my research supervisor here (or Prof So-and-So back home). Do you have any problems with me doing that and copying you on the emails?"

Then you could communicate with the people who are helpful, but prove to her that, based on the assessments of others, you are making progress. Alternately, you could email your questions to her with a comment of, "I'm copy Dr. X on this in case he has time to answer, too."

Good luck!

[Dal PhDer]

The others have given really great advice.

I am sorry you are in this position. A friend of mine was in a similar situation and she kind of let her advisor push her over...she ended up having to dish out two extra semesters worth of tuition...so my advice might be a bit bias, as I saw her go through so much grief.

Ok....I think you have an interesting road here. My first question is this: Could your intern supervisor be brought on as a co-supervisor? You mention a committee member, but it seems like you are also really lacking a supervisors role to push things along. During my MA, my committee members really didn't have a say in when I defended, and you want your supervisor to have read and provided feedback prior to your defense- so you are going to want to have someone in your court giving you excellent feedback. As your intern supervisor is really interested in your project and wanting to help you out, perhaps this could be an easy transition for them to move into this position. Do they know you are having as much issues with your current supervisor?

As the others have said, you can also try CC'ing your intern supervisor when you email your current supervisor your draft. Maybe say something like "Hello, here is an updated draft of my methods section. Please notice the revision on x, y, and z. I would really appreciate feedback by (I would give them a few weeks), as my goal is to defend in _____". I think you really need to be upfront and clear about what YOU want your timeline to be.

You said you have had a lot of support from others in your department...is it possible to ask these individuals to be on your committee? It's always great to have people who are on your side during this process. If you stress to them that you need to graduate at this time, they will respect it.

It really sounds like your current supervisor is holding you back, and that's wrong. It certainly happens, but I think you can kindly remind her that you have a timeline and are finished. Most schools have certain dates that you have to defend by in order to graduate. I would tell her the date that you want to defend by so that you don't have to pay for extra tuition fees- and maybe that will light the fire under her.

Good luck! Keep us posted!