Change PhD Program/School.

[I_am_Myth]

Hi All,

 

So a year into PhD and really not enjoying it. I'm at a top 5 university in the Uk and I love research, but my supervisor is a big problem. He's increasingly inconsistent with his reasoning an expectations, he's extremely patronizing and I've never met someone more unrealistic in terms of what is achievable and what's not (for example he was 6 papers within 3 months - from scratch). Its causing me an incredible amount of stress and sleepless nights. Coupled with the fact he already has too many PhD students to manage (13 so far) frequently has no time for any of us (My milestone reports/vivas etc are 8 months overdue! Apparently he doesn't have time) and yet is still recruiting more. Finally, while my project is going Ok, I have zero control over the research, my supervisor dictates everything - I had hoped that this was just a time thing, i.e. a bit further into the PhD and he'll give me some room to move, however it appears not to be the case. My supervisor has zero social skills, and this makes it very difficult talking to him in social situations. I have made some very good contacts and networking opportunity throughout my university and my field, I've set up potential collaboration meetings with others in our university looking at similar things, only for him to out right say No, we are not collaborating with anyone. He is selfish and manipulative and I can handle this any more. I'm burnt out just dealing with him!

I like my area of research, and their are some areas I'm deeply passionate about, however he refuses even to hear me out - and say the "project is set in stone". We are doing the basic really boring stuff and I'm like this is an amazing filed and I'm coming up some good solid well though out ideas that he wont even look at. It's sucked the passion out of me to be honest and I'm thinking about leaving with my Mphil. I could take a normal job,. but I can see myself getting very very board, I need the excitement of academia and a thinking man's career. Just to clarify I'm not the first PhD to have problems, but the department seems to blames the PhDs and not the supervisor.

So I've looked around and found some PhD's that are in my field but go in the direction that I would like to go. So what do I do? I want to first write to some of these potential supervisors and see if I can even get funding.

Then make sure they have social skills and make sure they have a smallish group. In the cover letter what should I say? they are going to ask why am I swapping university’s/sub-fields? I can't say its my supervisor - so how do I play it? Also I'm 25 now so starting a new PhD I might be a bit old no? Its the same field so the first year would have made little difference and I should be able to catch up quickly. Any advice would be appreciated, cheers guys!

[nugget]

Find those points that make the other schools different from the one you are currently attending and explain how you could benefit by attending their programs. I think it's better to keep the reasons career or research-based and not give reasons that are personal.

 

Does your current supervisor expect that you will do a PhD with him? If so, you will need to give him a  compelling reason to want to change schools as he will be providing you with reference letters. I think I would be more concerned with this last point, rather than finding a good excuse to give to the other schools, as I think the schools won't be difficult to convince as long as you have a strong application and identify what makes their program a good fit for you and for them.