How to Deal with Grad School Scenario

[littlesunshine]

How would you deal with the following scenario being a first semester graduate student at a research 1 university: 

 

Minority female in early 20's enters first year of Ph.D. program at a  Research I university fully funded through a university fellowship (year 1, 5) and outside prestigious fellowship (years 2,3,4)  Advisor is not permanent advisor, but temporary advisor because advisor who student wants to work with is on sabbatical and left another advisor in her place, but although she agreed to be student's advisor, she does not respond to any emails. 

 

Student took three classes where the minimum is two classes, but decided to take a third because she had no research responsibilities. Temporary advisor suggested volunteering on two research projects. Research project I is OK. There is not much work only reading literature and contributing to data collection methods and protocols. Research project 2 is 3 years in and is very intense. Student was given two rounds of coding in first week of research project 2 (second week of starting Fall semester) where she wasn't prepared (total of 700 tests- 15 questions each). People in research project 2 thinks she is incapable of continuing on research project although she is not working for pay, but volunteering and wants to continue on a volunteer basis. Professor sets meeting times to discuss progress, but always cancels or does not come to meetings with student and she does not know her place on project. It has been three months since student has had meeting with research project professor. She knows students in research project do not appreciate her, but doesn't know how to let the professor know what she feels. In addition, student has depended on other graduate students telling her what to do, but there are mixed messages. Many times the comments are personal in regards to progress or work involved and it seems research project peers have spoken behind student's back about her capabilities. In addition, another female also on a university fellowship joined research project 2, just as student has the same university fellowship and is getting paid hourly for her work and she does not attend any research project meetings. Student was told that she could not get paid on top of her fellowship for any of her work in any project for the rest of her program. Female student is same race as research project professor and meets with her on a biweekly basis. 

 

Another problem is that there is one classmate in particular who has been speaking behind student's back with temporary advisor and others about her opinions of how successfully tasks are completed. Classmate is very involved and many people in the department regard her highly due to her tactful way of being very efficient. It is admirable, but you cannot compare yourself to a new student who does not know the nuances of the school and a new Ph.D. program. Classmate talks very negatively of new student and many people have looked at new student as incapable including temporary advisor who is also classmates advisor. Classmate is almost like a gatekeeper in most if not all agendas with other people and student feels threatened even bullied by the way classmate is abusing her power to make student look very bad with others in the department. In addition, when student joined research project I, two weeks later, classmate also joined. This makes classmate have a total of 3 classes, and 3 research projects. 

 

Not only that, student believed that classmate would give good advice, but instead has instilled fear in competence in the program. Classmate has told student that she is not prepared to be in a Ph.D. program and should go become a teacher instead of a researcher. Classmate has also spoken about meetings with temporary advisor and how he believes she is not prepared, but temporary advisor has not said anything during advisor meetings. 

 

Student went straight through school and was part of undergraduate research programs. She is highly recommended by people at home university and summer research program. Thought she was prepared for grad school, but people are not very happy about her being there because of classmate's opinions. 

 

Should I be upfront about the situation with the research professor and temporary advisor? Should I feel threatened by a peer with so much influence? What should I do? 

 

I'm becoming very depressed about this. I know I can do it, but it is extremely incredible that a person who I consider my peer has so much influence over full professors at a research I university. I also don't know where people like this find time to do so much, at the same time, I don't see other people do the same thing. I feel it is a personal vendetta- it is very difficult to explain. I don't have anyone to speak about this situation to. My family is not educated, my husband tries to give me advice, but I don't know how to go about this very tense situation. Please help. 

Edited December 4, 2013 by littlesunshine

[prefers_pencils]

Wow, you have a lot going on - it sounds stressful and I'm sorry. Below are my thoughts...

 

Regarding your actual advisor:

If the non-responding advisor you're referring to is the one on sabbatical, that explains why she's not responding to your emails. A person on sabbatical will often semi-ignore their university email account while they're away, and as a professor they are still getting hundreds of emails to their inbox every week. Which means it's easy for yours to get lost in there among all the other messages. If she agreed to be your advisor, I'm pretty confident you'll see a significant change in her responsiveness once she returns to the school. 

 

Regarding Project 2:

It's concerning that you are volunteering a lot of your time on this project and haven't met with the professor in three months. If you don't feel able to talk with the professor directly (either because you're nervous or because that person seems literally unavailable), the temporary advisor should help you. Keep your discussion on this topic professional and focused on requesting regular meetings and understanding expectations of the project involvement. It's completely within your rights to expect regular meetings with the project professor based on the work you are putting in. You're a graduate student, not a slave - you can't be expected to work away on something without any feedback. Either the professor agrees to meet with you every couple of weeks or you should get approval to leave that project entirely.

 

Regarding the classmate getting paid:

Again, also fishy, but there's too many unanswered questions here. Is the other student also a PhD student, also in your department, and attached to the exact same funding source? I don't mean source as in university fellowship, I mean what department/professor/research institute pays for her versus you. If it's exactly the same, then it's possible you're getting taken advantage of. If it's different, there's probably other reasons why she's able to get paid when you aren't.

 

Regarding the classmate talking about you:

Stay far away from this person as much as possible. Normally I'd recommend not mentioning this to your temporary advisor at all, but you wrote:

 

Classmate has told student that she is not prepared to be in a Ph.D. program and should go become a teacher instead of a researcher. Classmate has also spoken about meetings with temporary advisor and how he believes she is not prepared, but temporary advisor has not said anything during advisor meetings. 

 

It's completely unacceptable that your classmate is giving you negative feedback supposedly coming from your temp. advisor, because (1) she has no business talking to him about you, and (2) if he is openly telling her negative feedback about you, it's considered highly unprofessional. I would not be surprised if she were lying. You definitely need to be more open with your temporary advisor about this but in a calm and rational manner. If you trust your temporary advisor, request a confidential meeting and say that you (1) are really happy to be here, (2) are really committed to the program, (3) cannot reach your full potential because another student is creating this toxic environment for you. Avoid naming the student if you can, but definitely tell him that someone is giving you negative feedback and saying that it's coming from him. Then say that given this negative secondary feedback, you want to touch base and discuss any problems directly. I think your temporary advisor would appreciate the honesty and directness; I'm sure they do not have any idea about the personal dynamics between students.

 

Overall:

From what you wrote, it seems like you sense that everyone is communicating with everyone else but you. Your best bet is to step up communication with your temporary advisor and project professor. Focus the communication topics on your progress and on improving supervisor relationships. Also, if your university has an ombudsman, talk to that person too - they are a confidential advisory service and often a good sounding board. Good luck.

[PsychGirl1]

Too many thoughts, and a very long post, so here are my initial reactions:

 

1) If you feel like you aren't getting along well with people on your project, I would invite them all over for drinks one night, like a wine and cheese night. Get to know them on a personal level, otherwise the feeling of being excluded will continue to make the situation worse. And for the person who is freezing you out- intentionally or not- invite them to happy hour and get a few drinks in them and talk it out. Communication is important, and while a new lab situation is intimidating, you might find that some people feel the same way, OR people are acting like that because of other things going on that you're not aware of (unrelated to you).

 

2) Send temporary adviser a strongly worded, direct email telling them you need to meet next week.

 

3) When you're confused about coding or whatever, send the whole team an email, CC your temp adviser, and be like, Hi all- just wanted to clarify a coding question. Person XYZ told me to do this, person ABC told me to do this. (give a few examples). Can we all meet to for a training session to make sure we are all coding things identically and correctly? (Adapt for your exact situation).

[TeaGirl]

Okay, a couple of thoughts.

 

You need to talk with you research professor/advisor/ whoever is conducting this whole thing. Make it absolutely clear that since you would like to set up regular meeting, perhaps on a biweekly basis to discuss progress in the project and communicate. If you don't set up regular meetings with your professor, I can assure you these problems will not go away.

 

The colleague who is talking about you behind your back: Avoid her completely if possible. Do the bare minimum interaction with her and do not "chit chat" or "socialize." I've dealt with similar people before, and there's no fixing the toxicity I'm afraid.

Also, frankly, sometimes you need to be confrontational and confident. The next time she tells you that the professor doesn't think much of you, bring it up at the next meeting with professor with her present. Something like "X told me that you might not be satisfied with my progress. I was wondering what I might do to improve that." Sometimes, the only reason people gossip or lie, is because they think they won't get called out on it.

 

Finally, no offense, but this whole environment sounds like a bit of a mess. I have a visiting scholar friend in another dept. dealing with a similar toxic environment of behind the back talking, stealing credit for work, and a professor who doesn't know/care what is going on. My advice is that if it's possible since you are volunteering, tell the professor that you don't think this research is a fit for you and find another professor to work with because you don't want to deal with this for the next few years.

[NatureGurl]

Should I be upfront about the situation with the research professor and temporary advisor? Should I feel threatened by a peer with so much influence? What should I do? 

 

I'm becoming very depressed about this. I know I can do it, but it is extremely incredible that a person who I consider my peer has so much influence over full professors at a research I university. I also don't know where people like this find time to do so much, at the same time, I don't see other people do the same thing. I feel it is a personal vendetta- it is very difficult to explain. I don't have anyone to speak about this situation to. My family is not educated, my husband tries to give me advice, but I don't know how to go about this very tense situation. Please help. 

 

Hello littlesunshine--cute name!

 

Well, I'm sorry you're feeling depressed. Grad school is tough enough! I have three thoughts to share with you. First, no, I do not think you should share about this classmate with your professors. The reason is that I was in a similar situation--and a more experienced graduate student told me that unless this person is explicitly, directly, and intentionally causing you harm, it could come off as "complaining" or "whining" if you tell your professor and make you seem like the immature one. I'm glad I followed this advice because it worked out. Just let time do its thing.

 

Second, with all my 30+ years of wisdom, I would have to say that you should not be so quick to judge others (I myself try to follow this rule all the time). Everyone is on their own journey. Focus on what your journey is, and as others say, perhaps you should get to know this person better, or if you truly feel as if this person is "out to get you," then stay away. However, I would add that rarely are people in grad school "out to get you." It could just be that this person is clueless about how they're making you feel. Or it could be that being young and new to grad school, you are taking it all too personally. I'm just trying to offer you different perspectives.

 

Third, is there anyone you've become friends with that you can talk to? Some of my best confidantes have been my fellow grad students--they understand what I'm going through better than anyone else.

 

Good luck! Hope you feel better soon.

[NatureGurl]

It's completely unacceptable that your classmate is giving you negative feedback supposedly coming from your temp. advisor, because (1) she has no business talking to him about you, and (2) if he is openly telling her negative feedback about you, it's considered highly unprofessional. I would not be surprised if she were lying. You definitely need to be more open with your temporary advisor about this but in a calm and rational manner. If you trust your temporary advisor, request a confidential meeting and say that you (1) are really happy to be here, (2) are really committed to the program, (3) cannot reach your full potential because another student is creating this toxic environment for you. Avoid naming the student if you can, but definitely tell him that someone is giving you negative feedback and saying that it's coming from him. Then say that given this negative secondary feedback, you want to touch base and discuss any problems directly. I think your temporary advisor would appreciate the honesty and directness; I'm sure they do not have any idea about the personal dynamics between students.

 

Prefers_pencils--I would disagree with you about this. First, what if this classmate is not lying? Then I think that would put littlesunshine in a tough spot, you know what I mean?

 

Second, I really think that saying that "you cannot reach your full potential because another student is creating this toxic environment for you" is kind of like saying "I'm not an adult, and I can't handle my own relationships with other people, and I'm can't handle taking responsibility for my own path in graduate school." I mean, what do you expect the advisor to do or say to this classmate? Especially if, as littlesunshine has said, she seems to have the respect of many people in the department, including the advisor? I don't know, I'm just saying, be super cautious about saying things to professors about other graduate students... it could come off looking like you can't handle grad school.

 

It seems like the best thing is to wait for the "real" advisor to come back. I wonder if there's a way to switch temporary advisors now?

[NatureGurl]

I was over at the forums on the Chronicle, and I came across this post, which I thought was relevant to this thread. In summary, the professors seem to think that unless this is a clear case of bullying or personal attacks, it's best not to involve faculty, otherwise it'll seem like whining. If you think it is a case of bullying/harassment, you need to document all the behavior. So far, OP, you have not given us details about what the person has done to make you think that they have a personal vendetta against you.

 

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,152697.0.html

 

Hope this helps!

[prefers_pencils]

Prefers_pencils--I would disagree with you about this. First, what if this classmate is not lying? Then I think that would put littlesunshine in a tough spot, you know what I mean?

 

Second, I really think that saying that "you cannot reach your full potential because another student is creating this toxic environment for you" is kind of like saying "I'm not an adult, and I can't handle my own relationships with other people, and I'm can't handle taking responsibility for my own path in graduate school." I mean, what do you expect the advisor to do or say to this classmate? Especially if, as littlesunshine has said, she seems to have the respect of many people in the department, including the advisor? I don't know, I'm just saying, be super cautious about saying things to professors about other graduate students... it could come off looking like you can't handle grad school.

 

It seems like the best thing is to wait for the "real" advisor to come back. I wonder if there's a way to switch temporary advisors now?

 

We all have our own opinions about how to handle difficult situations, and the beauty of this forum is that we're all able to voice them and let the OP take from them whatever she finds the most helpful. I've written my advice from the basis of my own life experience, and what I would do in her situation based on the information given.

 

Your experience/advice may differ, and that's totally cool. What isn't cool is picking apart someone else's advice. We're all trying to help as best we can.