PhD Supervisors Who Bully or Cross Boundaries

“Hello! I’m doing a PhD and I have two supervisors (one is the main). I have no problem with the main one, but he is quite junior and new to the career. My second supervisor is very experienced, and one of the main names on the field. I was very happy to be able to work with him. Because of that, I always found it was fair that the main supervisor would only make any decisions or only consider what the second supervisor said, because of the experience. Since the beginning of the year I’ve been wo”

“I started my PhD this year. From the 2nd week I was told to collaborate with other post doc. He has been giving me nightmares. He keeps giving me task and work which I did and did made mistakes. Notice I didn't read for the last 3 months. I was flooded with work. Then one day my supervisor told me, I thought you were not that good, but you progressed better than the other student. So I was right those work they gave me is it test me. If I was worthy. I didn't enjoy my PhD so far. Now I s”

“Disclaimer: I'm writing this post for a friend who doesn't want to disclose his name. Hi, I'm in a worrysome situation, from Northern Europe. PhD in stem. My supervisor doesn't know anything about the whole subjects his group is studying. Meetings are mostly us saying stuff and him nodding. He has hundreds of articles, and most of the authors are outside of our university. Sometimes he tries to talk about technical details and just trips over himself on the most basics things. He”

“I’ve been doing my humanities PhD for about a year now and my supervisor is relatively young and I think I’m one of her first students. Generally she’s been great, very considerate and conscious not to put too much pressure on me. There are some difficulties I struggle with in the relationship that I wanted to seek some advice over: 1) I’ve found that whenever I tell her what I’ve been reading / writing about, she tells me it’s a waste of time and not relevant to my thesis, but rarely ever sugge”

“I came to an esteemed institute for my PhD believing that my supervisor would be someone who guided me, helped me grow, and supported me through the process. During my Master's, I had often heard that a PhD supervisor eventually becomes a mentor and almost like family. I genuinely believed that. Unfortunately, my experience has been very different. One of the first difficult lessons I encountered was being told that luck plays a major role in publishing. At the time, I didn't think much”

“My PhD supervisor is quite unsupportive I would say. My questions are ignored for a while and when they are answered, I receive quite superficial and uninvolved answers that kind of are also ambiguous. When I am confronted with dilemmas or issues, my second or third supervisors or people from the external doctoral committee are always faster to respond and actually give good feedback. I am told either that I do a good job or my questions are met with: Up to you. It's a lonely, lonely journey”

“I used to think supervision and mentoring naturally went together during a PhD, but I've realised they don't necessarily. Some supervisors focus mainly on the research: reading your work, giving feedback, and making sure you're progressing. Others take the time to know you beyond your writing ... your background, goals, aspirations, life journey, and what you hope to get from doing a PhD. That's the difference between supervision and mentoring. Supervision is about the research;”

“Hello all, A PhD student in medical sciences at the 4th year in Europe. I just had my regular supervision meeting, and there is the meeting with the head of department next week. My daily supervisor warned that the meeting with the head of department is more to discuss the general PhD progress, planning and bottlenecks rather than showing results of X chapter etc. I am currently in this PhD for 3.5 years, it was supposed to end in four. Two chapters of the thesis are ready, while the other three”

“Not sure how to go about acknowledging my supervisors when they have provided the exact opposite of support throughout my PhD. A bit sad to say but they are truely some of the most disgusting human beings I ever hope to meet. There was a lot of racism, sexism and bullying throughout and I never had proper supervision or help from them (I have been through all the official university channels to remedy this but was told better to not rock the boat if I want to graduate). Well, somehow I've ma”

“I’m a PhD student in Psychology, in Italy, and my relationship with my supervisor has become increasingly difficult. The research direction she initially encouraged hasn’t really helped me build the academic profile I wanted. Even when internationally recognized emeritus professors in that field expressed interest in one of my projects, she didn’t seem interested in supporting those opportunities. She also had me spend about a year on another project. I organized a public conference, coordinated”

“Hi everyone! I’m a 1st year literature PhD student and I get extremely nervous/anxious prior to meetings with my supervisor. I’d like to clarify that my supervisor is very kind and supportive, and has not behaved in any way to make me feel so nervous at the prospect of having to discuss my work with them. However, I’m finding that prior to my supervision meetings, I get incredibly anxious. When sending my written work, I reread the document and my email over and over again, looking for mistakes”

“When I started my PhD, I got on really well with my supervisor, meetings were good and encouraging. Had some bullying issues with my cohort that really impacted my work, fell behind on unofficial deadlines and got a few new mental health diagnosis. Since then, my supervisor has changed - everything is an argument, I feel like I am a perpetual dissapointment and no matter how hard I prepare I am always doing something wrong. For example, needed help with an issue I had tried solving myself first,”

“Hey everyone, I'm almost a year into my phd and am suddenly without supervision. I'm talking to a few potential replacements and it's all going to work out, but I'm wanting to be much more intentional about what I actually want/need from the supervisor-researcher relationship. With this in mind, I'm keen to know your best case scenarios for supervision. Do you have someone fantastic, and what do they do that's so helpful? What would you avoid if you got a do-over? I'm”

“I'm in the second year of my PhD about to enter my third from September. I'm writing my first paper at the moment. I've found over the last few months that my relationship with my supervisor is breaking down. They've acknowledged I am clearly having some troubles with my mental health, but they have no clue that they've caused it. I'm so stressed and miserable and afraid of them to be honest, and I am barely looking after myself outside of the PhD because I have no motiva”

“I am finishing a PhD soon. Throughout he would ask for a million documentation and read none. Nothing zero. So much wasted time for nothing. I am graduating but he still have no idea what I am doing. Did I tell him? yes, hell I took the experiment to his office and asked him what does he think. Every. Single. Meeting. Like. Explaining. Everything. All. Over. Again. All submissions All documents I have to prepare them then beg for a revision but never get one. He'd rather die than review anyt”

“Hi everyone! I’ve been working with my supervisor during my Master’s and now as a PhD student. They’re genuinely great; they're very supportive, approachable, and invested in my progress. At the same time, I’m their very first PhD supervisee and this is slightly noticeable from time to time. They seem to notice such things themselves and even apologize for them, which makes me wonder if there's anything I could do to make my PhD jouney easier for both of us. I’d love to hear from others”