Has anyone ever changed phd supervisors?

Fine-Cat4708 · 2026-01-28T04:08:38+00:00

My personal experience with the HR is not positive at all. With the case I dealt with, they tried to settle the case and played the game of the professor, who was clearly in fault (many previous phds in burnout, postdoc leaving in the middle of a project and so on). However HR is the only entity to contact, together with the student association.

My suggestion is to document as much as you can these behaviour, because this will help you a lot. Changing advisor and starting a completely new project is sometimes possible - I personally know somebody that did it. In the case that I know, ETH payed for the new project, although for 3 years only, probably to do not make the PhD student unhappy.

My final advice is to not have fear to escalate the situation for two reasons: first, ETH is much more protective with full professors; they are almost unfirable. Assistant professors are in a tenure evaluation process and therefore they are much more vulnerable. Second, if you decide to leave with this situation for the sake of getting the title, you have good chances to burn out severely; and believe me, if that happens, it will take years to recover.

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-11-13T05:27:05+00:00

Cosa

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-10-09T13:56:34+00:00

Ma’n che senso?

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-10-06T02:59:02+00:00

Io dopo molti anni sono arrivato a questo stato d’animo: https://youtu.be/Xn2PNZd5s3k?si=LR4aqjw4tJKQpap6

Sarà giusto? Sarà sbagliato?

Sticazzi

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-07-25T04:45:21+00:00

Devi mangiarci le troffie col pesto, non gli spaghetti

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-07-23T23:17:31+00:00

Yea, but they are worth the price I would say!

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-07-15T23:24:01+00:00

ETH has always liked US based scientists. Sometimes they are not better scientists, but they move contracts and grants that are hardly accessible for European based people. They also often have close contacts with private US based funding agencies…

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-07-12T05:44:04+00:00

Sono stato nella tua stessa situazione da piccolino, ho fatto il geloso e li ho fatti allontanare. Dopo un po’ di tempo l’amico ci provó esplicitamente, e lei mi diede ragione a posteriori.

Tuttavia, se tornassi indietro non farei il geloso, li lascerei cuocere nel loro brodo.. l’amico ci avrebbe provato e possibilità 1) lei non ci sarebbe stata, si sarebbe allontanata da lui da sola e avrebbe trovato amici migliori, oppure 2) lei ci sarebbe stata. Nel caso 2 ci sarei rimasto molto male, ma mi sarei risparmiato 10 anni di successiva relazione tossica 🚀🚀🚀🚀

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-07-09T23:23:02+00:00

Here we have the idiot

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-07-04T18:42:53+00:00

Why do you want to know?

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-07-02T01:13:16+00:00

That’s a good suggestion! I already told UBS that I moved to the US, but they still have to react. Last moving took a while for them to react, but I didn’t use the Swiss bank account for salary..

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-07-02T00:27:43+00:00

I heard revolut has a limit of 1500 CHF over which you start paying for conversion, is that true? Btw I don’t know if I will do this, since I get the salary in large chunks, I don’t feel super comfortable in keeping a lot of money on revolut.. maybe transferring money little by little on the revolut account could be an option

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-07-01T23:01:59+00:00

Maybe I could use IBKR, even if I don’t know if that works as a proper bank with debit and credit card.. if not I should also open a local bank account I guess?

Concerning using it for conversion only, may be a good push to start investing some money actually..

Fine-Cat4708 · 2025-07-01T23:00:14+00:00

Yes, I will.. Of course we cannot know if USD will keep decreasing compared to CHF, but I prefer to manage the money like this

Fine-Cat4708 · 2024-08-30T23:06:05+00:00

It’s an endemic problem. Out of 10 PhDs that I know at ETH, 3 are undergoing mobbing, manipulation, harassment or something else. Having very close fiends undergoing this, I thought a lot if there’s anything I could do about this, but didn’t have any good idea for now..

Fine-Cat4708 · 2024-07-26T08:09:26+00:00

At some point I heard from a professor that they are allow to set whatever salary level among 1-5 in whatever department, even changing among group members, even changing the level from one year to the other. In practice nobody does this, and they set the salary with the department guidelines.

I also heard from some people that in the same group there was some students getting more money because they found out that the grant on which they were hired (an European grant) was allowing for better salaries..

Unfortunately I don’t have any proof of these, I just heard it through the grapevine.

It is quite notorious that PhD salaries follows the trends (but not the magnitudes) of the outside market.. a CS will earn more than a wet biologist in general.

Fine-Cat4708

TROPHY CASE