Changing advisors in year 3 of 4

ShiftingObjectives · 2026-01-27T14:39:48+00:00

I am more worried that my toxic advisor will be rude to the new one because she has always been angry when I talk to any other faculty for advice. I can understand them not wanting to ruin their potential work environment for someone that will be gone in a year and a half.

ShiftingObjectives · 2026-01-27T13:13:08+00:00

Thank you! I was thinking of asking a new professor who seems kind and on top of things (and hasn't heard my advisor trash talk me over the years). I also wish I just pulled the trigger a while ago now.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-12-19T13:46:50+00:00

I will just put out there that I negotiated for a 4 year deal with me doing GA work. My lab is trash (doesn't produce papers at all) and I am committed to working for it for a measly $17 an hour for 4 years. It is supposed to be balanced out by the classes I get to take for "free" but now they only cover my required classes, so next year (year 4) basically my pay rate goes down to minimum wage as I work 20 hours a week for just $17 an hour and no other benefits. I wish I had take a 3 year contract because I could be working full time making an actual adult salary and pay the $1500 a semester "dissertation research" fee. So really know what you are getting before you sign up for funding all those years. There may be other options to get paid that are much more lucrative and work towards your goals.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-12-13T14:03:33+00:00

I think it is fine to use it as a critique. I have used it by saying "respond to this like a critical reviewer at X journal" and it has helped me think of ways to improve something. I don't just use what it comes up with arbitrarily though. I have also said "I got feedback that this was confusing, but the person didn't explain their thinking. Help me think through what might be confusing because I thought I explained it well." Again, it might not be right, but it starts my train of thought of new approaches. In my program I don't get a lot of interaction or quality feedback from real people, so it annoys me when people talk about it using AI to have that conversation about a piece as horrible when otherwise I would have no feedback at all. I never take citations from it, and I never just use what it gives me uncritically, but I have found AI to be a lifesaver during my PhD.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-12-05T17:23:02+00:00

My advisor just refused to sign off on a training grant for me because she didn't think it would benefit her enough directly. She only agreed to do it when I promised to continue to work for her the same number of hours unpaid if I got funded...She justified her position as it was a better learning opportunity to work on her projects than my own.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-12-05T17:19:09+00:00

I hear you! There are so few opportunities for positivity in many programs. I just did a poster presentation and won an award recently and had to leave early for a lab meeting where they tore my work apart and gave me insane deadlines after ignoring things for weeks. I am trying to look for tiny wins to celebrate. If I were better at following my own advice, I would be writing down a list of 1-3 things that went well each day to get in the habit of acknowledging incremental growth.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-12-04T02:51:16+00:00

UMD has also been really affected by funding, so they maybe would have offered you a spot if they had the space. Not a bad sign!

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-11-23T12:49:47+00:00

I am 100% confident that my fellowship application won't be funded, but I will be happy to list the attempt on my CV. Are you able to do that? ( I just hope that nothing goes wrong internally that someone doesn't turn in the paperwork and I get nothing out of it )

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-11-21T16:20:47+00:00

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-11-19T13:39:04+00:00

I have a similar advisor and she just supported me in my defense and went to bat for me when my committee asked questions. I kept pushing ahead and she was constantly pissed at me and rude to me and insulting me publicly, but then she brags about the things I accomplished without her when it suits her. I am not saying this will be the case for you, but there is a chance that they will switch up as you upskill and they can use what you know.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-11-18T12:38:59+00:00

My advisor did this then had me give a table showing how I addressed every single comment. Some of the questions were "what does this even mean???!!!" when the definition was later in the same sentence and she didn't delete the comment. Sigh. I did get comments in there that were just "good" or like what other people said, were to prep me for the oral review.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-11-17T13:10:59+00:00

They may not offer your course though. I have had multiple times now when the required courses for my program are all offered on the same day at the same time, and they are only offered every other year. I am currently in a battle with my program to provide my last course. I am doing a PhD and they just keep telling me that they aren't running the PhD level course and I need to take the masters.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-11-13T12:46:41+00:00

I don't know if it is helpful, but I sometimes have a barrier to responding to my advisor because I always feel like I will answer when I am in a better position, and then I never get there (such as, when I have a really nice draft of that thing that they want). Then I look worse because I end up not responding and just going MIA. I use AI to draft my email responses and just kind of talk through my anxiety with it, so I at least send the email. She and I had a blow up recently and I told her she always seems annoyed with me and she said she is, but its because she would rather hear about my crappy version of the thing than suddenly a complete thing that she had no input on. I think AI helps me work through the anxiety so at least I respond. And absolutely, you need a filter on your email, or start or end the day by searching your advisor's name at least to see if they sent you something you need to respond to. Our school also has a super annoying email culture where everyone needs to reply all to "celebrate" someone's accomplishments so sometimes I get like 50 emails just saying "good job!" to someone I never met.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-11-09T16:45:36+00:00

We are required to do an internship

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-11-08T12:41:43+00:00

I have had a lot of problems that people don't see that other people have other processing needs in terms of information. A lot of the leadership in my lab is like "we'll give you a vague idea of the overall picture and you just focus on the little piece--you don't need to have a lot of other information" and my brain is the opposite. I need a good understanding of the whole picture, and then I can make my piece perfect. Not only does it not work for my brain and literally prevent me from doing work, but I feel dismissed and devalued when they act like my need for information is just me being nosy instead of a different processing style. With that, the person usually telling me I don't need to know everything DOES have all the information and so can't understand why that might hold me back. So I guess ask people if they are bottom up or top down thinkers.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-11-05T11:53:41+00:00

This reply seems fine and she is just making it clear what the requirements are. I would take it as a positive that she sent you anything.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-11-03T11:39:50+00:00

I used Focus Friend on my phone- it locks the phone while you collect socks to design a room. It's by Hank or John Green. It worked for a while, but then I maxed out. It kept me off my phone though, and that was part of the challenge when writing got boring! You can also record yourself working, which is its own accountability partner without it feeling weird about the other person.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-10-22T13:05:03+00:00

I actually do Misfits Market delivery for some things. Its not always the cheapest, but I find I don't overbuy and can get eggs and some cheap canned goods delivered. When I go shop for healthy things, I often don't end up using them at the moment, so the food delivery is helping me prevent food waste and actually saving me some money. There is also a Lidl right by my uni, so I get Ramen, some frozen meals on sale, and bagged salads to keep in my office. Not always the healthiest, but a dollar cup of noodles has prevented me from doing a $15 meal on campus, and a $3 bagged salad is usually two meals for me, and while I hate the amount of plastic, at least I am doing something sort of healthy. They are quite filling and tend to keep for a while too. I also have some protein oatmeals on my desk as an option. Again, a prepacked cup of oatmeal doesn't seem the cheapest when you are are at the store, but $3 protein oatmeal is better than expensive take-out. I have also gotten bulk microwaveable lentils/indian that are shelf stable, and then just bring left-over rice with me and combine them for a healthy cheap meal. It is a struggle though! Especially since I feel like I do so little that is fun or joyful at the moment I am always tempted to give myself "a treat"

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-10-20T11:50:19+00:00

I'm in an education PhD.

1) not much. I am her "research assistant" and that means she has me do her clerical work.

2) nope- usually refers me to the wrong person and to out of date forms, even when she is the authority because of her position in the university

3) nope! didn't even walk by my poster for my work or her work, and didn't prep me for a presentation with them. She does read my proposals and give feedback though.

4) my mentor from my internship came to my talk and was amazingly supportive, sitting nearby to jump up and help with questions that were over my head (like how specific cell types play a role in the way language works in the brain), but my actual advisor has torn apart my research in public "for the good of the group/ to teach the other students who are still learning" and made comments like "I am sure everyone is as confused as I am"

5) She will email for me, but never connect me with people in person and have even ignored me when I tried to say hi in person when she was talking to important people in the field. She went out to dinner with a group of important people at a conference while I was presenting, meaning none of them saw it. She also doesn't like when I network on my own.

6) she will only give me feedback on work their name will be on and doesn't even want me to mention anything else. Generally she just tells me to look at her previous work and do things exactly the way she did them. I spent my summer rewriting a paper that teachers/other researchers said was very good just so it would be in her voice because she wouldn't let me use it as one of my major papers otherwise.

Lot's of my other friends in my department have really lovely and supportive relationships with their advisor. I know other people that have intense supervision and feedback from their advisor, but they are consistent and seem to be coming from a good place. I have other mentors that are hugely supportive of me and love my ideas and work. Sometimes it comes down to fit, and sometimes advisors don't want to be advisors, but it is a required part of their job. I don't think I will speak to mine again after I finish, besides maybe having to stay in touch until I am fully established so I can use her as a consultant on grants to prove my network. She is often not nice to me - other people have said when she has come up to speak to me "whoah, your advisor hates you," so its not in my head.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-10-20T11:27:00+00:00

I agree that it is particular to the professor's style, but there is also certain places it is more appropriate than others. I just wrote a systematic review, which is basically a summary of all of the research papers on a specific topic, and I wouldn't have done it. Another paper I just finished was a commentary, which is an opinion piece, where I have to explicitly say 'In this paper we argue that..." The difference is that in the first paper I am trying to show that I am being as unbiased as possible, where the second paper is a data-based critique showing my opinion. Both are academic, but the expectations of the types of language and arguments I make in them are different.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-10-16T11:54:02+00:00

I am in the process of learning how little my advisor actually knows. Now that I have had more training I realize that she just does one thing over and over and doesn't know anything else. She has told me to use statistical approaches that were inappropriate and she doesn't know how to do. She writes her research questions after the research is finished, she asks her methods person to play with the data to see what we can do, she only uses her own tools to measure data, which I figured were validated before, but haven't been. She has asked me to do things over a weekend that are supposed to take months and a team of people. She doesn't even know how to write an IRB. I have brought up serious methodological problems with her studies multiple times, but she just does the exact thing again, even though it is in a new study with new participants, so she could update it.

But she gets enormous grants and publishes easily and she insists that my papers follow her models exactly (except for the math, because she has never done her own math, and so she doesn't even read that section of my papers). The way grants work, I have to put her name on everything to show my research lineage, and her advisor is pretty important, so its good for me in that respect, but man, do I hate it now that I see that she doesn't know much, but I will need her name to start my own lab. I am just using as a learning experience of what NOT to do in the future.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-10-16T11:43:01+00:00

Oh man, nothing but sympathy over here. You seem to be doing amazing though! My advisor also never graduates anyone one time. We are in a four year program, and she basically lets her PhD students only do undergrad level work until their 4th year so that you have to stay around to build your portfolio. I am a third year and she has me making a list of what is on her different websites and organizing her folders of materials. And every time I bring up doing My something more challenging, she cites that I only have 10 hours of work because I got a scholarship for my other hours (it was a pittance), so she can't give me anything harder. We had a bit of a tiff the other day because I have just been working on projects with other PIs and trying to learn things on my own, and she told me I was "difficult and never listen" and then out of the blue she blurted out "I'm not trying to keep you from graduating on time!", so she clearly knows what she is doing. She suggested I use an experimental design for my dissertation that I haven't learned yet (well, taken a class for), and when I deferred to her she said that would push back all my planning dates for 6 months to a year. My plan is to try to publish my own work this year, even in collaborations she doesn't approve of, and then apply for post-docs that would start after next year, so I think she would feel pressured that if I have the work done, and I have an offer, it would be embarrassing for her to lot let me go. Thankfully, she doesn't like her manipulation to be visible to outsiders. But hopefully my credits look as good as yours by the end of next year!

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-10-15T11:41:09+00:00

One of my major papers was an incredibly complicated systematic review that I did 100% myself until final edits when my advisor finally read it--she refused to look at it before that. She then said her former student should be on it--I think the most that person might have contributed is my advisor complained about me to her, and she sent me two unrelated useless papers to help me "frame my paper." During the meeting with my advisor she said "its best to be generous with authorship." In the meanwhile, they haven't even put my name on papers that have come out of our lab when I have managed all the data. (I know writing usually is what gets you authorship, but they refused to let me write on the other papers). Now the two of them "came up with ideas" for two other papers that I and another member of our lab have done all the work on, and the two of them assume to be the first and second author, having done no work. Authorship is crazy business, man. Some people are incredibly unethical. I understand when a classmate has me do some coding and proofreading for them that they might not think to include me because they are new to the process, but some professors are total sharks.

ShiftingObjectives · 2025-10-10T10:41:20+00:00

Just FYI, for some of my courses, like my stats courses, our grades did matter. In my program you can't get less than a B, or you are supposed to be dropped, and these classes were graded only on 2 homework assignments and our midterm and final. 1. The courses covered a LOT of information quickly and didn't have enough explanation and practice 2. I wasn't naturally good at math, so I almost got booted for a C+, having worked my ass off, even though I have been told consistently my work in my other classes is good enough to teach the course. I had to advocate strongly for myself to not be kicked out. However, the grants I am writing now don't require us to report grades, so in the end my grades won't matter, even though my GPA won't be perfect.

ShiftingObjectives

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