I posted a couple of weeks ago about application tips when applying for a PhD. In that post, I talked a bit about researching the supervisors in order to be able to talk about their work and department. In all honesty, though, there is a much stronger reason to start early on understanding your supervisor. They can make or break your experience during your PhD.

It’s no secret that I did not have the best supervisory experience during my own PhD, and there are plenty of reasons for that, but one of the main ones was that I didn’t start off understanding enough that there is a requirement to curate and nurture the supervisor – student relationship. I didn’t know what questions to ask, what clarity to seek, or frankly even what was normal. The relationship therefore broke down, and I retrospectively had to unpick why. Having learnt the hard way, and now having sat on both sides of the table, I thought I would share some thoughts about how to get the most out of your relationship with any academic/educational supervisor, PhD or not.

Do your research

As I’ve said, doing your research should probably start before you even have the post. It’s worth reaching out and speaking to previous and current students so you can to get an idea of what their experience has been. If you are already in post, it’s still worth speaking to people to find out as much as you can about what kind of supervision style they’ve experienced. Every supervisor is different, just like every leader is different. The more you know, the better placed you are to understand what the dynamics of your relationship might look like, and importantly whether there are any possible pitfalls which you could then address early, preventing then becoming something more. In this one, knowledge really is power. So get as much knowledge as you can as early as you can.

Expectations matter

We all enter relationships and situations with expectations, but too often, these are internalised and therefore opaque to both ourselves and others. Not getting these into the open where they can be discussed and expectations clarified can be a key reason for relationship breakdown, at least it was for mine. One of the reasons I think this happens is because, as students, we are often entering a completely new arena, and so we just don’t know the unwritten rules. I’d like to think that most supervisors know this and will therefore spend time at the starting point of the relationship to talk through what their expectations are. I’ve previously written about the use of learning agreements to help this process. Sadly, I’m all too aware that this is often not the case, and supervisors, who live in this different world, often forget that others don’t come with all the information they may need to deliver what is expected.

Get to know their work and working patterns

My inbox is the place where emails go to die, and my diary is a horror show. These are facts. No matter how much I try to keep up, I get hundreds of emails every day, and to be honest, I can’t. If you only send me a single email, it will get lost. If you try to get a same day meeting with me, you will fail. I therefore ask that, if it is important, you email me three times and make it high priority. This vastly increases the chance that I will see it. If you want to see me every 2 weeks, then let’s get a regular slot in, which will move, but at least it’s there. All of this is not because I don’t care, it’s just the only way I can manage multiple competing priorities. Everyone is different. You will have your own way of working, as will your supervisor. There is no point in being passive in the process and miserable about the outcome. If you have needs, you have to actively work to find the best way that they can be met.

Be aware that you are the one driving your work

One of the largest changes when you start a PhD is that it is YOUR PhD. You are in the driving seat. A PhD is effectively a job, and the switch up to the responsibility sitting with you can be a challenging shift. No one is policing deadlines, and in fact, you are the one that should be setting them. No one is prioritising your workload. You need to work out, with support, what needs to come first at any given time. The lesson about not being passive is important across all aspects of your PhD. You are no longer in a taught process. A PhD is effectively an apprenticeship in research, and like in any job, there are expectations placed on the employee in terms of delivery and performance. The earlier you can come to terms with this the easier your pathway will be.

Identify peer support

All of this change can make the start of any PhD stressful, and you will need to find sources of support outside of your supervisor.  Even if you have a great relationship with your supervisor, even if everything is going well, there will be times when you dislike them or part of your PhD. In these circumstances, you need to have safe spaces to vent and seek support alongside benchmarking from others. It’s important to invest some time early on to build wider relationships with your peers and, if in a small lab, potentially seek out groups or networks. These will stand you in good stead during your PhD, but also in your future career, as learning to build networks is a key skill to be invested in.

Know your benchmarks

Everyone enters a PhD at a different place. The same is also true for PhD projects, some are more developed on day one than others. It can be hard therefore to work out how you are doing, especially if you haven’t established supervisor expectations. There are some useful tools out there to help. Every University should have some form of pathway which lays out the dates and timelines that PhD students need to deliver on, from reporting and upgrade to final submission. These are invaluable in making sure that you are on track and on target for your work. Projects will often have individual timelines, if they are grant funded, that you need to maintain. Grant funded projects will usually have milestones, reporting, and dissemination deadlines, which need to be kept to. It is worth noting that some of these things mean that it is not always so meaningful to benchmark against your peers. I would always advocate using them as a source of support rather than self judgement, as you may not be comparing like with like.

Manage your relationship

All relationships require work. All relationships, especially ones that last years, will go through peaks and troughs. Your relationship with your supervisor is no different, and because of this, communication is key. This sounds easy enough, but sadly, it is often not. Finding the balance between being that student who needs supervisor input into ever thought/decision, meaning you don’t find independence, and being that student who never speaks up and therefore ostriches on issues, meaning that issues don’t get addressed, is not an easy one. It requires the pair of you to build trust, and that is a gradual process. A lot of this is helped by laying the groundwork and having open discussions about expectations. Being open to supportive feedback, asking questions, and owning your work by doing things like reading and coming prepared to meetings goes a long way towards making these relationships flourish. Also, being transparent about challenges and identifying issues early can mean that both sides are facilitated in addressing issues. Your supervisor can’t help if they don’t know.

Friendly is not the same as friends

I’m going to say this here, being friendly is not the same as being friends. We all hear great tales of supervisors and students being best friends. I’m sure that happens after the PhD is over, but I’ve never known it happen during. I’d like to say I get on really well with most of students. I’m invested in them. I care about them. I will happily buy them a beer in the pub. We are however not friends. My wellbeing is not on them. It is not an even relationship. I am there to support them, but I am also their boss. In a friendship, if we went to the pub, my friends and I would take turns buying in rounds and discussing our problems.  I’m pretty open about my work based challenges, but I don’t expect my students to take them onboard. I don’t ever expect them to buy me a drink. I personally don’t think that’s how these things should work. When they are done being my students, when I no longer have responsibility for them, then the relationship can become more bi-directional. Until then I have a duty of care which means I should put them first.

Know the rules

These next few ones are for if, like mine, your relationship takes on a less healthy trajectory. The first thing I learnt was that I really needed to understand the rules. That’s both the formal written rules and the informal social academic rules. It’s only by knowing these that you can judge whether the breakdown is precipitated by a valid breach. If you don’t know the rules, how can you tell if you’ve broken them? If you have broken them, then we all need to act like adults, hold up our hands, and seek forgiveness whilst taking corrective action. The other reason to know the rules is that you may need the information.  My primary supervisor refused to sign off on allowing me to submit my thesis. As I’d done my research, I knew that I didn’t need supervisor sign off, it just meant I couldn’t sue the University if I failed. Hopefully, you will never get to a similar point, but knowing your parameters will never do you any harm. This one is back to knowledge is power, and so gain as much of it as you can.

Keep up your end of the bargain

It takes two to tango, and knowing the rules won’t help if you don’t keep up your end of the bargain. Grant deadlines, if you are externally funded, are often immovable, and so if you are required to get data or reports out by a certain date it can hold ramifications, not just for you, if you don’t deliver. Even if you are not grant funded, you need to deliver on the agreed timelines you made with your supervisor. This may all sound really simple, but you would be shocked at the number of students who don’t seem to grasp this fairly straightforward concept. PhDs are not like undergraduate work where you can ask for an extension on every piece of work or merely have an assignment capped. This is your first job in research,  and like any job, if you keep missing deadlines, then eventually you will get fired. I had one PhD student who kept missing all deadlines because they believed no one would ever be allowed to fail a PhD or would be removed from the course. I had to explain to them that this was not true and show the mechanisms that existed to do just those things. After which we got on much better and they re-focussed on the task in hand. It’s obviously better if things don’t reach that point before being addressed, and so it is key both sides bear in mind the social contract they have made.

Have a plan B

If academic life has taught me anything, it’s that you should always have a plan B, and I think it’s a sensible approach no matter what stage you’re at. Hopefully, you will never need it, but strategic thinking is a good skill to develop regardless. You should always have more than one supervisor, even if the others have variable involvement. If you can, it’s always worth trying to include them and investing in developing relationships with them as well. They can provide a counterpoint view on your work, and they can help with benchmarking your relationship and expectations with your primary. Your secondary supervisor is also likely to be involved at times, such as your upgrade viva, and so understanding their expectations can be really helpful. In the unlikely event that your relationship with your primary is not great, they can also take on a mediation role to help both sides gain clarity and hopefully move forward. If you hope for the best and plan for the worst, you should have all sides covered and hopefully have the most fulfilling experience possible during you PhD.

Finally, it’s worth remembering that supervisors are people too. They have good days and bad days. They have personal stuff going on that can impact their mood and decision-making. They will make mistakes and hopefully apologise for them. They will aim for perfection and always fall short. What I hope more than anything is that you will find a supervisor who wants and drives for you to reach your potential and who always has your best interests at heart. Sometimes, that means that there will be hard conversations, and sometimes that means they will push you, as they have faith in your ability to improve. I want all of my students to grow to be better than I am. I want them to know that I have faith in them even when they feel lost and can’t find faith in themselves. So do your research and find a supervisor who works for you and the way you work. Find that supervisor who will make you better than you could be on your own.

All opinions on this blog are my own