Quitting the PhD - (Oct/20/2011 )

Dear Pito,

Thanks a lot for the advice.However I didnt say that we have a post doc in our lab.We had a PhD student ,who went for 6 months cell culture training before 4.5 years and after the completion of his course now he enrolled for his post doc.

Finally as far as I am concerned my British professor taught me that proper research means strategic planning and analysis.If a professor can not analyse how much productive is their students and what impediment their result he is not supposed to guide the students.


Regarding my supervisor,no other student and group leaders have a good opinion about him.For example if I asked for a help the maximum he gives is 5 minutes /day, that's even avail around 5 pm the time he leaves .Honestly I don't know what the hell making him that much busy having single Ph.D. student and there are no paper to be published.As far as I am understood he hadn't supervise a single student even at his post doc.


Those who quitted were done it mostly around 2-3 years. Basically its a time period to submit the thesis in UK and the sole reason for their quitting is they couldn't afford further 2-2.5 years for the accomplishment of the PhD. In short,Its my mistake that I didnt bother about the overall resarch impact to Austria in Biological field.According to the one who got post doc now,"research in Austria is pretty unorganised and unproductive."

brand on Sun Oct 23 06:59:44 2011 said:

Its not that easy..
+ you can only start to analyse how good a student is after the first months or even first 1-2 years... Keep in mind that in research a lot can go wrong and it can take quite a while before you end up with good/wanted results..
Its not that black and white.
+ I am not sure how it works in your country, but in mine: a lot of the PhD students are completely "new" (unknown). This means that the supervisor/professor has no idea at all about the student, so its not all that easy to see how he/she works etc...

And one important thing a lot of people seem to forget: A good supervisor can only be as good as his students allow the supervisor to supervise...
Supervising is not a one way direction!

(just some general notes, not specifically ment for you)

I see.
Then its indeed not right/correct.
He should invest more time in your research.
I am not sure what you need to do, its all up to you. If you think he is no help at all and you risk losing your oppertunity to get that PhD.. then think about alternatives.
Also: are there others in the lab that might be able to help you? If this is the case then maybe you can still stay.. If your supervisor cant/wont help you, maybe someone else can so that you still can continue.

brand on Sun Oct 23 06:59:44 2011 said:

You are not alone who meet such professor. Trust me, I had even meet professor who is more worst than what you had described. I can't offer you any good advices, but if I am compulsury to give you one, that would be change the supervisor before is too late. Dont give unnecessary struggle.

Thank you Adrian,

I already requested my previous supervisors for reference and will start applying for new projects.Its my dream to get a PhD and cant spoil for some resolvable matters.

I thought about in depth ,and if get a project under a well reputed professor definitely I will move forward.