I confess I have a problem. It is all to do with my love of praise and dislike of disappointing people and feeling like a failure. I have spent the last six months spending more of my time feeling like I am dog paddling in the pool of wanton science dreams. Yep you heard floating/dog paddling and not swimming and I am getting tired. I desperately want to get my shit together and I am hoping my research proposal will meet with supervisor A and supervisor B's approval so that i can get my shit together. My manic depressive relatonship with supervisor A is not helping my balance - he is a really high achieving and extremely well respected in our field (which makes lit reviews fun when he's on half the papers you are talking about), he has high expectations of all his staff and students and gets all disappointed (verbalises this both in front of other people and has been known to lose his temper at people in front of people even at visiting students - which reduces you and whoever else is around to feeling super duper crap). He does give you praise and its honest not manipulative praise - when i get it im like omg the world is brighter, better more fabulous place and then in the next breath he will go 'I'm disappointed' or I dont have time for this go away and do it again (tbh some of the time its me thats cocked up - but more often he changes his mind about what he wants after I spend ages on it and I have to do it again. Or he just doesnt listen and you have to push the point and make him hear you or he will walk all over you with his assumptions. I made a choice I chose this project this supervisor go me!
Having said that i love this field, I love the kind of work I am and have been doing. I am not stupid. I will resolve it. I just need a really big wine right now. Tommorrow is a new day - I have a project proposal to work on and hopefully they will buy it and not throw me out on my ear.
E.
2 comments:
hang in there....grad school is entirely a big roller coaster. good luck - hope you get both a good project and learn how to manage your mentor...
I hope your proposal went well. I had a similar relationship with my grad. advisor. During the last two years things completely changed, but up until that point it was just as you described.
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