Five signs that your PhD guide is not supportive

Are you facing difficulty with your PhD research? Often, you may wonder that you are working fine and giving your best towards compiling your research paper, but still the desirable outcome eludes you. Why? What is the reason?

Have you ever wondered that your PhD guide may not be supportive? You may have been ignoring this aspect or may be overlooking it. Your PhD guide may sometimes make you feel stupid, other times he may shout at you or completely ignore you. The funny side is that even though your guide may have a bad reputation in the department, still they may be enjoying a good post and manage to get graduate students working for them. Typically, they may be getting away with this behavior due to the fact that they are good scientists.

Read on to know the five signs that will tell you that your PhD guide is not supportive. You can then think of an alternative accordingly to devise plans to win the support of your guide.

1. Negativist

If your guide leaves no opportunity to bring you down when you start talking, he is a negativist. Even though you may have just started talking about your research or the difficulty which you are facing, your guide may instantly stop you and start pointing about the aspects which you have ignored or blast you for unnecessary reasons. Even though a supportive guide too points out the faults, but they will never bring you down. So, if you find your guide behaving badly with you or putting you down, it is surely a sign of your guide not being supportive.

2. Super Agreeable

If you discover that your guide is always super agreeable with whatever you say, be wary of him. A PhD guide’s duty is to show the right path and not just agree blindly with whatever your say or present.

3. Silent Unresponsive

Your guide may not point out your mistakes or correct you, but they may be silently unresponsive. This is also a sign of your guide not being supportive. This means that they are not eager for you to complete your PhD and attain your degree.

4. Aggressive

If your guide is aggressive and always uses harsh words to humiliate you, he is surely not supportive or willing to help you with your research.

5. Indecisive

A guide needs to be decisive and confident. If your guide confuses you or may not help you make a decision about your phd research topic or how to go about it, your guide is definitely not supportive.