Is your supervisor supervising you ?

I believe that every university in Australia has somewhat like the research graduate office which caters the postgraduate matters. In my uni, the office gives the PG handbook which outlines the 'task of supervisor', 'task of students','students right' so on and so forth.

The guideline looks perfect and ideal. It didnt occur to you that the nice, well worded guidelines are actually useless when it cant actually help you when you have problems. Especially when you have problems with your supervisor. Although the guidelines say that a supervisor is responsible to supervise you, the question is how should he supervise ? The guidelines do not say explicitly that a supervisor must sit with you an hour per visit. Or, even though it requires him to sit with you an hour per visit, the guidelines are still not enough to back the student.


For example, a student visits the supervisor for an hour. In that hour, the student will expect the supervisor to scribble and correct his mistakes with red pen on the entire writings. But, what happen if the supervisor meets the student, ask him to sit down, read one of 7 paragraphs and the rest of the time is used to lecture your mistakes 'conceptually' instead of pointing directly to your mistakes? Can the student be blamed for coming again on the next visit repeating the similar mistakes ?

During the candidature period, the student is expected to write a journal or present a paper in a seminar/conference. Analyze this case. A student VOLUNTARILY writes an article to be sent to a conference/journal. Then he passes the article to his supervisor hoping that the supervisor will check it. The supervisor agreed to check and put his paper in his drawer. Days pass by, the student went to see the supervisor asking whether he has checked on the paper. The supervisor replied he forgot. The second visit, after a week, the student meets his supervisor, again, the same answer, but this time he gives an assurance that he will read the paper. After the third visit, the supervisor grunted, saying that he is busy and will attend to the students paper on the following week. During the fourth visit, asking again, the supervisor said "what ? did you give me the paper ? When?" There you go...how will you react ? No, not how will you react...how can the guidelines back you up ? Okay, let say after you visit him the fourth time, reminding that your paper is in his drawer, the supervisor apologize and read the paper infront of you for 3 minutes and said that everything is wrong and will not be accepted and ask you to re-write again. And the process goes back to square one.

How would you feel ? Do you think you are treated fairly ? What should you do ?

The two cases above are among many that are experienced by the Ph.D students. The kind of supervision clearly annoys you. But, what is our say ? Even if we want to report, how do we specify that in writings ? Anybody dare to report when you know that the final results is still in the supervisor's hand ? Anybody willing to wait for the commision to analyze your case ?

These are the classic problems facing the students. The tougher guidelines must be imposed on the ettiquete of the supervisor. But, the question is, even with the tougher guidelines, does your supervisor care ?