In this week’s blog, Meike van Lit shares her advice on how to coordinate an interdisciplinary team, how to make the transition from Master’s degree to PhD, and, more importantly, how to survive your PhD supervisors!

In my home country, the Netherlands, there is a book series called “How do I survive…?”. Each book has vital advice for young teenagers, like how to survive your parents, and how to survive your first kiss. But as I started my PhD last October, I wished that there was a sequel, “How Do I Survive My PhD?” Or rather, How Do I Survive My PhD Supervisors?  

A Steep Learning Curve 

Don’t get me wrong, I have great supervisors and this blog isn’t a letter of complaint. But I know that other people had the same wake-up call as me as to what our PhD supervisors expect. As I’m coming to the end of my first year I thought, why not start the conversation and share our experiences?  

Maybe a PhD in Archaeology at the University of Glasgow requires a wildly different supervisor-supervisee relationship than yours. Maybe you’re a supervisor yourself and think I’m missing the point. Sharing Maybe non-interdisciplinary research means you only have two supervisors, rather than my team of five supervisors. Yes, five.  

To make things even more complicated, my five supervisors come from three different institutes, including two different schools within the University of Glasgow. My research is interdisciplinary, working on archaeology and soil science at the same time, so it makes sense to have an interdisciplinary set of supervisors. But it means I’m working with a lot of different expectations, requirements, and standards. 

I’ve been university hopping throughout my academic career, from my undergraduate at Leiden University in the Netherlands, to my master’s degree at the University of York, and now to Glasgow for my PhD. Added to that, I applied to a PhD project, rather than designing my own, and started my PhD only a year after finishing my master’s.  

All this means that I didn’t know any of my supervisors before I started, and I had no idea what their expectations were – or what mine should be. It’s been a massive learning curve, with quite a bit of communication to make sure that we were all on the same page, and I wanted to share my experience so that you might be able to avoid a lot of frustration! 

PGT vs. PhD 

For my master’s degree in York, I had one brilliant supervisor. I initially went to him with a vague idea for a topic, and he helped me define it. He helped me to refine my methodology, gave me useful feedback on the case studies I wanted to use, and gave me ‘strongly advised’ me to include things that I had missed. At no point did it feel like he was taking control of my dissertation, but it was clear that he was the expert in the field throughout the project. 

This makes sense for a master’s dissertation. As much as your dissertation is something to be proud of, it’s probably not so mind-blowing that you become a widely acknowledged expert immediately! The role of a (taught) master’s dissertation supervisor is still very much to guide and to occasionally tell you no (usually in a British, beating-around-the-bush way) when you want to do too much.   

In contrast, my PhD supervisors have a very different approach. 

As far as I can tell, my PhD supervisors have four main tasks: 

1. Provide advice and guidance (which you don’t have to accept!), 

2. Provide experience, like explaining why they use a certain method, 

3. Provide feedback, to make sure that my research will be acceptable in their field(s), 

4. Provide a network, like journals to submit to, experts to speak to, and organisations that might have data or tools to help my work. 

It’s important to remember that, while your supervisors are experts in their field, their job is to support you to become the expert in your field.   

Instead of hiding behind my supervisor (which I definitely did during my master’s degree), my PhD is my first proper, independent, in-depth research. In the four-ish years of research, I’ll lead a research group (even if that’s just an interview with fellow PhD candidates), I’ll become an expert in deciding which grants and literature are worthwhile to my work, and I’ll ultimately defend my choices.   

Of course, I don’t disregard everything my supervisors say (and I definitely don’t recommend that you do either!). But as a fledgling PhD, it is so tempting to do everything they suggest because they ‘must know what they’re talking about’. They do, but I have learned to ask myself, is it the right decision for me? Can I defend that choice, that methodology, that literature in my viva and beyond?  

Usually, my conclusion is that my supervisors are right, or they are at least pointing me in the right direction. But by forcing myself to question their advice rather than just accept it, my work has got stronger! It has required a change in mindset, a faith in my own critical thinking, and a reliance on my knowledge of my research. It’s not always easy, but I am confident in my methods, their validity, and my results.  

Practical Advice 

You may be thinking it’s all well and good to proclaim this, but how did I go about it?  

Fear not, I am here to share four practical steps I undertook to help my development as an independent, skilled researcher (with some added advice from my mother who works in professional communications for good measure):  

1. How often will we meet? 

This is something that most people will discuss during their first or second meeting with their supervisors, but my tip is to meet once a month, maximum.   

It might be tempting to met more frequently, perhaps once every two weeks, but I have found that once a month works best. I wouldn’t know what to discuss if I was meeting my supervisors every other week! When I was on a committee, years ago, we used to meet every two weeks, often for three or four hours, but we never seemed to achieve anything from the meetings. Why?  

Because we ended up discussing every. Single. Detail.   

Rather than letting the person responsible come up with ideas for the committee to develop or reject in a future meeting, we did everything together. It caused frustration, exhaustion, and, eventually, people quitting.  

The frequency of supervisory meetings is absolutely a personal preference, but if you meet every week or every two weeks, what are you really discussing? Are you discussing the necessary ‘main points’, or have you devolved into going through your to-do list for the week? Most importantly (I ask myself this regularly), are the meetings useful for you and your supervisors? 

2. Who leads the meetings? 

In my opinion, it should be me, the PhD candidate, who leads the meetings. After all, we’re meeting to support my research. My supervisors are not there to drag me to the finish line. They are there to give me a bottle of water and a power bar when I’m halfway through the marathon.  

A few days before our meeting, I send out a reminder email with a very brief summary of what I’ve been up to and an overview of what I would like to discuss. This way, I make sure that I get what I need out of the meeting, everyone knows what is expected in the meeting, and everything flows much smoother.  

With five supervisors this sort of planning is absolutely necessary! But even if your team is much smaller, having a plan that everyone is aware of before the meeting really helps to improve the efficiency for everyone involved.  

3. Who sets the deadlines? 

Much like the meetings, it is my research, and I am in charge of the deadlines. Because I tell my supervisors about my self-imposed deadlines, I can’t just postpone it; they expect me to have something ready so that we can discuss it at the next meeting.  

That isn’t to say that my supervisors have no say in my planning. I send updated plans at least every six months in line with the six-month review and end-of-year progress review at Glasgow. But smaller, chapter specific deadlines? That’s my responsibility.  

4. How am I receiving feedback? 

One of my dormant fears is to get feedback and take it on board, only to be told later, at a crucial point in my research, that I should never have done that.  

Most supervisors will give written feedback, but sometimes they prefer to give verbal feedback during the meeting. I ask my supervisors to give their feedback in writing, preferably in a shared online document so that they can all see what they have said. This helps to make the meetings more efficient – we can focus on the discussion points rather than going over typos – but, more importantly, it makes sure that I have a written record of every piece of feedback I receive.  

This way, everyone can be held accountable for what they’ve said and why, and my ultimate fear can’t come true! For this reason, I also save pdf versions of any emails and documents which include feedback. Good supervisors will give the most important feedback in writing, but you never know when a tiny detail might suddenly become important. It might seem over-the-top, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. 

With these four things, I have created a supervisor-supervisee relationship that is fruitful for my research and my personality. More importantly, I have (so far) managed to survive my PhD supervisors, and I hope that they help you survive your own!  

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