My guide is incompetent, what can I do

musicguru5
Sat, 15 Dec 2012 14:09:57 +0000

Leave with an MS, or just leave now, and transfer to either another PI in your department or another program. I’ve seen a lot of people think they were doing the good student thing and battling through despite major conflicts with their advisors. These people took 7-10 years to get their PhDs. The MS is a natural breaking point - you won’t burn your bridge with your current advisor, but can get on to something you find more interesting. If you don’t even want to wait that long, most advisor transfers within a department happen near the end of the first year. Now is the time to make a change.

Option 2 will keep you in school for a very, very long time. Your negotiating position is weak - if you just strike out with an advisor who doesn’t think that’s kosher, you will end up staying until you give in and do what they want. There are plenty of ways to do your own science in grad school - blowing off your advisor is not one of them. They have all of the power in this relationship, since you finish when they decide you’re done. Offend your advisor at your own peril.

Option 3 isn’t great either. This is when you begin developing your professional reputation - if you don’t produce anything interesting in grad school, it doesn’t do you any favors. If you were already 4 or 5 years in, I might tell you to tough it out, but only one year means you have a LONG time to go yet.

I’m a little skeptical of your claims (a CS professor who doesn’t write a single language??), and suspect you’re dramatizing a little for effect. The point is, it doesn’t actually matter - if you perceive that you are having major conflicts and loss of interest after only a year, you should get out now. There is a natural learning curve to a PhD, and things like the arbitrary handing down of algorithms for you to code, you could get over - that’s a style issue. The fact that you don’t find his research interesting, though, is a dealbreaker. Things will NOT get better from here.

Sorry to be kind of a downer, but that’s my $0.02.