PhD Horror Stories: You Won't Believe What These Supervisors Did!

In this video, we're sharing the worst PhD supervisors ever. These are the professors who ruin your chances of getting a PhD and making a successful career in academia.

If you're considering a PhD, then be sure to avoid these terrible PhD supervisors. These are the professors who will make you miserable and ruin your chances of getting a successful career in academia. By the end of this video, you'll know what to look for in a good PhD supervisor and what to avoid.

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▼ ▽ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 – introduction
0:15 – case one
1:59 – case two
4:13 – case three
5:40 – case four
7:14 – case five
8:24 – wrapping up

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[BarryHemmings]

I was diagnosed with a grade 3 bowel cancer during my doctorate. I took a year off for treatment ( surgery, chemo etc.). My original supervisor moved on to another uni during that year. My new supervisor, in our first meeting told me that I clearly lacked commitment based on my lack of progress. Our relationship never recovered. Disgraceful human being.

[sindhusekar]

My God. As a PhD holder myself, none of these surprise me!

[LogainLbue]

Some echoes from my experience:
- Got into the Ph.D. in veterinary medicine, apparently because I'm big enough to handle the physical work of a project (my hypothesis).
-Once the first project ends (6 months later) I'm left to dry with no purpose, funding, or interest from any member of the senior team. They bounce me for the rest of the year "landing a hand" to half of the faculty.
- In my second year I'm able to publish a review article by myself (naming all the departments of course), which makes it worse because now I bypassed the established hierarchy. They leave me another year with no project, no funding, and no directions...cutting down any attempt on my side to an initiative of collaboration with external tutors.
- I finally break with this approach and fund my own startup, winning a 20, 000 euro prize in the first competition. It allows me to conclude the experiments using additional prizes, and self-funding almost the entire content of my thesis.
- It doesn't sit well with the rest of the department, especially as I had the audacity to offer a collaboration between the startup activity and the faculty. They ghost me for the rest of the Ph.D., including thesis reviews.
- In the thesis defense, the external reviewers are very interested and impressed with the topic, and my tutor and Ph.D. coordinator take full credit for the work.
-My last communication from my tutor, was "Good work" on WhatsApp after the defense.

[kellirust]

I'm 7 weeks into a PhD program in Australia, and my primary advisor just held a Zoom conference with me to say she was pulling her support. I was completely blindsided, the Zoom call lasted about 5 minutes, and she didn't offer any reasoning. As a result, my entire PhD project has fallen apart. Her only advice was "the University has to help you find another advisor, and I'll e-mail you a link for counselling. Good Luck". The University's only advice was to e-mail other professors for support, but upon doing that, most of the responses are extremely negative and have impugned me for landing myself in this situation.

I can't believe advisors can abandon their students with zero consequences.

At this point, I will likely quit my PhD program; this entire situation has ruined my mental health and my life.

[michaelroussi]

These stories and more were the reasons for me to walk away from PhD and decided to become a lawyer and independent operator. Thanks to your videos, they opened my eyes and had a few interviews for supervisors. I realised the toxicity and lack of integrity in the profession due to the non-existence of accountability, a PhD student is at the mercy of a toxic ocean. In addition, all this hard journey for 3-5 years with a minimum scholarship to end up unemployed or a slave as a postdoc. Be smart and take control.

[sadegharian]

I’m not sure about Australia, but here is the US you can find at least on of those cases in 9 out of 10 labs. The problem is the system that lets faculty get away with this level of abuse

[heidiheidi]

These cases are pretty typical i think. I have also experienced one myself. It was so bad that I had to re-apply to programs and start all over again. For females, it seems the strategy is to put them down, socially isolate them, gaslight them, and distrust their work. At the end, I got a different PhD program, finished it in three years and landed a permanent position. Unfortunately, it is more common than not that PhD supervisors do not have adequate people managing skills. The biggest factor to success as a phD student is finding a supervisor who is not crazy.

[beccafranklin]

I just had flashbacks to the PhD I quit 😂😂. After all this years I feel validated. Tbh I did know it was my supervisors issue, the university and research council offered me and extra years funding to help me start over but I was past it at that point.

[vitorribeirosa]

The end of my phd was a nightmare. The last story is very similar to my experience in japan. Long journeys at lab and juggling multiple tasks to earn my salary. It was excruciating.
I don't know if i developed a Stockholm syndrome, i kinda see my supervisor's reasoning afterwards. Although i totally disagree with this way to handle things, it's how most of works are run in japan. As i am still linked to the lab in a comfortable position now, i try to make newcomer's lives easier and provide a support that i never had in my time as a phd candidate. I am trying to break this cycle.

[sashanealand]

I am so glad you told these stories because nobody will believe me. I worked in a lab where none of the chemical fume hoods or ventilation worked. The advisors solution was to open the doors to provide ventilation which didnt really work as it 90 degrees outside. Most of the air conditions were broken in the lab rooms but one did work, we were were however not allowed to turn on thid air conditioning because the advisor wanted to "save money for the college."

[JasperFromMS]

I'm not an academic. I'm a former police investigator with a lot of experience in paper crimes. In my state, some of this behavior could be criminal. If someone misrepresents a past or present fact to obtain something of value; that's a crime. I would definitely need to know more about these cases; but I would pursue it if these people walked into my office.

[heisferdy]

I think you're about to get a bunch of stories in the comments. I know of a few horror stories that occurred with students.

[boxeriain]

I know a supervisor, not my own, who constantly interrupts talks, who absolutely loves the sound of his own voice, interjecting every bloody talk the students are trying to present to the group.

[glyzsny]

The first story resonated with me so much. I am facing almost the same thing with my supervisor. I am relieved to see that his actions would be classified as horrifying everywhere. And it gives me more strength to look for another phd supervisor .

[mamaguile]

Case 2 happened to me but something serendipitous happened that caused a change in supervisor. Now things are much better.

[hideakipage]

I had a fight with my supervisor from the get go. We clashed on everything. I'd come from industry. The experimental procedures in their lab, particularly the electronics, were laughable and the measurements that they based their work on were plain wrong. However, he could not be questioned. My supervisor had no insight into his field. Regurgitating equations does not constitute knowledge. I was asked to set up a dangerous experiment that I refused to do ( I could cut in two by a very high pressure line whilst heating a 10kbar pressure vessel). I tried to change supervisor according to the Universities 'procedures'. That put the wind up him. I got my PhD. He wasn't even at the viva. During the viva, the external examiner was pressing a point so I described some measurements and the results that I had left out of the thesis following advice from my supervisor. The external couldn't believe that such vital information was not better received. I spent 8 years in post doctoral research. I travelled widely and worked with many European research institutes. Much of what I've described above has been repeated elsewhere. My experience has been that most academics are the scum of the earth.

[lindaabraham]

I was a student and lab assistant at a major public university in Florida for 30 years, and I must say that my experience with lousy research supervisors far surpasses yours, with all due respect. In the 80s, I was accepted as a grad assistant in botany. My research depended on a working electron microscope, which was continually in need of repair, and when it was working there was a long queue. My "supervisor" had no time to address my problems, or help me interpret the pictures I was getting because all his efforts were devoted to becoming the department chairman (which he never did). My funding source depended on identifying species of fungus that were submitted from around the state, but there was no one willing to teach me how. When I left, he was only angry because he had lost the funding. The experiences of others at this university include working for 8 years in the School of Medicine on a project with little or no supervision, only to be told that the work did not justify a PhD and the now 30-year-old student had to give it up. The student went to the supervisor's house and shot him. A foreign student in a similar situation could not face going home without a degree and committed suicide. In another case, a researcher in neurology was arrested for videotaping himself with a prostitute together with her daughter and it was in the newspapers. He was fired and his students... well, I don't know what happened to them, but I doubt they bragged about their mentor. In the Philosophy Department, grad students were required to attend faculty parties in the nude, and at least one professor had to pay for a student's abortion. Another prof kept his lab super cold because he believed that it kept the students more alert--they all wore coats. Another prof, and his assistant wife, refused to wear deodorant, rode bicycles to work in the Florida heat, and the reek hit you the moment you walked into the lab or his tiny office. Another scientist could not overcome his chain-smoking addiction, and because smoking on campus was illegal he kept the lab locked. You had to call him on the phone first to get in, and the smoke was so heavy inside that it make you dizzy and nauseous. I could go on...

[gongren]

Some professor is pure garbage. I just wonder how they were climbing to that position. Our society is really sick.

[mackes]

I heard all these stories in on way or another. My PhD supervisor was good, but I experienced slave labor as a postdoc. Other experiences were incompetent supervisors and someone who changed the conditions after I started. I was neither allowed to apply for my own grant nor could I publish any results because the research was industry funded. I needed the job to maintain my visa, like most postdocs and students who weren't citizens or green card holders (most).

[Ah-jwdv]

Oh boy, I wouldn't title the video 'You Won't Believe' but rather 'Get Used To What Some Supervisor Do'. I've gone through many of these red flags, plus other horrors such as Supervisors taking a consierable 'pinch' of a PhD Student Research Grant; Supervisor appearing suddenly (after months away and no interest in the project) in a research project of my own to emphasize everyone present that I am his student and this is his line of research; Supervisor pressing for co-director and authorship credit for a Thesis Research Product for which he has done nothing... I mean, I could write so many situations and red flags. I've seen and experienced so much corruption in my five years as an expat, I just long for the defense of my thesis and closing this chapter.