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Supervisors come in all shapes and sizes! Most academic staff in UK universities are, of course, British. There are more men than women, they are more likely to be over 40 years old than under 40, and the numbers from ethnic minority groups are still quite small. Like all professional groups, they vary widely in personality, too, ranging from extrovert to shy and from serious to having a lively sense of humour. This means that there is a wide range of profiles amongst your possible supervisors, and your first task will be to get to know your supervisor personally.
The most important thing to remember about working with your supervisor is that now you are a postgraduate student you should expect a two-way relationship with him or her. You should not expect your supervisor simply to tell you what to do; you should see him or her as a partner to work with. A good supervisor will know how to support you in many ways but will aim to work with you to help in the ways most suited to your individual needs. Do not be afraid to ask for the things you need or to work in the way that suits you best.
This does not mean, of course, that you can demand that your supervisor does exactly what you want, but you should see your working relationship as one that can be ‘managed’ as much by you as by your tutor.
Your supervisor has responsibility for supporting you and guiding you through your research project. He or she will have expert knowledge in the field you are researching and also expertise in research methods and techniques.
The supervisor’s role will be to advise you on each part of your project – research proposal, literature search, methodology, data collection, data analysis and writing the dissertation or thesis. At each stage your supervisor will talk with you about what you are doing and planning, make suggestions for each part of the work, and read and review drafts of your writing. He or she will do this by having individual tutorials with you, and also by talking with you informally, whether in person or through e-mail.
An important part of the supervisor’s role in the early stages of your work is to do a ‘needs analysis’ with you. This means that together you will assess the skills and knowledge that your project will require and then identify what particular training you may need.
It is important to understand, however, both what your supervisor can do for you and also what he or she cannot. As a postgraduate student you will be expected to be independent in the way you work, and your research will be expected to be your own work, that you have planned and undertaken. Your supervisor is not there to tell you what to do nor to be by your side in everything that you do. A supervisor rather should act as a guide, an academic colleague, somebody to test your ideas with and to seek advice from. It is also important to know the limits of your supervisor’s expertise. At Masters level it is likely that whatever you choose as your research topic your supervisor will know most of what your dissertation will discover in outline. At Doctoral level, though, it is likely that you will soon know and understand more about your particular subject than your supervisor. Doctoral level work is about contributing something new to knowledge, so your research ought to be discovering ideas or knowledge not yet known to your supervisor. His or her role, therefore, is to support you in the process of discovering that knowledge, as your supervisor will be an expert in research in the field.
This is a difficult question, for it depends on many things. As a Masters student you will probably have four or five tutorials during your dissertation period – one or two at the beginning to help you get started, one or two during the research to discuss progress and research issues, and one or two towards the end to discuss the writing of your dissertation.
As a Doctoral student you will meet with your supervisor more frequently, and this will happen over the whole time period of your research. As a full-time student you might expect on average to meet formally with your supervisor once every two weeks, although the frequency of tutorials will vary a lot throughout your studies. There will be times when you may need to meet more often – perhaps in the early stages when you are developing your proposal or at the time when you are trying to develop your research methods and techniques.
At other times you may need to see your supervisor less often. When you are doing the literature review or writing draft chapters of your thesis it may be that you only need to see your supervisor every four or five weeks. You may also, of course, have informal meetings. Some departments try to give their Doctoral students an office close to their supervisor. Some have common rooms which both academic staff and postgraduate students use. In laboratory-studio- or workshop-based disciplines you may have your own work space in or very close to the lab, studio or workshop your supervisor uses. In these circumstances you may meet your supervisor informally quite frequently, and can talk about your work almost continuously.
How frequently you meet will depend very much on you and your needs. You should not expect that your supervisor will always be the one to arrange to see you. You should seek a meeting with him or her if and when you need it.
Your supervisor will expect you to show that you are a good postgraduate student. This means that you should expect to:
• Be punctual for tutorials and meetings.
• Meet deadlines for submitting work to your tutor.
• Listen to and act on your tutor’s advice. This does not mean that you must do everything your tutor suggests; no one will be impressed by this because you need to demonstrate criticality and reflection. However, most of the advice and guidance your tutor will offer will be based on long experience of supporting postgraduate students, so it is likely to be very useful. Your tutor will not be impressed if you never listen to advice or take up suggestions.
• Come to tutorials well prepared for the discussion, and having completed all the tasks you agreed to do by that time. For example, if you agreed you would write a draft of a particular chapter by the time of the tutorial, then you should have completed it if at all possible.
• Be active and positive in tutorials. Although there will be times when you have particular problems that you want your supervisor to help you resolve, you should always go to the tutorial with some ideas for how the problem might be dealt with. ‘Always bring solutions not problems’ is good advice about tutorials.
• Negotiate with your supervisor a way of working together that suits both of you.
Most importantly, though, your supervisor will expect you to be enthusiastic, energetic and interested in your work. Most will want to have a friendly and positive relationship with you, for that makes their work and your work more enjoyable and rewarding. Particularly for Doctoral students, but often for Masters students as well, you will develop a friendly professional relationship with your supervisor that will last for many years, and long after you have finished your programme. Many academic staff continue to work on projects and research with their former research students as they develop their academic career in other universities around the world.
It is important to be aware that while for most of the time you will be happy about how things are progressing, every Masters or Doctoral student has times during their work when things are difficult and challenging. There is a difference between the normal ‘ups and downs’ of postgraduate life and when things are going wrong and problems are occurring. One of the main ways your supervisor can help you is in telling you whether the challenges you are facing are simply ‘normal’ ones, or ones where some additional support may be helpful. So it is important always to keep your tutor aware of when things are going well or not so well. Your supervisor will know that everything will not be perfect for you all the time and will expect you to raise issues and problems – so there’s no need to be afraid that you are showing yourself to be a poor student when you do.
Your supervisor (or other tutors) should be able either to guide you on how to deal with issues, whether academic or personal or, perhaps more importantly, to direct you to somebody else in the university or outside who can help you.
The biggest challenge is if the problem you have is with the tutor or supervisor themselves. Although it is unusual, occasionally students find that they have a poor relationship with their supervisor or tutor or feel they are not getting the support and help that they need. It is important if this happens to you that you try to deal with the problem as soon as possible, for such a problem will certainly make it difficult for you to work effectively on your research. So what should you do?
First, you should keep a written note of the issues that you have, together with details of the times of meetings or events and the problems that you felt were occurring.
Secondly, try talking to your supervisor or tutor directly about it. It might be, of course, that he or she is not aware that there is a problem and can resolve the difficulty with you very quickly.
Thirdly, if talking with your supervisor does not help, then talk to one of the other academic staff who you work with. (We listed the main academic staff who are responsible for you earlier in this section.) You could perhaps talk to another member of your supervisory team or to the programme leader. They will try to resolve your problem or offer help. In extreme cases it may be possible to change supervisors, although this is not always easy since you will need a supervisor with particular expertise.
If the steps listed above do not resolve the problem, then your university will have formal procedures for dealing with complaints. Information on the procedures will be available from your department or from the Student Union, who will also be able to offer advice.
Most problems between tutors and students arise from poor communications or a lack of clarity about the expectations that each has of the working relationship. Plan to raise these two issues with your tutor at your first meeting.
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