How to deal with a difficult PhD Advisor?

There is no toxic advisor, it is just the personality of the student does not match with advisor. Some are easy going, and some are tough.

This was the saying of one my Ph.D. advisor with whom I worked for almost a year. Like so many unfortunate graduate students, I also ran into two different research groups where I find it very difficult to work with, and, then, I somehow managed to change those two groups — in first case, I changed the school, and, for the next one I changed the research group.

It is not an easy task to escape from a toxic research group when you are an international student and you are dependent on the funding from the program. Because often you are being hired as a “graduate research assistant (GRA)” and your advisor can cancel the funding anytime if s/he wants. And, trust me, your advisor does not have to answer to the authority — that’s the bitter truth.

Regardless of the opinion of my Ph.D. advisor, if someone asks me is there any toxic advisor, then I would definitely reply with 200 percent affirmation — “Yes, there is a hell out there full of toxic supervisors in academia.” I know a story of one toxic supervisor (who later did not get tenured and eventually left academia) she made her students to work till 9/10 PM often, used to check on the students almost everyday before leaving her office and often asked her students to work on weekends and even on holidays. Another professor (from a specific nation) I know who forces his students to work from 8 to 5 or 9 to 6, and the students must declare the specific hour break for their lunch and also even if they leave the lab for a hour they must inform him. The stories are all over, if you just search for it, you will get it from internet.

So, how to deal with a toxic advisor !!!

To be honest, the one and only answer is to leave that group ASAP once you realize that the group is toxic. There is no other way around. If you think you will out perform everyone, hopefully (finger crossed) the Professor will let you to work around your own schedule or will be easy on you down the roads, that is not going to happen. However, if you are an international student leaving that group might often be very very difficult because you are on a VISA and you can not just quite a group or a program, and take a break to do something else.

Professors from specific nation often capitalize the opportunity to enslave the international students because they know that they have utmost control over the life of the international students. They can cancel your finding any time, fire from their research group and foremost they know that the University will remain silent. Because those professors bring the money, not you. In most of the schools they maintain a cohort, even if you want to switch from a group to another, they won’t let you — so you have no options other than changing the school.

As an international student, I know that it is almost impossible to identify a toxic supervisor before you actually start working with him/her. Often, you will not get a good feedback from any of the current students because none wants to jeopardize his/her so called peaceful relationship with a toxic supervisor, and especially none will be comfortable with talking to a stranger about how toxic the research group is. During the interview process, the professors are seem to very nice and it is difficult to say about them unless you really start working with them.

But, you can always look for some pattern that will help you to identify whether you should work with that group or not.

Diversity — this is the most critical thing that is often ignored by the international students. A diverse group always indicates that the Professor does not have any issue working with students from different cultures. There are some specific nations who have a culture of over work and if you find that the Professor is from that specific nation and majority of the students are from that specific nation then it is not a healthy group. Let me tell you why ?

Most of the students will overwork say from 9 to 9 i.e., a 12 hours shift a day. They will eat, drink and sleep in the labs. Often they will communicate with advisors outside of working hours, and the professor will expect that you will do so. Sometimes for your experiment you need to dedicate longer hours, or you need to work on weekends to meet any deadlines — and that is totally fine. But if the culture of overwork persists for 4 to 5 years, then it is very difficult to work in such a group.

Also, you will have hard time to learn anything from your lab members unless the Professor maintains a teaching and learning culture. Often, students from such group maintain a close cohort. They share resources to their own people, but when you ask for help it is often difficult to get help from them. My friend told me that he had very hard time to learn anything from the group and often got blamed by them.

Also, you will find you as alien in that group. You will find them that other students are speaking in their own language among themselves, and even sometimes the Professor does not care. You will awkwardly discover that the Professor is speaking their language while discussing something in the lab. And, trust me, you will feel being alienated.

So diversity is critical. You should always want to be in a diverse group. Next major red flag is the lack of mentoring culture. A good professor will always ensure that you are getting mentored for a significant amount of time before you start working independently on a project. Often toxic advisors maintain a competitive rather than a mentoring culture, and create a environment of competitiveness among the group members. In such competitive environment, the group members would not like to teach you anything. Because often they will think that what they have achieved in six months, you will get it done within a month or two because you got the right mentoring. Thus, this vicious cycle continues. So, be careful about that. If you find that the professor is not ensuring a proper mentoring culture, then do not stay in that group .

There are other minor parameters that you might set to identify a toxic group, but above two are critical. Now, the question is how to deal with that. My answer is if you care about your mental health and wants a positive experience throughout your grad life, you should try to leave that group ASAP. There is way around but you will eventually sacrifice the wellness of both your mental and physical health.

Lastly, most of the universities are famous for not being supportive towards their graduate students. At the end of the day, it is the Professor who brings the money, not you. So, they will simply treat you as a low class worker nothing else unless you are a local citizen or resident.