*sigh*

[tigriswolf]

So, I like need to seriously work on my thesis this summer, right? The latest I can defend if I want to graduate this fall is November something, and while I have all the data, and I have outlines and ideas and stuff, I look at it and just... can't do anything.

I have an advisor, right? She's been there since I started in spring 2013. And I've talked to her in the past, and she's looked over what I had, and she's said it all looks good, that I should keep doing what I'm doing, and I just... I feel like we're having different conversations.

She's forgotten appointments we had scheduled, we almost never meet on time (I'm always early and she's always busy), and then she quit replying to my emails in March. She never called me back when I left a voicemail. I knew she was alive because her assistant was in one of my classes. But we were supposed to meet at the end of the semester so we could hammer out a schedule for me to follow while writing, right, and when I finally decided to email her again (on the off-chance she'd actually stop ignoring me), I got an out-of-office reply. She's fucking not in the country and won't be till August. The email said for all her students to go to this other guy for thesis/dissertation help.

So I emailed him, made an appointment, brought the best of what I have written, and waited for half an hour because he was late. And we talked, and he had advice and shit, and then he mentioned that my advisor is the best person to have for my particular project because she's essentially the rockstar of the field.

Regarding my advisor, I have never felt important. I've never felt like a priority. I've always felt like an afterthought. I look at what I have and I want to talk to someone. Want someone to tell me what to do. Is there some basic class I missed about how to research? How to put all the pieces together?

For a fic, I wrote 20,000 words in two days. I don't even have that much for my thesis after a year and a half of work. I look at what I do have and feel nothing. Except maybe dread.

What am I even doing?

Comments

[caffienekitty]

Regardless of what she is in her field, your thesis advisor doesn't sound like she's doing much in the way of advising you. Is there anyone you can go to that might be able to find someone maybe less of a 'rockstar' that could actually be there for you?

[tigriswolf]

I guess I just feel like there's something I'm not doing to get this amazing advisor people keep telling me I have. Some question I'm not asking.

But even when I plan out everything I want to say, in the moment I feel like everything's fine -- until I go away and there's nothing.

I have all the data. But it's not coming together, and I've told her that. And she has suggestions, and then I leave her office, and everything just... fizzles.

Which just means I'm a failure, right? I've felt like a fraud for two years now. This just finally proves it.

[caffienekitty]

Dude, firstly and above all you are NOT a failure and NOT a fraud. So just stick that in a big balloon and let it fly away, okay?

Are the suggestions she's making something you can at all work with, or do they only seem good while you are in the office with her? Would it help to maybe record what she says in the office to relisten to later out of the 'meeting with advisor' headspace, get an objective listen to it after the fact, see if there's anything to be gleaned from it? Would finding some peers who aren't your advisor to generally spitball ideas with help?

I get a similar thing when I go to the doctor. I have a list of all the issues and developments that have happened since the last visit, but as soon as he's in the room I go blank and am all 'everything's fine'. It's 100% unconscious and it's a common thing, and if that's what's going on with your advisor situation, that's understandable. She's an authority figure, and the impulse is to downplay problems and not allow yourself to access help.

Maybe write up a point-form list and try to go into a different headspace than 'I am interacting with an authority' when you meet with her. Treat your list of questions like a presentation, or even give her a copy, then go through it point by point, making notes as if it were a regular class setting. Not sure if that's part of the issue you're having or not, but it could help.

You have gotten so far with this, you know you have. You can make it through because you are an awesome and scary smart woman who kicks ass. You are amazing. You can do this.

*hug*

[tigriswolf]

Thank you. That seriously helped my state of mind.

[caffienekitty]

Glad to hear it! :-)

[noybusiness.livejournal.com]

You need to go to someone above her and tell them your concerns. You are not being served.

[tigriswolf]

My mom said the same thing. But I don't even know how to do that, or what I'd say.

[noybusiness.livejournal.com]

Talk to the department office to get to someone who can help you, such as the head of department. As for what you say, tell them exactly what's going on and what your concerns are. Tell them you aren't being helped because she's not available.

[noybusiness.livejournal.com]

I thought of you just now when I read something Mark (of Mark Reads/Watches) said in his review of Chapter 5 of Cold Fire, when some busybody is objecting to the girls choosing their own mage teachers from the available options: "Nevermind that education is a deeply personal thing that requires selfishness on the part of the student." Which is also similar to something Guinan said to Wesley in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation when he was nervous about telling his mother and the captain what he wanted to do with his life.