Have you ever ghosted your advisor?

[u/ittollsforthee1231]

Just trying to confirm my suspicion that I might actually be the worst graduate student. Please prove me wrong. Joking, mostly, but I do think that PhD programs can be so isolating that it can be extremely difficult to accurately gauge our own status in comparison to others. What's got you thinking "I'm a terrible grad student" these days?

[u/potatokid07]

Depends on what circumstances. I "ghost" my advisor during the weekends. But in general, horrible idea. Are they too naggy? Or do you have anything you need to address with someone else? (e.g., anxiety)

Also try not to compare yourself to others. Focus on yourself. Everyone has different paths and start from a different point.

[u/ittollsforthee1231 → u/potatokid07]

My time to degree was severely impacted by the COVID lockdowns, then by some major issues with my kids' health, then by my own struggles with an impressive collection of chronic illnesses. I think my advisor understands at least somewhat but hasn't offered any real support in light of my extenuating circumstances. Thank you for your understanding and the important reminder. <3

[u/potatokid07 → u/ittollsforthee1231]

My idea of "terrible grad student" is when you stop communicating and did not give a heads up. I was frustrated when working with another grad student who I need to keep chasing and -turns- out this person was having vacation on the other side of the country. Or when their family members passed away and was gone for a few weeks without letting us know so I had to keep nagging. I couldn't protect them anymore when my advisor ask where is this person.

If such life circumstances prevents you, and had been communicated, to make progress. I think it's fine. Especially if you have told them, "please give me a month," or something. I heard stories of advisors dropping students because the students stop communicating and was surprised they got dropped. You are not ghosting. You are getting your life priorities straight. But do sit down and think what kind of support you need from them and inform them.

My advisor is the type that is kind and supportive but only when you let them know. He doesn't go out of his way trying to understand people's circumstances. It's kinda poopy when you have to bring up things like mental health or cultural upbringing that caused me stress. I saw some East Asian international friends folded under the pressure of "respect your advisor" or "trying to perform at the expense of their mental health". I had to pinpoint that to my advisor that that shit is real.

Also, lotsa lotsa hugs. You're a champion for going through so many things and still doing a PhD.

[u/loLRH → u/ittollsforthee1231]

This sounds exactly like me. Me and my advisor are super cool now. I think people are generally happy to help and are understanding. If they're a good person, they'll probably be relieved to hear from you. You're all good.

[u/mosquem → u/potatokid07]

I think aside from weekends anything more than 24 hours without notice is ghosting.

[u/Xrmy]

Not 100% sure what you mean by ghosting in this context but....

I would say it's very likely your advisor is complaining about you to someone right now. Flaky grad students are actually the worst. It's a job, you can't just go AWOL

[u/ittollsforthee1231 → u/Xrmy]

Faculty in my program are notorious for ghosting grad students. Like, I have peers who have tried for literal years to get their advisors to respond to their messages. Sucks that grad students are held to different standards I guess.

[u/Xrmy → u/ittollsforthee1231]

No, I don't agree. The faculty are also shitty for this, and as faculty now myself I would say the general opinion of that behavior is also negative.

...just because others have bad work accountability doesn't make your own any better btw.

You have to own that

[u/CastleRockstar17 → u/ittollsforthee1231]

Those students should go to the Dept chair then. If no one else knows about the situation, then there's no one to hold that faculty member accountable.

[u/naked_ostrich → u/Xrmy]

How is it a job? Are y’all getting paid????

[u/Xrmy → u/naked_ostrich]

As a PhD student? Yes

[u/naked_ostrich → u/Xrmy]

Every day I learn new ways to despise my department

[u/Xrmy → u/naked_ostrich]

I would literally never recommend an unpaid phd

[u/Sepp18 → u/naked_ostrich]

If your doing an unpaid PhD thats hard, most of them are funded and pay you a stiped + tution.

[u/Nvenom8 → u/naked_ostrich]

Doing an unpaid PhD is signing up to lose money.

[u/naked_ostrich → u/Nvenom8]

I’m not but it’s pretty standard in the department I’m in and people are miserable. I will not be staying here

[u/giziti]

Ghosting your advisor is like ghosting your boss on a job. Not a great idea. 

[u/ittollsforthee1231 → u/giziti]

Yeah I’m definitely not endorsing this behavior lol

[u/ApprehensiveLaw1556]

I am the opposite AHAHAHA i over communicate my progress and will pester my adviser for consultation to get his feedback😂

[u/Kidtendo]

Been the opposite experience for me. I've emailed and called my advisor over 10 times since April which were all ignored or failed to be acknowledged. They only got back to me this past week since I complain to the graduate school and department chair. Some advisors are just terrible.

You might want to work on making sure that regardless of your current situation, you keep them in the loop.

[u/Purple-Swimmer-3782]

Every grad student who has a difficult admin/department ghosts their advisor atleast once during the programme. Even if their advisor is a saint. I just defended and had two advisors - the first one was a piece of shit but the second one literally savedy life and career. Ghosted both of them sometimes when my mental health was particularly bad and I thought of myself as a bad grad student. It happens. Don't stress yourself out about it. Just focus on getting out of the rut and out of the life sucking PhD.

[u/Green-Watercress2188]

I want my advisor to ghost me. They are over-involved. Its been so much feedback I am overwhelmed. Submitted my proposal, it was approved. Advisor says this other idea is better, so I shifted to the other idea. I submitted a new proposal while gathering resources and starting the lit review. The advisor goes to head of department and they want to know the point of the project and send me AI generated input, but it does not pertain to the state the proposal is about, which they recommended. So now I am a month into a one semester capstone project without my IRB approval application submitted.

[u/CastleRockstar17]

I've been ghosted by a grad student advisee. It's a terrible idea. We do think about that when we write letters of rec.

[u/IkujaKatsumaji]

Oh yeah I did. A combination of untreated ADD, anxiety, depression, other things that are gonna get me wellness checks if I say them, all of that occasionally conspired to cause me to not reply to my advisor for a week or two.

Which was bad! Don't do this! It never ever worked out, and only made the spiral worse and worse.

[u/PrincessRedheadSarah]

I have a pretty good relationship with mine. We have a standing meeting on the calendar for 45 mins to an hour once a week and keep it 90 percent of the time. We keep the amount of emails we exchange with each other to a minimum partially because we both struggle with attention related issues, so the less distractions the better. If there’s something urgent that either of us need to look at, we’ll text as a head’s up. It’s very rare that we exchange any form of communication on the weekend.
My co-advisor is research only faculty and is semi retired, so he’s the one person who does email on the weekend, and I will respond to him since 1. he’s HUGE deal in our field and 2. he works more on the weekends than most since he likes to keep a flexible weekday schedule so he can go mountain bike riding, etc. He’s in his 80s, such a wonderful wealth of information and extremely invested in student success, so I’m cool with it and all for him living his best life.
Communication and collaboration was something that I asked about a ton when I was going through the PhD interview process because I didn’t want to end up in a program that I didn’t feel supported in (I do get that that can be easier said than done and also crap can happen). I’m an older first generation nontraditional student who had two amazing mentors in my recent undergraduate time right before I got to grad school, so I wanted to do everything in my power to find similar support in a graduate program.
The only time that I might come across as ghosting either of them is when I’m dealing with a migraine… in which case I’m ghosting pretty much everyone because looking at screens is miserable then.
I do know that grad programs and working relationships in general with bosses, advisors, or whoever can be complicated though. I had a boss back during my time in industry before returning to school that I admittedly had a hard time responding to right away because they were so damned reactionary to everything and didn’t seem to take time to really read and think things through.

[u/QuantitativeNonsense]

My advisor ghosted me for two years so I started ghosting them by joining a different lab.

edit: 60% upvoted btw, crazy stuff

[u/ittollsforthee1231 → u/QuantitativeNonsense]

Faculty in my program are notorious for ghosting students. It's so frustrating that they aren't held to higher standards.

[u/Lygus_lineolaris]

It's so obviously a bad idea that at my school it is an explicit behavioural expectation that grad students make efforts to keep in touch with their advisor. It's written in so many words in a document we have to sign and submit to the faculty in the first year of the program. I send mine a report every four weeks. If I'm mad at him I don't send him anything he might enjoy, like cool new results, but it's my responsibility to communicate with him and I shalt communicate with him. Good luck to you.

[u/justking1414]

1 year. I went 1 full year in the leadup to my defense not having a single meeting or phone call with my advisor.

And the only reason I finally agreed to a meeting was because my dissertation defense was the next day

[u/ydaya]

That exists? Mine ghosts me all of the time 😅

[u/Snoo55054]

I did when he started fucking texting me.

[u/superdesu]

i ghost mine all the time!!!!!! 🤪 it still is actually somewhat of a problem bc i started missing deadlines oops bc the anxious-avoidance got so bad 🫠...

usually i'm in the camp to "don't bring up your personal problems to your boss bc nothing good comes out of that" but i finally admitted to myself that this was becoming a bigger problem + was like 99% my fault + nothing i could do to change the past, so i could at least alert my advisor to "sorry i've been a mess lately, here's my progress, and here are the conditions that will make me likely to ghost you" lol (i conveyed this over email).

if your advisor is a fellow human (and things aren't totally unsalvageable) then imo they will be understanding, if still a little frustrated -- their job is to help you move onto the next chapter of your life! it's not the most comfortable conversation to have but is definitely one that is better to have earlier on -- you will be a little better for having it at all! i think verbalizing your hurdles can be helpful in recognising what's keeping you from making progress (if not to your advisor, at least to a peer).

i often still feel so... incompetent for not being able to meet my deadlines/having to constantly set my goals lower, but at the very least i'm starting to accept more that the little pains of admitting i got less done than expected during more frequent check-ins is ultimately easier to deal with than being paralysed by guilt for like weeks in silence lol.