I have a full meeting about my thesis with my supervisors roughly once a month. We chat and discuss my research more often than that, but every month is our ‘structured interaction’, as it is known. In this blogpost, I want to discuss how my supervisory meetings have evolved since I started my PhD in September 2013, and the changing ‘fear’ as the ‘supervisee’.

My meetings generally last 90 minutes or so, and have become a good discussion opportunity, as well as the usual critical hammering of my work (the most important part of the meeting for me).

I feel more fortunate probably than most. I have known my supervisors for a few years now, going back to my days as an undergraduate, and I’ve built a good working relationship with them both. However, as the very early stages of my thesis, I still had the same concern as outlined by Rebecca Coles here:

I had no idea how this one-to-one interaction was supposed to go. Was it supposed to be a free flowing discussion? Or was it supposed to be more structured, more like an interview in which two people assume different roles? And if this was the case, who was supposed to be the interviewer and who was the interviewee? Who was supposed to take charge?

I have now had six structural interactions. My approach and demeanour has probably changed quite considerably during that time. I recall being quite cagey with what I was saying at the start. Which approaches/theories/concepts/ideas did I disagree with? Who did I disagree with? I wasn’t prepared to say. I have also found that as the year has gone on, I have increasingly took more control of meetings. I’m no longer told what to do for the following month. Instead, I outline what I plan to do, and get their thoughts.

Gradually, I am getting over the fear of supervisory meetings. I was discussing this with one of my supervisors last week, who found it rather amusing. If only he knew that laughing at my fear makes the fear all the more prevalent…! The fear potentially represents a thought that the next level of academic achievement will be the one that’s beyond you. I was the first in the family to go to university, and I was a little bit nervous about not being good enough for undergraduate study. I felt the same as I moved onto Masters study, and now it is the same with PhD. So far, I’m progressing well, and the fear has all but gone for now. No doubt it will come back at some point.

Until next time…