How Do I Tell My Supervisor about the Struggles I Face?

As we’ve covered before, one of the most crucial factors in determining your success as a graduate student is your mentor. Your reputation is tied directly to theirs. After you graduate, you will be known as “__________’s former grad student.” Your ability to carry out your project depends on their ability to secure and maintain funding. However, perhaps the biggest influence your mentor will have over you is as your director, supervisor, and teacher. 

Your mentor is there, essentially, to train you how to do their job. It isn’t an easy one, and you will face difficulties and obstacles in the process. Some of these will be external, such as balancing the demands of work and life. However, some of them will inevitably come from inside. You may be struggling to make progress in your project. You may be having issues with coursework or other departmental obligations. Or, perhaps, your issue is with your mentor. Just what do you do when the person whose role is to help you navigate academia is the very source of your problems?

There are many types of conflicts that can arise between a student and their mentor. One of the most common is a disagreement on workload. Almost invariably, mentors will want more out of their students, whereas students will typically already feel pushed to their limits. This can be a tricky issue to navigate. Academia is not a typical nine-to-five job where one simply has to put in their hours. Performance is key, and if there is a disagreement about whether you’re meeting your milestones (or, if you aren’t, what/who is to blame), friction is almost inevitable. 

Another possible source of conflict is over your direction, be that over the direction of your project or your broader career trajectory. I said before that your mentor is essentially there to train you how to do what they do - it’s what they know. If you feel your path diverging from theirs, their advice, guidance, and goals may start to feel less and less helpful and, at worst, outright contrary to your objectives. Or, perhaps the source of contention is a simple clash of personalities. 

These are just a few examples of possible sources of friction - they are not comprehensive, nor are they mutually exclusive. Any and all these may be present simultaneously, and negotiating a productive relationship in spite of these difficulties is one of the great challenges of being a student and, more broadly, an adult.

One uncomfortable truth you need to square with is that right or wrong, you and your mentor are not equals. With you as the student and they as the teacher, you will always be in a weaker position. When push comes to shove, generally, it will be you who gives way. With that in mind, it is always better to avoid conflict and do everything you can stomach in order to appease your mentor and keep them happy. If your relationship with your mentor deteriorates to the point that things become outright hostile, it can only end badly for you. It sucks, but that’s the way it is, and this is by no means unique to academia. 

If anything, as far as power dynamics go, the student-mentor relationship favors the weaker party more than most others. For example, as a student, you are not utterly at the mercy of your thesis advisor. There are tools and resources at your disposal that can help you navigate a tense situation with your mentor, and it fully behooves you to take advantage of these to the fullest extent. 

One of the most helpful avenues of appeal for you is your thesis advisory committee. It is essential that, if your program allows you to choose your committee members, you choose wisely. These individuals can and do serve as mediators when there is a conflict between you and your advisor. While they cannot directly override the authority of your mentor, they can intervene if the demands of your advisor are completely unreasonable. 

They can also hold both of you to agreed-upon milestones - a very useful contribution if you are unlucky enough to have a mentor who continuously moves the goalposts for your graduation to maintain you as cheap labor. As a graduate student, your program will also afford certain protections, and it greatly behooves you to be familiar with these. 

Finally, much is to be made of talking with your peers - your fellow students. These individuals can offer invaluable advice as to how to deal with difficult professors or avoid them in the first place, and, even beyond the practical recommendations and perspectives they can offer, the healing power of just getting to bitch about your problems with your fellows in the trenches should not be underestimated. 

Keep in mind that this advice mostly concerns worst-case scenarios when dealing with difficult mentors. However, not every student-mentor relationship has to take this route. It is possible to enjoy very productive working relationships with your mentor characterized by mutual respect and benefit. 

Even if you are unlucky enough to have a somewhat or even significantly strained relationship with your advisor, bear in mind that their perspective is nonetheless valuable. As I said, their job is not an easy one, and whether they begged, borrowed, stole, or killed to get there, they have somehow managed it. 

They have achieved a level of success in a very tough field, and there is something to be learned from them for it. So, when the time comes to have difficult conversations with your mentor, be respectful, be humble, be deferential, be smart, be as honest as you can be, be ready to concede what you can, and be open to receiving their help and advice. After all, even a bitter pill can be helpful when you’re sick.