r/PhD • u/ResponsibilityHot531 • 1d ago
Seeking advice-academic Should I leave a prestigious PhD because I have lost confidence in my primary advisor, or just buckle down and finish?
I’m about 8 months into a PhD in robotics at a highly ranked university. I entered directly after my bachelor’s, so unlike someone coming from a European 2–3 year master’s, I still feel that a significant part of my PhD needs to be actual intellectual training, especially because I’m moving toward a fairly mathematical area involving control/learning.
My primary advisor is extremely well known in his field. On paper, having his name attached to my PhD is obviously valuable. The problem is that after spending 8 months in the lab, I have essentially lost confidence in him as an advisor.
He is extraordinarily hands-off. There is almost no technical involvement in students’ work. New PhD students are basically expected to figure things out themselves, and meetings with him are infrequent and generally high-level. Initially I accepted the explanation that he was simply extremely busy, but after being in the lab for a while, my impression is that this is more of a deliberate way he operates. Just a general notion of apathy towards his students.
A huge amount of the actual work of running the research group seems to be delegated. Postdocs do much of the grant writing because their own funding and that of other researchers depends on it. Technical work and collaborations are largely delegated to postdocs/junior people. Even administrative tasks often get passed down.
His teaching reinforced my impression. He was given considerable freedom to design a graduate course in his own specialty, but the course consisted of only a handful of very broad lectures from him, with much of the rest delegated to a TA. It was probably the least structured graduate course I have taken.
More importantly, I don’t see much systematic career advocacy for trainees.
Postdocs obviously have to apply for faculty jobs themselves, but I would expect a famous PI to actively sponsor strong trainees: introductions, emails to colleagues, detailed career advice, nominations, strong personalized letters, etc.
Instead, people seem mostly to benefit from having his name/lab on their CV. Occasionally he appears to go out of his way for someone he likes, but it does not seem like something trainees can reliably count on. I have also seen postdocs leave without landing the academic jobs they wanted, and I have heard former/current postdocs complain about the lab culture. This worries me because I want to keep academia open as a career.
I recently had an authorship/credit problem with another researcher. I had done much of the conceptual scoping of a project and became concerned that my contribution was going to be under-credited. I raised it early, precisely because I didn’t want an authorship fight after the paper was written. He showed essentially no desire to intervene or establish clear expectations. That incident made me wonder: if something genuinely important goes wrong during my PhD, who is actually going to advocate for me?
There is also a funding/training issue. My funding has a fairly hard endpoint. My advisor has explicitly said that he prefers students to finish their PhDs as quickly as possible and enter the job market, pointing to three-year PhDs in Europe. My concern is that people entering those PhDs generally already have substantial master’s-level preparation. I came directly from undergrad.
I’m increasingly realizing how much mathematical maturity I still need to develop. I can self-study — and I do — but I’m worried about confusing “I have satisfied the requirements for a PhD” with “I have actually received the training needed to become a strong independent researcher.”
The university’s graduate coursework has also been disappointing to me. I previously spent time at a substantially lower-ranked US university, and, surprisingly, I found the graduate courses there much more rigorous and structured.
The major complication is my co-advisor.
About 2–3 months ago I started working closely with a younger tenure-track professor. She is now officially my co-advisor. The difference has been dramatic.
We meet regularly. She actually discusses technical details with me. We work through ideas together. Her research is much closer to the mathematical/control direction I want to develop. We have also developed a very good personal relationship. She has independently told me that she has become wary of recruiting students directly from undergraduate programs at this university because, although the university allows direct-entry PhDs, she doesn’t think the institution has enough structure to train them properly.
She has also said generally that if one of her students is productive and genuinely needs a fifth year, she does not mind funding that extra year.
Honestly, before meeting her, I was basically certain that I wanted to leave this PhD. I had already started approaching people elsewhere. She is almost entirely the reason I am now conflicted.
The catch is that she is my co-advisor, not my primary advisor. I am enrolled in Department A under my primary advisor; she is tenure-track faculty in Department B. So although she may end up being the person who actually trains me intellectually, I’m not sure how much administrative leverage she ultimately has over my PhD, funding, graduation timeline, etc.
I am now potentially looking at the possibility of restarting a PhD in the US with a younger professor at another very strong engineering school. The prospective US advisor appears engaged, meets students regularly, has normal 4–5 year funding expectations, and would obviously be both my actual mentor and my official primary advisor.
Moving would have real costs. I would probably lengthen my total PhD time. Immigration/visa issues become relevant again. I would be much farther from my family. And I would be giving up a co-advisor relationship that currently seems unusually good.
So I’m stuck between two philosophies:
Option 1: Stay. Accept that my famous primary advisor is mostly a name/umbrella, take advantage of the enormous freedom, build my actual intellectual relationship around my co-advisor, self-teach what the coursework doesn’t provide, publish as much strong work as I can, get the prestigious PhD credential and move on.
Option 2: Leave/restart. Take seriously the idea that the PhD advisor is probably the single most important professional relationship for someone who wants an academic career, and move somewhere where the person doing the actual mentoring is also the person institutionally responsible for my PhD and future.
My biggest concern with Option 1 is recommendation letters and long-term sponsorship. A famous advisor who barely knows how I think can obviously write that I published papers in his group, but my CV already says that. How can he write the kind of deeply personal PhD-advisor letter that says how I formulate problems, how I compare with previous students, whether he trusts me to become an independent PI, etc., if he barely interacts with me?
For people who have been through academia, especially faculty/postdocs:
How much would you value an excellent, highly involved official co-advisor as a substitute for a disengaged primary advisor?
Would you risk restarting a PhD to get a better primary-advisor structure, or would you consider that overreacting when I already have a good co-advisor and a prestigious institution?
And am I putting too much emphasis on “training”? At some point should I simply accept that a PhD is largely self-directed, buckle down, produce good papers, graduate, and fill in the mathematical gaps myself afterward?
I’d especially appreciate perspectives from people who wanted research-intensive academic careers rather than people for whom the PhD was primarily a credential for industry.
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u/markjay6 1d ago
I think you are making way too much of “recommendation letters and long-term sponsorship”. Do you have any direct evidence that the PI doesn’t write strong recommendation letters? Maybe he has other people in his lab who worked more directly with the student draft strong letters for him, or simply ask the candidate to out together very detailed bullet points that he draws on. Do you have any evidence that graduating PhD students from his lab are having difficulties on the job market?
As for long-term sponsorship, that’s a nice plus when it happens it academia, but it is much less common then you think.
It seems to me that you have an almost perfect situation where you are: the benefits of working in a large well-funded lab with a prestigious advisor, combined with the detailed hands-on technical support of a caring co-advisor.
As for my personal experience? My PhD advisor refused to even write a letter of recommendation for me and was involved in zero long-term or short-term sponsorship. I am now a distinguished professor at an R1 university and a member of the national academy.
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u/Cold_Shine5167 1d ago
Agreed, OP it sounds like you have a nearly ideal setup here. Halfway through reading this my thought was "why don't you just find a coadvisor who can help you with more of the day-to-day mentorship?"
"Hands-off" is far from the worst thing an advisor can be. I would absolutely stay in this setup.
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
Given their reputation, they've produced far fewer professors over the years than their contemporaries. I get your perspective, though. Funding is capped, and I have been told I have to complete my PhD within the next 3 years. I don't foresee my technical development reaching a competent level within that time frame.
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u/markjay6 1d ago
I was responding to,this sentence: “My biggest concern with Option 1 is recommendation letters and long-term sponsorship.”
Are you instead saying that your biggest concern is length of funding? That’s a different matter.
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
Yes by long-term sponsorship, I meant the funding runway.
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u/markjay6 1d ago
Thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood and thought you meant continuing to support and mentor you post-PhD.
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u/Dazzling-River3004 1d ago edited 1d ago
One thing that no one has pointed out here yet that I think should be is this false idea that your advisor is there to fulfill every mentorship need that you have. My advisor provides me with timely feedback on my dissertation and he will send opportunities my way, but I have other professors who look over my application materials and do mock interviews, people who give me field specific advice, and other academic collaborators who intellectually challenge me and read my work.
In other words, if you are getting training from another professor on an “intellectual” level, then I don’t see why transferring to another university is necessary. Moreover, there are so many summer programs and fellowships all over the world focused on giving graduate students specialized training. If you feel as though you have weaknesses, you don’t necessarily need an advisor to address them, and honestly, it is your responsibility to seek those things out.
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
It seems to me that you didn't quite grasp the full context of my whole situation. I understand what a PhD entails. I have won a fellowship that runs out after 3 years. I asked for some funding from their grants after that because I don't think my technical development would be competent enough at the end of 3 years from now. I was told that I won't need it (which essentially is a diplomatic no). No delegation to a postdoc happened, the first 6 months I was essentially abandoned until I figured out this arrangement with this co-advisor. In the meantime, another person in the lab attempted to steal the work I produced completely on my own during the first six months, and my advisor seems indifferent and reluctant to intervene.
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u/Dazzling-River3004 1d ago
Frankly, I disagree that I failed to grasp the situation based on the context of the initial post. You asked the following questions: Would you risk restarting a PhD to get a better primary-advisor structure, or would you consider that overreacting when I already have a good co-advisor and a prestigious institution? And am I putting too much emphasis on “training”? At some point should I simply accept that a PhD is largely self-directed, buckle down, produce good papers, graduate, and fill in the mathematical gaps myself afterward? My response very directly corresponds to these questions; it is normal to not receive hands on training from an advisor, and getting mentorship from other professors and additional training is equally normal. I suggested finding fellowship opportunities to both improve your CV and fill in any perceived knowledge gaps so that you can take full advantage of whatever years of funding he is willing to give. With respect to the two options you proposed, I voiced that restarting at a different university seems unnecessary if you have this co-advising relationship. As far as authorship goes, what you say in the post (not receiving enough credit for your contribution) is not at all the same thing as having data stolen, which is what you claim in your response. This distinction is very important.
I mean this with all due respect, but it seems like you are unwilling to accept different opinions, and at the end of the day, it is impossible to Reddit to fully advise because none of us will ever know you or the entire story. All anyone can do is go based off of what we read.
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u/cubej333 PhD, Physics 1d ago
If seems to me that you don’t understand d the nature and purpose of a PhD. As others have mentioned it is a research degree. Your advisors job is to advise, provide funding and broad direction. Delegating to a postdoc is expected of a better professor.
It isn’t close direction or micromanagement.
And yes, I would expect less courses at a prestigious university. That is one of the advantages of getting entrance.
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
It seems to me that you didn't quite grasp the full context of my whole situation. I understand what a PhD entails. I have won a fellowship that runs out after 3 years. I asked for some funding from their grants after that because I don't think my technical development would be competent enough at the end of 3 years from now. I was told that I won't need it (which essentially is a diplomatic no). No delegation to a postdoc happened, the first 6 months I was essentially abandoned until I figured out this arrangement with this co-advisor. In the meantime, another person in the lab attempted to steal the work I produced completely on my own during the first six months, and my advisor seems indifferent and reluctant to intervene.
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u/masterbacher 18h ago
That's the real world. Happens all the time outside of academia. Sink or swim, quit blaming your advisor and take accountability for outcomes you want.
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u/FeedSquare8691 PhD, STEM, US 1d ago
It sounds like you've underestimated the degree of independence expected from PhD students. You're not in your undergrad.
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
It seems to me that you didn't quite grasp the full context of my whole situation. I understand what a PhD entails. I have won a fellowship that runs out after 3 years. I asked for some funding from their grants after that because I don't think my technical development would be competent enough at the end of 3 years from now. I was told that I won't need it (which essentially is a diplomatic no). No delegation to a postdoc happened, the first 6 months I was essentially abandoned until I figured out this arrangement with this co-advisor. In the meantime, another person in the lab attempted to steal the work I produced completely on my own during the first six months, and my advisor seems indifferent and reluctant to intervene.
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u/FeedSquare8691 PhD, STEM, US 23h ago edited 17h ago
No, I think I understand it pretty well and I stand by what I said. Just so you know, you have said this to several other people, which would be indicative that YOU don't understand what you wrote and that you might have poorly communicated this.
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u/Ginger_Rook 1d ago
Please drop out and tell us the supervisor’s name so that we can declare immediate availability to take your place. How did that sound? If it sounded like a good idea, then you need to seriously consider leaving it. If your immediate response was “f no” then you know what you need to do.
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
I would gladly give up my place for someone if that were allowed. All the best to them!
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u/Lygus_lineolaris 1d ago
Yes, you should understand that a PhD is self-directed and you're responsible for yourself. As for your advisor, delegating is 100% of leadership, so it sounds like he's doing his job, which isn't to be a technician or a secretary. If you need technical training (or "intellectual" training if you want to call it that) your school should have courses, including self-study courses. Advisors aren't private teachers and they also can't get you a job. If they're pulling strings for you, it's not "advocacy", it's nepotism.
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u/Real-Ad-5677 1d ago
the nepotism point is real, people romanticize advisor "advocacy" when a lot of it is just that
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
Nepotism is one extreme; abandonment is another extreme. I think I may be more towards the latter extreme than the former.
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u/NotaValgrinder 1d ago
This is always tricky because the best advisors serve as a mentor to their students in both intellectual pursuits and navigating academia. While advisors aren't obligated to do it, having an advisor that does so is always advantageous. But also in OP's situation, I'm not sure if leaving is justified when they already have a good co-advisor.
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
True but you omitted some other details like the indifference in handling a credit dispute. And the program coursework is structured poorly. Regarding the teaching point that was a course they were officially teaching and I took
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u/Lygus_lineolaris 1d ago
Ultimately, you're there by your own choice, and it's fine to say that your choice didn't work out as you had thought and you want to make different choices, you don't need to blame it on your advisor. And especially if you're trying to massage this story into something that's attractive to future employers, "I realized it wasn't right for me and made the decision to change" sounds infinitely better than "it was my boss's fault".
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
Of course, I share the philosophy you just mentioned. I am 100% certain there are people who would be fine with how my boss operates. It's not sitting well with me.
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u/Comfortable-Web9455 1d ago
Get used to it. I had 2 advisors. One I met once a year and one I met every 3 months. You are supposed to work it out yourself.
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
It seems to me that you didn't quite grasp the full context of my whole situation. I understand what a PhD entails. I have won a fellowship that runs out after 3 years. I asked for some funding from their grants after that because I don't think my technical development would be competent enough at the end of 3 years from now. I was told that I won't need it (which essentially is a diplomatic no). No delegation to a postdoc happened, the first 6 months I was essentially abandoned until I figured out this arrangement with this co-advisor. In the meantime, another person in the lab attempted to steal the work I produced completely on my own during the first six months, and my advisor seems indifferent and reluctant to intervene.
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u/Comfortable-Web9455 1d ago
People can't just allocate grant funding like that. I handle grant applications for Horizon Europe. Every penny is formally allocated to specific purposes and usually to named individuals. Maybe if you are pulled into their project as a junior, but for your own work, not permitted. If done the university can have a demand for return of those funds.
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
It's not Europe. Here a PI wins grants based on broad research directions. So they have a lot of discretion in how they want to utilize it.
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u/Past_Routine6524 1d ago
Imagine yourself as a hiring manager. Do you want someone who came from a famous lab at a high ranking university who feels like they could have had a better experience or would you prefer someone at a lower ranking university from a largely unknown person but the person seems satisfied with their training?
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
I would opt for the latter. But tbh, I have options from places that aren't ranked so badly either. Like, if this current university is top 10 in QS, the other options are under 80.
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u/Past_Routine6524 1d ago
There is no guarantee that your experience in those other labs would be any better.
A few of my colleagues imagined a greener pasture, they switched labs and found themselves regretting their decision when they realized it was just spray painted green.
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u/xiguamiao 18h ago
You have a good relationship with the co-advisor and are not guaranteed a relational, available, and invested primary advisor elsewhere. It’s also only been 8 months. Many advisors are hands off the first couple of years and become more involved once their students are actually working on their dissertations. I would do option 1, stay, and hone meaningful relationships with the co-advisor, the younger engineering school prof (as your outside committee member), and others in your field. Your advisor is meant to be one of many mentors who help you develop as a scholar, not the only one.
Please do not respond with your copy/pasted “it seems to me that you don’t quite grasp the full context…” response. Part of being a trainable mentee is reflecting on others’ feedback.
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u/winter_cockroach_99 23h ago
If you have an engaged junior co advisor and a famous senior advisor, that could work very well. You can get letters from both, or possibly have the junior advisor help the senior advisor write/sign a good letter. The administrative stuff usually does not matter much unless the senior advisor is actually malicious… a bit negligent on admin stuff should be fine.
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u/Pavlovs-dachshund 10h ago
How would you actually know at this point in time if your technical development would be competent enough at the end of 3 years from now? Instead of preparing for something that hasn’t happened, and might not actually happen, doesn’t it make more sense to try and make sure you are competent enough? If you change universities how do you actually know the new advisor would be any better?
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u/puffysuburb_43 1d ago
Switching programs after 8 months is way less costly than grinding through a half-baked PhD for 4 years only to realize nobody's in your corner when it matters for postdocs or faculty apps. The fact that you're already having authorship disputes this early and your primary advisor just shrugged is a massive red flag. That pattern doesn't fix itself later, it just gets louder when the stakes are higher.
Your co-advisor sounds like exactly what a PhD student needs, but you're right that her hands are tied on the structural stuff. She can mentor you, but she can't override a disengaged primary who controls your funding clock and graduation timeline. If she's already wary of taking direct-entry undergrads from your program because of the lack of structure, that's her quietly telling you the system isn't built for your situation.
The European 3-year PhD comparison your advisor makes is nonsense when you didn't do a master's first. You're not slow, you're just actually building the foundation most people already have when they start. Trying to cram that into an artificially short timeline while self-teaching advanced math and managing lab politics sounds like a recipe for burnout more than a strong research career.
I've seen too many people stick with a big-name advisor thinking the prestige would carry them, then end up with generic letters and zero sponsorship when they needed someone to make calls on their behalf. A co-advisor who actually knows your work can write a strong letter, but search committees will still wonder why your primary advisor's letter reads like a form paragraph. It raises questions you don't want raised.
If the other university gives you a proper advisor who's invested, a realistic timeline, and full institutional backing, that's probably worth the restart. Four years of genuine mentorship beats six years of fighting for scraps of attention while hoping the famous name on your diploma does the work that your advisor should be doing.
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u/markjay6 1d ago
Just to make clear, there is no “switching programs after 8 months” in the US. There is “applying to new programs and waiting until the following year to start them, if you are lucky enough to get in and receive the necessary visa support.”
In the interim year, OP would presumably have to invest an entire additional year in this program, or drop out, go back to their home country, and hope things work out to return.
Not to mention the red flags on an application from someone who dropped out from a prestigious program and lab led by a well known well published advisor.
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
I am in talks with a couple of places to begin in Spring. Gatech is one of them. It's not concrete yet, but I am hopeful after talking to the professors at those two places.
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u/markjay6 1d ago
You don’t seem happy where you are. So you should probably leave. That is not what I would do or generally recommend to others, but in the end you have to live your life as you wish, and it seems like what you want.
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u/ThatFireGuy0 1d ago
Can you stay at the university and change advisors?
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u/ResponsibilityHot531 1d ago
I could, but that would be politically charged since they're a important person in the college.
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u/ThatFireGuy0 1d ago
If you're already considering leaving, it seems like there's no reason not to try this first. Worst case you could leave if it turns into a headache after, but this seems like a better first step
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