When I think of famous people, I think of movie stars and musicians. I don’t really think of academics, but apparently there are famous academics who have let their success go to their heads.

If you were studying for your PhD, would you want a famous academic as your supervisor, or would you not care about fame as long as your supervisor was helpful?

In this story, one PhD student is thrilled when a famous academic agrees to be their supervisor. They’re even willing to overlook financial hardship and a language barrier to make this educational relationship work.

But the supervisor is not at all what the student was expecting. In fact, he learns a hard lesson that he shares with others.

Let’s read all about it.

Never get a famous supervisor. Never.

Two years ago, I decided I’d like to give academic life another swing and start a PhD. Frankly, I felt like I had a somewhat clever research topic to explore, but little experience.

I’ve conducted my MA during the pandemic. Meaning, I did not learn nor apply the adequate methodologies of my field in an adequate manner. I was improvising quite a bit. Sometimes with a hit, sometimes with a miss.

Nevertheless, after graduating from my Masters, I continued writing and publishing in several newspapers and magazines, and met some interesting people thanks to that.

One of those people was a writer who had quite a few ties in my academic field of choice.

It seemed like everything was going great.

When said writer heard about my research interest, she decided to put me in touch with her colleague who, apart from being a worldwide famed academic, was also the reason I wished to pursue that field to begin with.

After a short introductory email, the famed academic agreed to be my supervisor.

I was thrilled.

And that’s where the nightmare began.

There were a lot of obstacles.

After a standard application to their university, I received a letter of acceptance.

Ecstatic does not come close to describing how I felt. Being admitted to an excellent academic institution and being supervised under the helm of a star academic. It doesn’t get better than that, right?

Wrong. When I broke down the good news to the supervisor, their sole reply was that “the position is not funded”.

Shocked, I realized that without funding, I would not be able to physically attend the university, as it was in a different country. That distance came with its own set of problems. I did not speak the language of the country in which the university was based, and had to depend on online translation websites to communicate with all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles.

No money. No means of normal communication either. But at least I had that star supervisor, right?

Not so fast.

Well, wrong again.

After sending my supervisor a follow up email, I waited for their response on how to proceed.

I waited for a day. Then two. Then a week. Then two weeks.

I was growing concerned. See, the thing is that unlike coworkers, I could not chase after my supervisor. Because in that hierarchical relationship, even if I was desperate, I could not afford to come across as annoying.

I came to realise that my supervisor was ghosting me. Even before work has begun.

This is not exactly helpful.

Concerned, it was only after I sent an email to the administration three months later (!) that my supervisor responded that very same day.

Point being, they wanted to appear responsible whenever their colleagues were involved, but they couldn’t care less about me. They offered zero academic, administrative or financial support. Despite their international recognition and numerous fundings, I got nothing at all.

I’ll cut the long story short.

Nothing was impressive enough for this supervisor.

For the past year and a half, I have only met them three times. Each meeting lasted less than twenty minutes.

Broke, desperate and quite depressed about the whole affair, I had to resort to non academic work so as to support myself.

Thing is, I still managed to slither into academic publications, and even be invited as a guest lecturer to other universities.

When I tried to approach them with such news so as to show my worth, I was again met with the silent treatment. They have ghosted me yet again. This time for four months.

How disappointing!

Finally, two months ago, I was rejected from an academic scholarship that I was counting on.

That broke me. I decided to terminate my PhD with them. The one that never really started.

When I announced that decision, the supervisor, who has ignored all my emails for the past four months, had answered me within ten minutes. “This is very disappointing but not surprising”.

I was enraged.

It was a hard lesson to learn.

When I decided to contact the student union to see what can be done, I learned that said supervisor did not fill in the proper paperwork that would ensure me to continue to the next academic year.

This level of institutional negligence is something I have never, in my life, experienced.

Moral of the story is, do not go near star academics. Go for interested, engaged supervisors.

Actual education has become a lost art, but trust me– you’re better off having a conversation with an obscure supervisor than none at all with a celebrity.

That’s so disappointing. I hope OP was able to continue his education elsewhere with a supervisor who actually cared.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a teen girl who went above and beyond for a friend, only to be berated about not spending enough money on a gift.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This sounds like good advice.

I think I’m one of the 99%.

Sounds about right.

Another person shares some advice they were given.

When your education matters, you need to make sure your supervisor is someone who actually wants to be a supervisor.

I’m wondering why the famous academic agreed to be this student’s supervisor in the first place. If he’s not going to respond, he might as well just say no from the beginning. Would it make him look bad to supervise someone who drops out? I guess not.

I hope this student takes this hard lesson and learns from it instead of getting depressed by this experience. It seems that he knows what to look for in a supervisor going forward, and fame isn’t it.