How to resolve advisor/student relationship issues?
Thanks for replying to my threads. Here is the background. This forum gave many insights for My son’s college journey. He is on cross road that need guidance.
My son is a undergraduate student in College. He enrolled into under graduate research program during sophomore year to work with Mentor/graduate student. This graduate student suppose to give required guidance to my son and mentor had limited involvement with my son. During junior year graduate student moved to another state to pusue his post doctoral program.
After this my son was not able to get adequate guidance/direction from his mentor, who was not keeping up her appointment with my son. Sometimes, the scheduled meetings ended abruptly. As she was not completely involved in this arrangement from the beginning, she assumed the graduate student did the Knowledge transfer to my son.
Currently, she declined to provide mentor ship, because she feels that my son did not deliver as expected. She agreed that she is partly responsible for this (50%).
This mentor is also his advisor. My son is suffering from anxiety disorder due to her treatment. We feel bad that we sent him to college as healthy adult , spent $ and coming back as person with anxiety disorder.
She has not kept her promises so my son lost confidence in her and hesitant to schedule meetings with her.
He told us " I do not know, what to do"
He is afraid to take this matter to department char.
He intend to do graduate programs and applied to many schools.
How do think he can bridge his relationship with his mentor/advisor before he graduates in May 2020?
I’m sorry you’re son is having a rough time with his advisor. It sounds like it’s been hard on him.
He is graduating in 2 months. What does he need from this person between now and then? I would think that a senior in their final semester of school doesn’t need any more advising but maybe I’m not understanding the situation.
He may need professional help to deal with his anxiety issues.
Would he be receptive to the idea of seeing a mental health counselor at his college’s student health center? If so, encourage him to make an appointment and to go to at least one visit to see if he think it might be helpful.
Thanks for your guidance. Yes . The same advisor noticed anxiety issues and directed him to Health center.
As per his advisor’s suggestion , he is seeing health counselor at his college’s student health center. He went for couple of sessions. He expresses that he cannot trust anyone one and he should not have get into this program etc. He is not receptive to see good things came out of it.
We advised him to see another career advisor (outside his department) to get an assessment for future goals. It was not received well.
Your son needs to see a therapist, and you need to to back off. He is an adult and, if he cannot start graduate school on his own, he should take a break and get his life together.
Yes, he is your son, and you are his parent. However, he is not a child or even a teen. he is in his early 20s, and he should be able to make decisions about his future without you putting pressure on him to do the things that you believe he should do.
Almost every single one of your posts over the last four years about your son has indicated that you are still treating him as a child, trying to solve his problems and trying to determine how he lives his life. Almost everything that you have posted about your son’s responses have indicted that he is responding with a mixture of resentment and dependence.
You may also benefit from seeing a therapist about your relationship with your son, and maybe you should see one together.
There are a lot of red flags here in my opinion. I find it concerning that his anxiety was evident enough to his advisor that she suggested he get help. I am also concerned that he “expressed that he cannot trust anyone and he should not have get into this program etc. He is not receptive to see good things came out of it.” It’s hard to say whether this is just his frustration talking or if he’s truly feeling that paranoid and depressed.
I think there are 3 issues here:
Academic. Graduation is coming soon and he needs to figure out what he needs to do to wrap things up and graduate. Does he need his advisor on board? Is this some sort of program that must be completed? Can he just skate by with this program until graduation? If he needs it then he must either speak with his advisor or the department head and figure out what he needs to go to complete the program. He needs to take responsibility for HIS part in whatever is happening. Laying all the blame on his advisor will likely sound like excuses and I suspect he played a part in it, either due to his anxiety or just because he didn't like or connect with his advisor.
Anxiety/Mental Health. It's hard to say if your son is just feeling the stress of graduation, next steps, etc. or if he truly has an anxiety disorder/depression. If you think it's the later I would encourage him to have an honest talk with his counselor. If he doesn't like that person, then maybe it's time to look at someone off campus.
Grad school. Maybe you child needs a break to get his mental health issues under control. I doubt his anxiety will magically disappear in grad school. He has to figure out how to manage it.
Thanks for your guidance. Here is an update that need some insight.
My son applied for PhD program in many schools. No one offer an admission. He is frustrated after putting effort and submitting reference etc. He find hard to digest this setback.
We do not have an idea, what went wrong here. Who is able to review and provide assessment/diagnosis?
You know schools are closed for this pandemic and all facing difficult situation.
As he graduate in May 2020, he will be in academic limbo.
No one expected this when he applied to programs.
What are the next course of actions available to him?
Anxiety
I have a daughter with anxiety. I would suggest you get him evaluated by a psychiatrist and if necessary, be evaluated for medication. None of the suggestions we will give you will be of any use unless he can overcome his anxiety...they all involve talking to various people.
My daughter has anxiety...but she is self-aware about it. She knew she needed to get a tutor for a class...but was anxious about going to the tutoring center....so she grabbed a friend and had them go with her and that was enough to get her through it.
The anxiety may have caused issues...he didn't reach out to the grad student. He didn't reach out to the Faculty. He didn't reach out to those who would give him recommendations.
He needs to get a realistic assessment if his professors think he is graduate school material. What is his major? What is his GPA? Has he talked to professors in his major about what they think?
Did he apply to the right schools for him? Was he over shooting?
Who did he ask for recommendations? The research mentor? Others? Were they professors or adjuncts?
Did he ask them "Would you be able to provide me a strong recommendation for grad school?" or did he just hope it would be good?
Basically, he needs to talk to people who would know what may have gone wrong...his professors. This is hard with anxiety, I know. But if he wants to be in grad school he will be dealing with the same issues of sticking up for himself and reaching out to others.
He should also have a plan B...apply for jobs. He should talk to his professors on if grad school is realistic, and if it is, what to do in the mean time.
You seem to think your son’s anxiety issues were caused by his current situation, but the possibility exists that it’s the other way around. I don’t think it’s unusual for this age group. The only possible next course of action that I think is realistic is to get him into counseling so he can learn to deal with the anxiety. Then he can figure out the grad school/job thing.