I am quite close to finishing my masters degree in engineering. I have been researching and working on my thesis since January 2019 with a professor who I had approached about a thesis opportunity he had. It is now September 2019 and have not yet done any experiments as of yet and he continues to delay starting them. I am not supported by him in any way. I quit my part-time job in order to focus on the experiments as they take any between 6 to 8 hours per trial. I was originally supposed to start experiments in the spring but keep getting put of. What do I do? I feel lost as I tried complaining to the department head to no avail.
Also, he hasn’t let me set up a committee as of this writing because he wants me to involve as few people as possible so that ‘my research topic isn’t stolen’.
I would ask for a meeting with the professor and the department head and try to come to a resolution. Not sure what else you can do.
I’m not sure going straight to the department head is a good way to get the ship righted here unless all other options are exhausted, and if that is the case, then I’d just search for a new advisor rather than (likely) irreparably sour the relationship by going over the advisors head and continuing to try to work for him.