Master of Ceremonies

"It looks good..."

The only known time an official supervisor has a stake in MPhil research is if he intended to show it off (to the wider society) as a piece of his academic contributions. As a result, an MPhil student's needs were readily ignored.

We were like bastard children. We were only to do chores and to be seen but not heard —like house elves in the Harry Potter book series. As the school made a big deal out of graduation ceremonies, undergraduate degrees made up the bulk of graduation. Undergraduate kids were the front-line to advertise the greatness of the school. The MSc. (or other taught masters) students were paying a lot of money. Since the school mostly financed us MPhil students, and we were not doing Ph.D. research, nobody seemed to give a shit.

It came to my attention that I was now eighteen months into my research programme, and I truly had no aim. My supervisor made no mention of where I was to go, nor did he seem like he cared. I had given my supervisor a draft; it detailed where I was in my research interests. Four months had passed, and he had not provided me with a reply. I told the MPhil coordinator this, and he casually said that he would talk to him. Considering my back was against the wall, I asked the MPhil coordinator if he could read my draft. He claimed he would. Great! I was desperate for any guidance.

Upon accidentally meeting with my very-hard-to-see supervisor, I reminded him about the draft I had sent him. Out of frustration or whatever, he lazily picked up the dusty document, flipped through it in about five minutes, and floppily looked back at me to plainly say, "It looks good."

I was ...shocked.

That's it? "It looks good"? No review? No guidance? Nothing? 

A few days prior, the MPhil coordinator (who actually read it) was pretty much saying that it looked bad. "You should be reading papers..." he said as he trailed off. And he listed a whole bunch of stuff that it was missing.

Slapping myself in the face, I asked my senior and fellow MPhil students for help. They literally laughed in my face (spittle and all), after which, they went back pretending to do work.

Those "supervised" by Mr. MIT were, quite simply, led around by the nose. He point-blank made them know that he was too busy to guide them.

Hmm, so he was too busy to properly instruct undergraduate work and too busy to guide his MPhil and Ph.D. students. Why were people so in love with his brand of bullshit again? And for years there was no MSc unit. What the hell was he actually doing that he was denying the right of ascension to his students?

At some point, I began hounding my laid back supervisor to describe what would be a reasonable research topic. He grunted out something after ignoring me for days. After that, I was done with asking him any more questions! I was fine to go work by myself. He wasn't guiding me anyway!