I changed supervisors 5 years into my Mathematics PhD program.
As in your case, everyone was cordial. But even so, it was immensely difficult, because, as you said, there was no protocol for "breaking up" with the supervisor I was working with.
Luckily, he broke up with me when it became apparent that the academic relationship isn't working out, and he saw that I'm ~seeing other people~ attending conferences in a different field.
I'd never make it in that world beacuse some guy I'm working with putting all these feelings into this relatively unimportant [0] working relationship freaks me out. It's like when you are growing up and you learn a girl likes you but is just way too in her head about it[1], thinking deeply about a relationship that isn't there, planning for a future with you without your input, makes my skin crawl.
[0] In life terms, your PHD advisor isn't going to hold you after your cancer diagnosis for example. Obviously its important for playing the higher ed game.
"Your PhD advisor isn't going to hold you after your cancer diagnosis" — not saying this would never happen, but it's certainly not the norm. "Together till death do us part" (as, sadly, was the case here) is, however, common.
It sounds like you're taking about "that world" while not being a part of it, or having a clue about how things work there.
Mentorship is a relationship, and the relationship with one's advisor isn't just lifelong — it's enshrined in history forever.
Look up the math genealogy project. I can track my academic lineage hundreds of years back simply by going up the chain of who-was-whose-student.
Back when I was in grad school, I TA’ed a physics course with an older grad student in our department, and although he was technically in our department (Princeton Physics) under an advisor here, he was actually living in New York and working in NYU Applied Math / CS department doing ML research. I didn’t ask about the administrative details but it was pretty weird.
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I changed supervisors 5 years into my Mathematics PhD program.
As in your case, everyone was cordial. But even so, it was immensely difficult, because, as you said, there was no protocol for "breaking up" with the supervisor I was working with.
Luckily, he broke up with me when it became apparent that the academic relationship isn't working out, and he saw that I'm ~seeing other people~ attending conferences in a different field.
I'd never make it in that world beacuse some guy I'm working with putting all these feelings into this relatively unimportant [0] working relationship freaks me out. It's like when you are growing up and you learn a girl likes you but is just way too in her head about it[1], thinking deeply about a relationship that isn't there, planning for a future with you without your input, makes my skin crawl.
[0] In life terms, your PHD advisor isn't going to hold you after your cancer diagnosis for example. Obviously its important for playing the higher ed game.
[1]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/e/ea/Overl...
"Your PhD advisor isn't going to hold you after your cancer diagnosis" — not saying this would never happen, but it's certainly not the norm. "Together till death do us part" (as, sadly, was the case here) is, however, common.
It sounds like you're taking about "that world" while not being a part of it, or having a clue about how things work there.
Mentorship is a relationship, and the relationship with one's advisor isn't just lifelong — it's enshrined in history forever.
Look up the math genealogy project. I can track my academic lineage hundreds of years back simply by going up the chain of who-was-whose-student.
Back when I was in grad school, I TA’ed a physics course with an older grad student in our department, and although he was technically in our department (Princeton Physics) under an advisor here, he was actually living in New York and working in NYU Applied Math / CS department doing ML research. I didn’t ask about the administrative details but it was pretty weird.
I dropped out of PhD altogether.