By nothesisforme - 11/03/2015 14:01 - France

Today, I asked my professor for his opinion on the subject I plan to study in my thesis. Turns out, he likes it so much that he's going to steal it from me. FML
I agree, your life sucks 36 981
You deserved it 2 953
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Same thing different taste

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Top comments

Immortal_Toaster 23

I don't have anything witty to say, that just sucks. I'd report him to the higher-ups.

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bethers_ 22

This happened to my roommate when she started her PhD! It took her an extra 8 months to find another lab after the experience. You need to report that professor for stealing your idea. Don't let the same thing happen to you.

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Comments

Izabushel 65

That's terrible! It took me years to come up with my topic for my honours masters, and if someone had taken my idea, I would have throttled them. It becomes very personal. At a PhD level people have invested a lot of time and effort into finding a suitable topic which is relevant and appropriate. It would be like giving a mentor who is a respected author an outline for a book you have been thinking about for years and them going "Oh what a great idea! I think I will write that". Unfortunately in the academic world 'publish or perish' is all to real and may be why your professor has pulled the rug out from under you. OP I hope you have written a preliminary paper or outline to prove that the idea was yours first and you can still pursue it. Find a new professor.

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quesok 22

Maybe beat him to the publish? But either way hopefully you can prove it was your idea

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rldostie 19

This happened to me once. It wasn't a thesis but a paper I wrote, which the professor liked so much she asked me to co-write an article with her based off of my idea. I said "sure!" but then didn't hear much else about it. Found out later she just wrote it without me.

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byornbyork 8

Can't you both use it? I am sure two people have written a thesis on the same subject before somewhere on this earth.

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Izabushel 65

It's not just the same subject, it would be a very specific idea. For example, my subject was about teenage pregnancy. Should my supervisor decided to write a paper about with something to do with teenage pregnancy, no problem. But if they wanted to write a paper comparing management of preeclampsia in the adolescent primigravida to management of preeclampsia in primigravida of advanced maternal age, my topic, that is too specific. Particularly for both studies to come out of the same University. For a PhD thesis you generally need to provide a new insight into a topic, and it's very defined. People spend years deciding on what they will write their thesis on. When discussing the idea with the professor they would have had a very detailed topic or idea they wanted to write about.

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vikky538 28

if you are assistant under that professor then I would say you are screwed..personal experience...

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Attacksloth 33

If you're doing TA work or research assistance for a professor, then you're likely working with their own ideas, so if you come up with an idea related to their research, by all means they can take it because you're their employee. If we're talking about original work here - OP sounds like he/she was coming up with a thesis proposal for their own program, then the professor has no right to steal that idea. Most universities want you to give a letter of intent, an academic CV, and a bunch of other information including a rough project proposal. It's theft if a professor steals that because a lot of universities (such as the one I'm doing my MA in now) grant you intellectual property rights.

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otecasacid 22

That's awful, I hope I don't run into anything similar. Unfortunately these fears make me get so much less out of a classroom experience because I'm guarded about bouncing around ideas

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menfearme 10

You better crank that sucker out. That way, if he tries to steal your idea its already published

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zykrithium 22

I'd suggest you go to the higher ups, but they'd probably side with the professor anyway... FYL

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Attacksloth 33

I'm currently doing a Masters degree. Universities typically have ethics boards that you can report things or people to. This is something that is very serious. Unfortunately it's your word against his unless you have some kind of evidence like emails or recorded phone calls, but do tell someone higher up to at least start an audit. If you're planning on applying to graduate school, also report him to the graduate coordinator of the program. This is academic dishonesty.

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saffy66 34

Since it's just an idea so far, it's not 'plagiarism' in its general sense, but make notes about the conversations so far and contact the Dean and/or whatever board oversees these things. Are you sure he wasn't joking? In times of stress we can fail to see when people are trying to be funny.

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