Feedback from supervisors is an important part of a PhD student's experience at Cambridge. Most of the work that you will be doing will be carried out under the guidance and mentorship of your supervisor, whose role includes providing timely comments on the progress of your work. 

However, it is often taken for granted that students will know how to decipher, make sense of, and then act on the feedback they are given. But the reality is that it is not unusual for students to struggle to understand what their supervisor wants, either because of a lack of confidence, confusing feedback, too little feedback, or a combination of all these factors.

Let's take a look at what forms of feedback you may expect to receive.

Under University regulations, all principal supervisors are required to submit termly supervision reports for their postgraduate students via the online supervision reporting system accessed via CamSIS known as the Postgraduate Feedback and Reporting System (PFRS). In these reports, supervisors are invited to indicated whether the student’s progress has been satisfactory or unsatisfactory and to point out areas for improvement.

Reports are used for a number of different reasons including:

• to monitor student progress over time
• to identify where support may be needed
• to record academic engagement to fulfil immigration requirements

You will also be invited to submit a self-evaluation report where you will have the chance to reflect on, comment and describe any difficulty that you might have been experiencing. This self-evaluation report offers a crucial opportunity to respond to any feedback that you have received as part of your termly evaluation. These reports are not mandatory, but you are strongly encouraged to complete them if you wish to raise any concern or just to reflect on your progress year on year. Supervisors and Postgraduate Tutors will be notified when you have submitted your report and, if appropriate, will act swiftly to arrange a meeting with you and discuss any issue in more details. Guidance on how to complete these reports can be found on Moodle, though you will need a Raven login.

If you need help but don’t wish to disclose it in the form, you may choose to speak to your Departmental Director of Postgraduate Education or your Postgraduate Tutor.  You can also contact the Student Advice Service for support.

Another form of feedback that is common in the academic setting is verbal feedback.

This usually takes place in the context of private, pre-scheduled meetings with your supervisor, but it may also take place through a quick informal chat in the corridors of your Department.

How often you will see your supervisor during your doctoral journey is dependent on a number of factors including the nature of your research and dissertation, and how much prior knowledge and practical experience you have before starting your PhD.

If your supervisor holds regular meetings with you, a good idea is to go into these meetings with a fairly actionable agenda and to produce follow up notes to confirm the discussions and plans. Notes help you to reflect on action points, spot areas where you're less confident or need more supervision, and finally they might provide a blueprint for your future work. Importantly, notes also provide a record of what was discussed, making it easier for you to respond to any feedback that you received during the meeting.