Talking to supervisor about PhD projects I am an international PhD student, in the last lap of my PhD, and have a little more than a year to defend my thesis. My work is in theory, and our simulations take a lot of computing time. As we are working on wrapping up my first paper now, I want to only focus on projects which will lead to publications since our Faculty requires 4 papers(published and/or submitted to journals) to be able to defend one's thesis. I have tried to talk to my supervisor about this, but he only spared 13 minutes listening to the project ideas I have had and did not get involved with ideas or give any input.
I am guessing there is a bias how he handles my involvement in his projects since a relatively new PhD student(who is a local and have been in the department since his Bachelor's) receive a lot of his attention. It is not about that my supervisor should be more involved in my prospects, but at least he should give it as much attention as any other. He also holds many other positions, one of them being department head and trying to solve a serious work-environment issue in the department in a different group. So he remains quite busy in meetings since the last few months.
So, what should be my way of communicating my career prospects in the year to come with him and my team so that we can work towards achieving them in a specific time frame? I do lack the field-insights which my team has and in that respect, they can help me a lot to plan efficiently.
These 13 minutes of which you speak, was that a meeting that you planned in advance? Or did you happen to meet him at a random moment? If it was a planned meeting, you should insist on another planned meeting of at least an hour to discuss this point and only this point. If it was a random moment, your supervisor might already be late for another urgent appointment.