Advice - On the verge of quitting my phd

[Dorthy_Gail]

As the title suggests... month 14, things not going as well as i'd hoped.

I've been agonising about this for a while now.

This morning I had a reality check, and was sat staring at the screen and admitted to myself just how bloody miserable its making me.

The thing is, I was invited to give a talk at a conferance, which is in three weeks time. I haven't got any decent results, but I'm well-grounded enough in the subject to present a talk appropriate to the audience (multi-disciplinary meeting of industry, commerce and academia, so deep technical details aren't required, just an general introduction into the topic).

I've been hoping each day I'd wake up and feel inspired, but I'm trapped into a research niche that wasn't where I thought the work be (if that makes sense). I was using the talk as a sort of milestone, if i could get through that ok, all would be good. But deep down, I doubt it, i'm pretty sure after the talk i'll feel just as i do now.

So many people have said, 'oh thats just what phds are like', so i'm not sure if I'm just in the middle of a common problem, or if I'm just not in the right place for me.

I don't quit things and a big part of me wants to stick it out, but I'm wondering if thats sheer bloody-mindedness rather than spirit. Also, there isn't just me to consider, there is the GF and her lad (who live with me). I hardly see them because its been going badly, so I always feel I should be trying to get it sorted. And when I'm not trying to get work done, i'm wound up about it and just want space cos my heads wrecked.

The only thing i'm getting any joy out of at the moment is training or playing the guitar, almost all my other interests have dwindled.

I get sporadic moments when i'm enthuiastic about it and at those times, the work goes well. Also, talking to people in my research group, they seem to think I've got a good grasp of the subject and one commented that my level of understanding is certainly on a par with where he was when he was at the same stage.

I feel that if I quit i'd not only be letting myself down, but also the other members of the group and i generally go out of my way to see through my responsibilities, but should i be thinking about myself at this point?

Just been speaking the GF on the phone, she commented that she's pretty sure if I do sack it i'll regret it, but she'll support me whatever decision I make.

My heart is saying life's too short too be miserable, but my head is saying I should grit my teeth and get on with it.

so, any words of wisdom gratefully received.

cheers.

 

[christin]

Mate, I am in exactly the same situation so I sympathize completely. You wouldn't believe how much like my current existance that sounds!

If it's any consolation, I also had a big crisis of confidence just before an international conference talk last year, but I threw together the talk as best I could, practiced it hard, delivered it with enthusiasm and threw in a few jokes and it went down a storm. That really gave me a lift and I'm sure it will for you too.

Again, if it's any comfort, it's universally recognised that the second year of a PhD sucks! It's nasty and stressful, but it doesn't last forever so if you do decide to stick at it, at least be comforted that things will get better.

If there's any specific stuff you want to ask about, feel free to PM me (or just ask here) as I guess I'm about two years ahead of you in the whole PhD process right now. I've just left my crisis of confidence a couple of years later than the average PhD student.

 

[AndiC]

how long left have you got til you finish your phd?

if you do decide to quit what options do you have in mind? have you got a backup plan?

i think the best thing to do is to go talk to your lecturers and fellow students and express your concerns to them. this is not something that you can decide without considering the impacts and all further possibilities with your life.

personally i would stick it out. at the end of the day when you finish your phd you will have a lot more options. if you do decide that you start enjoying your subject continue it in employment but if not at least you have the option on falling back on something if all fails.

but good luck on what you decide but think it through carefully!

 

[oceanxstasea]

I will assume that this is usefull here.
http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/k/koran/koran-idx?type=DIV0&byte=920701

 

[wildnativegal]

I'm unhappy because I wish I was doing a Phd. In work now and can't ever see a time when I will be able to afford to do one and leave work!
I did have a confidence crisis on my Masters though, when beginning to write my dissertation.
Good luck with it, hope you manage to resolve it.

 

[Wege]

Stick it out. Please.

After you get the degree and continue with your career, you will meet dozens of former PhD candidates who are 'ABD' ('All But Dissertation') - you can ask any of them what they would do, if only they had a second chance to make that same decision you are facing now. Finishing the coursework is hard but not impossible. Finishing that dissertation is really tough, but you can do it.

Yes, it's an incredible amount of stress. Six months after I got my PhD, I started having recurring nightmares. In each one, I was two weeks from graduation, and found I had some course I had forgotten to take or had blown off, hadn't attended in months, needed to graduate, the final was in two days, and I couldn't even rememeber how to find the room. Occasionally the nightmare was that the department found some error in my dissertation, so they decided to revoke my degree.

After graduating, I ended up with a great job that I loved and open doors for more opportunities than I would have had without the degree. I even got the dissertation published in an IEEE journal. ...And yes, gradually the nightmares tapered off.

The bottom line is: once you have your degree, they will NOT EVER hunt you down and take it back! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It is possible that if you stop you might go back and finish later, but almost no one ever does. If you stick it out and finish, eventually it will be over, and you will have your prize. If you don't stick it out, you will always wonder, 'what if...'

 

[AlexisInfectious®]

No. I wont

 

[Suri]

Go for it, listen to Capt'n Ann because she'll hunt you down and whack you with a big stick if you don't finish it.

Really though, how much longer do you have to go? Wouldn't a year or so of hell be worth the self confidence knowing what you've accomplished for the rest of your life?

 

[creations306]

Ditto what others have said.

Conference prep tends to bring out the worst in academic. Especially young ones who expect that they need to present something groundbreaking. Set your sites lower -- the trick is to say one sorta intellegent thing and not make an ass out of yourself in the process.

The rule of thumb is you want to have a done presentation/thesis/dissertation, not necessarily a good one.

The coin of the realm is a good idea. That's all you need for a presentation and it sounds like you have one already.

- Matt

 

[Pandacatfox]

I'm 5 months through my Masters Dissertation and I'm at the write up stage now and I feel kinda like that.

Whats helped me enormously is telling myself the day finishes at 5.00 or 6.00, no later. The weekends remain free as well at the moment. I finds that over periods of time longer than 2 weeks if I don't have at least 1 day a week off the productivity gained from working the extra day or 2 is not worth it compared to the dip in quality of the work. I made the mistake of trying to work every single day leading up to the end of my third year exams and dissertation and I'm not making that mistake ever again.

When it comes to doing the work I find nothing helps as much as a list Lists make everything so much clearer and it feels so much better to be able to tick something off a list when you do it than it does to just know you've done it

 

[Sexygirl]

cheers for support people ...

i was kinda hoping you were all going to say...

'sack it xen and live for the now, take a month off in mexico and come back and be a bohemian storyteller'



but i think the advice you've given me is probably more sound

i dunno, i've done some exercise this afternoon, which is always good for clearing the head and me n our lass are going to have a good chat about it all when she gets in from work and the little 'uns in bed.

I really don't want to quit, but there is this impending sense of doom and inevitability.

I just don't think the work i've done so far is nearly enough. The reading side of its cool, its developing the computer model, i was under the impression when i started i'd be designing a model of part of the visual system from scratch, but my supervisor dumped a ten-year old model he was half way through developing on me about three months in and tasked me with reverse engineering it, checking it against the last ten years research and re-writing it from 'scientific code' into 'real-time system friendly code' to be embedded into a wider robotic system.

i still haven't got the scientific code giving meaningfull results yet, let alone start the stuff the phd is meant to be about

it was practically undocumented and he can't remember much about the details of how he got all the files to interact; part of its in 'C' (in which he's #defined everything so it reads like fortran), part on matlab (written in a version about 4 generations from the current one, so half the emmbeded functions don't work)

its taking far longer than we thought and the work still doesn't feel 'mine', so i'm not inspired by what i'm doing.

but, who said life was meant to be easy?

ah, well, try another hour and see how it goes... small steps and all that..

*deep sigh*

 

[TheDarkAngel]

Does that include me???

 

[Sus]

Okay, heres what happens from a Computing Science point of view when we are expected to reverse engineer code.

1) We put the code somewhere very safe (Like on our old machine)

2) We make a backup of the code (On the hard drive of aforementioned old machine again)

3) Just to be sure we make a third backup of the data (Like on the 125mb USB pen I want to get rid of)

4) Our housemates rather smelly, old and annoying hamster somehow manages to find it's way into our old machine and chew through a live wire setting fire to the machine: To housemate- "Oh what a shame, so sorry to hear about your hamster, no idea how the little bastard gort in there, please don't feel under any pressure to pay me for the damage"/ To supervisor - "Unformtunately my machine cauight fire detsroying two of my backups of your code"

5) At the same time our USB stick is stolen complete with poolice record of theft "So you see through circumstances outside of my control I need another copy of the code"

6) Tragically and mysteriusly (And you need to make damn sure it's very mysteriously) our supervisors machine has caught some form of virus wich has re-formated the hard drive "So sorry to hear about that"

7) "Looks like I'll just have to start from scratch I suppose, oh woe is me, how will I cope"

 

[cindylouwhooo25]

is that their advice for the lives they lead though???

i was a hotel manager when i was younger, had a great succesful career for the age i was and was told i was one of the bright stars for top hotels in the future. I have four diploma's inculde 2 HND's and various other city & guilds and othe qualification.

I walked out one day without even giving any notice on the friday afternoon, monday morning i was pulling cable through the streets, now i'm a project manager.

Point is, is that i was unhappy so i totally rearranged my life for the best, i'm successful again in a totally different industry and i have never looked back. So what i am trying to say is that the decision can only be yours as you have to face te rest of your life after.

 

[marymmm92]

always greg

(the advice you give above was pretty good too, i was expecting to get ripped when i saw you'd posted )

slindsay;

LOL. i like that approach...

(i've started a re-write, just need some inspiration to keep motivated...*resists temptation to try and find it at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey and remembers instead what it used to be like on a production line or knocking doors for a living* )

 

[NickJeroxmysockst]

Lets see....(It is a while )
I think that all electronical equipment consists of transistors, diodes and before diodes they had something ... big. - The reason for the extremely big computer at that time. (Please correct if wrong)

It is a matter of change turning from a USB with less space, to a bigger one (call it backup). I would like to buy a 20GB unit to save on instead of having many CF units, they dont last long.

 

[hotdogseeksbun]

cheers for that deepsey, everything's clear as mud now

(btw, the big things were valves, and at the moment it feels like my brain is made of them not neurons, ie, there's only about a dozen of them, badly wired inside my head and the whole system is running far too hot )

 

[alana101eva]

Going back to school is always a drag- the older you are, the more responsibilities there are heaped on your head, which is why your undergrad always seems like it was the most fun. Because it was, what did you care about paying bills and making sure food was on the table for the family and worrying that your kids might have forgotten your name?

But its a short term suckyness. You can make it through. Just make sure you are well organized, that your day is much like you would have at an office- so you have clear endings and beginnings- and that you don't forget your support network.

You'll make it through.

 

[JackiesMama]

Surely constantly posting off-topic in every thread is a violation of the TOS?

 

[Antenociticus]

Um...ok Deepsey... I thought you were a little bit odd and also not a native English speaker, but are you actually a troll?

If you are, get it over with and tell us now. You'll feel much better and can start on the road to rehabilitation and a meaningful role in society.