This post might be written in a tone that gives you the impression that this is advice about your PhD. It’s not. It’s overly pessimistic and specific to my situation.
These are (largely unedited) notes I collected between 2003-2006 when I was working on my PhD in Computer Science. I eventually admitted to myself that I wasn’t going to finish it (due to a combination of research/financial/personal/career pressures) and that, in fact, I didn’t want to finish it. This post represents the advice I wish I could have given to myself when I was thinking about applying for a PhD. The short version of this advice is: Don’t.
The devil is in the details – and a PhD is Hell
I came to my PhD with a fairly clear idea about what I wanted to investigate. In fact, I’d been thinking about it and working on it for the previous 2 years. However, many people start their PhD with a vague interest in an area and spend the first 12 months figuring out what novel aspect they want to pursue. Initially, it can feel as if finding out what you are going to research is the main hurdle.
Alas, that is not the case. The main problem is that once you’ve narrowed your research area down, you need to keep focusing. And again. And again. In the end you’re left looking at boring equations, graphs and theories that are the complete opposite of the interesting and practical idea you started with. In many ways this is like starting a business: everyone can have a grand business idea, some people can tease out a feasible business plan, but the successful businesses are run by the people with the big vision and the attention to the smallest details.
Know your audience
It is important to understand, from the outset of the PhD, who your target audience is: it’s you. I remember hearing that, on average, 1.6 people will read your PhD thesis. I’m pretty sure that includes yourself, your spouse, your supervisor, your second supervisor and your examiner (yeah, that’s technically 5 people. If someone says they’ve read your thesis, they’re probably lying – they read page 9). You have to accept, that no one in the world will want to wade through this document. Ever.
You might start your PhD with the intention of making a discovery crucial to the future of the world and winning the Nobel prize before you’ve even graduated. You will be very disappointed. No one in the world will care about your work. Repeat after me: No one cares.
Supervisors: a curious species, rarely sighted in their expected habitat
Supervisors are strange creatures. Some are like ghosts, appearing occasionally for a fleeting moment, and you’re more likely to meet them at a conference than at the University. Others are always around but they’re too busy running around like demented hamsters on a wheel – all motion and no progress. They’re disorganised. All of them will, at some point, forget what your project is about – and some will even forget who you are.
I made an interesting discovery half way through my PhD: the number of good/useful/interesting/brilliant things that your supervisor will say to you is not proportional to the amount of contact you have with them – it’s constant. Yep, that right. You can have weekly meetings with your supervisor but you’ll only get three good suggestions a year out of them. Oh, and on the subject of meetings, there are only about five types of meeting that you’ll ever have during your PhD: The Big Picture, The Progress Update, The Paper Writing Enslaving (a.k.a. My Research Review Is Approaching So I Need To Get You To Write Something), The Thesis Word Count and The Pub (usually accompanied by beer). Do not make the mistake of going into a meeting and expecting it to be any different to last week’s. And try not to get them confused: even if you supervisor is plying you with beer, watch out for the sudden switch to Paper Writing Enslaving.
Supervisors also participate in a little-known game which can catch out the naïve student: Hunt the Supervisor. This involves the PhD student attempting to locate their supervisor during the agreed meeting slot. And, no, they are definitely not going to be in their office. You’ll be lucky if they’re in the right country.
The loneliness of the PhD student
A PhD is a completely solo effort. There is no one you can ask advice of. No one can help you. There are no books in the bookshop that will shed light on your problems. Magazine articles are even more pointless. You are alone. Think Frodo without the Fellowship.
Even PhD Students can live a normal life. Sometimes.
Being a PhD student isn’t like being an undergraduate. There a very, very few lectures you have to attend and very few regular assignments. There are no grades either. There’s also no timetable. Essentially you can work (or more often, not) whenever you please. So, it’s not like having a proper job. Even if you work regular hours (say 9am-6pm), you’ll be reading papers, writing papers, running experiments and any number of other pointless things during your free time. I tried sticking to a regular working day and it didn’t work – or, rather, I didn’t. If you’re like me, when it gets down to the nitty-gritty, boring detailed work of the PhD, you need to remove as many distractions as you can because, at this stage, just about anything is going to be preferable to your PhD. Computer games, good fiction and the Internet are all obvious distractions that can be minimised. Washing up was one of my favourite distractions, which I never found a way to avoid.
The stipends available to a PhD student are actually very good, especially if you’ve come directly from the pasta & baked bean-eating life of an undergraduate. On the other hand, if you’ve been working for a couple of years, the drop in disposable income is a fair shock. Still, it’s not that bad; I managed to get married during my PhD (something good had to come out of it!).
A PhD is great because… well, just because.
I attended this wonderful introductory course run by my department, in which they presented this slide of great points (completely unedited) about why you might want to do a PhD:
- Qualification
- Dr.
- Curious
- etc.
Yep, that’s right. These are the only reasons he could think of to do a PhD! According to this professor, you should do a PhD if: you need to to get that academic position you’ve always dreamt of since childhood; you want to show off your title on mortgage applications and get called to medical emergencies; you’re “curious†(just remember what happened to the cat); or some other, unspecified, and entirely unthinkable, reason.
I can actually think of a few more positive reasons. If you’ve just finished your degree and aren’t quite sure what to do next, then a PhD isn’t the worst thing in the world. You have plenty of time. If you want to start your own business then doing a PhD will give you access to the latest research results upon which to base your commercial enterprise. And undertaking a PhD requires many of the same skills as starting a new business: self-motivation, attention to detail, unhealthy work hours, forward thinking, pitching your vision to sceptics and laymen, etc.
On the downside, for every job that a PhD will help you get, there are a thousand which it will over-qualify you for. For some jobs (admittedly, probably not your ideal job), you might be better to pretend you were in prison for those years of your life. In any case, a PhD is unlikely to get you a higher salary.
It’s not the Result, it’s the Road that counts
I discovered at the start of my final year that it doesn’t really matter what you produce as an end result of the PhD. What matters are the experiments, trials, results, observations and evaluation you conduct. This makes sense when you consider the PhD for what it is: a qualification to conduct individual research. Producing something interesting, useful, wonderful and absolutely cool is not part of your PhD. Get over it. For me, this made my final year an absolute nightmare of doing things I wasn’t interested in and, frankly, didn’t care about.
I started the PhD as a way of shutting myself away from the world for 3 years whilst I worked on an interesting idea. I categorically and absolutely did not care about the qualification. I didn’t need it and I had no desire to work in academia. Unfortunately, after 2 years I had to accept that, unless I modified my approach, I actually wasn’t going to have anything to show for 3 years effort. And despite my initial intentions, I really couldn’t waste 3 years of my life without anything in return.
(Not) Getting Things Done
Like any large long-term project, you’re going to need to learn how to organise yourself. So you might start reading about various personal productivity methods: Getting Things Done, Gantt charts, to-do lists… but don’t bother, they don’t apply. If you do make a list, it’s basically going to come down to five types of tasks: Reading, Inventing, Comprehending, Implementing, Writing. Now, reading is an easy task to complete: just read the book/paper. Unfortunately, sometimes you don’t know what to read. Implementing (say, software) isn’t too difficulty either. Neither is writing. The problem is the two core tasks of your PhD: Inventing (an algorithm, for example) and Comprehending (how/why it works and explaining it to others, typically through graphs and experiments). “Inventing†something is an open-ended task which can’t be estimated or controlled. In management-speak, it’s highly risky. “Comprehending†is also quite difficult if you’re as mathematically-illiterate as me.
The Other Year
Myth: A PhD is 3 years long. Actually, you’ll find that the PhD funding is for 3 years but the university is quite happy for you to take 4 years to complete. After 4 years, they get difficult because the funding organisations will fine them for every PhD student that hasn’t graduated. The solution is naturally to finish during the 3 years of funding. It isn’t going to happen (and if it does, you were destined for academia and shouldn’t be reading this – your fate is sealed). 3 years sounds like a long time but it isn’t. But what happens between the end of the funding and the completion of your PhD? I don’t know (yet) but starvation, alternate employment, debt and non-completion are all on the (credit) cards.
It’s worth bearing in mind that the university may “strongly recommend” that you don’t get a job whilst trying to write up. This makes sense in some ways: those that take on jobs are less likely to actually complete – possibly because they’ve already got a job and don’t care any more. The students that don’t take job tend to get very skinny and tremble at the words “bank manager” and “credit card balance”. Of course, the university has their own motivations for wanting you to complete (namely avoiding that fine and looking after your academic interests). On the other hand, you will probably have a motivation to eat and remain part of society – which may outweigh your waning motivation for finishing the PhD. It’s also worth remembering that the university will still expect you to pay fees during this missing, unfunded year (although, reduced when you get a full draft thesis written).
The two most frequent PhD questions
There are really just two questions that you’ll be frequently required to answer:
What’s it about? Enjoy this phase as it only lasts for about 6 months. Once someone has asked the question, and listened to the largely incomprehensible drivel that you’ll reply with, they’re highly unlikely to ever ask again.
How’s it going? The true purpose of this question is revealed after about 2-2.5 years: what they really want to know is “When will you be finished?“. The subtext is that a PhD is something to finish, not something to do. Unlike the first question, this will be asked repeatedly by the same people, regardless of whatever negative, vague, dismissive, or generally cranky response you give them. I’m thinking of other responses including swearing, violent outbursts, “when I finally give up”, “when I finally admit that the algorithm (and general idea) is seriously flawed and I am not able to unflaw it”, “when I shrink to 4 foot nothing”, “when the earth’s magnetic field flips over”, and so on …
Your supervisor is here to stay
A university can be a challenging place for an undergraduate – plenty of them drop out or fail to make the grades… some don’t even get the grades to attend in the first place. For the postgrad, the university is a place of indifference: no one really cares whether you’re there or what you’re doing. It’s slightly more… stressful... as a postdoc since your employment is dependant on the whims of a funding organisation and the bullshitting presentation abilities of your manager. I think new, probationary lecturers might need to make some effort to impress but it soon fades after probation (or, frankly, before). Academics, on the other hand, lead a fairly stress-free life. Of course, they run around like headless chickens, never have time to attend your meeting, are always behind on deadlines and generally exude an air of stress, mild panic and approaching heart attack. However, this is not the whole story. You see, academics don’t get fired. Undergrads drop out, post-grads give up, post-docs leave but academics… retire.
Academia is a place where incompetence can hide from the rest of the world. There are some good academics who have mastered their art of reading, thinking, writing and teaching, but there’s also a good dose of incompetent ones too. In the commercial world, there’s always rumours, quiet whispering and cryptic emails about “Jake Smith no longer works for this company”, but it doesn’t happen in academia. I reckon that the only thing that would get an academic fired is if they slept with a student. One of their own students. Whom they gave top marks to. And everyone else failed. I don’t think many frustrated PhD students will consider sleeping with their supervisor just to get them fired. So, no matter how much you dislike them, or incompetent/abusive/annoying/offensive they are, be under no illusions that your supervisor is going to be there long after you leave.
Here’s what I wrote in response to a post (on the Business of Software forum at Joel on Software) from someone considering a part-time PhD:
I had 5 years commercial experience and then decided to start a PhD in Computer Science (full-time) because I wanted to get some ideas off my chest. I’m almost finished now (well, the funding is almost finished) and absolutely *hate* it.
First, I’ve no idea how you think a PhD is possible part-time. It’s an every-minute, in-the-shower, at-the-weekend, in-the-middle-of-the-night sort of thing. Part time, it’s at least a 6 year commitment, which makes me shudder just thinking about it.
I’ve written quite a lot of software during the course of my PhD but that doesn’t get you a PhD and no employer is going to care about this code because none of it is to commercial quality (it’s just enough to get things done). A PhD is not an extension of a Masters, or a super-super-BSc. It’s a qualification to conduct research. I’ll repeat that again because its important: it’s a qualification to conduct research. Therefore, the whole thing is not about actually solving a problem but the process you go through. It’s about equations, not code; about graphs, not screenshots; about field trials and user experiences, not unit testing; it’s about quick-and-dirty, not smart and professional. In short, it’s about things that aren’t (often) required in the commercial world. If you’re not interested in academia, you probably have no business doing a PhD. I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t interested in the qualification, just the 3 years to work on my ideas. But after 2 years and 10 months, it’s very hard to walk away from the qualification.
And you are on your own. There is no team, no one to work with. It’s particularly lonely and, in the end, no one will actually care about your research except yourself (and, by the end, you probably won’t care either).
Of course, I’ll be earning less after the PhD then I did when I started it. There aren’t many reasons to be using J2EE (or some other in-demand tech) in a PhD: think Perl, Python, LaTeX, etc. That’s if I can even find a job now: it’s well known that a PhD opens a few employment doors… and slams a hundred more.
Sorry to sound so depressing, but a lot of people here have been telling you to jump and I just thought I’d better present the negatives too.
Update: I’ve just read Seth Godin’s “The Dip The Dip
Sorry to hear about your experience Jamie. I must mention that what a person faces on this bold journey is very situation-specific –> advisor, university, research area, and of course personal motivation and skills. Some of them are outside your control.
It was a bit depressing sometimes in my own experience too, but in the end I think it helped me get to a place where I probably wouldn’t be otherwise.
For students considering graduate school, I have some advice at:
http://neointellectual.wordpress.com/2007/07/29/panel-member-on-joining-graduate-school-for-undergraduates/
Your not an alias for Jorge Pham are you (from the phdcomics fame)!!!
Actually I was contemplating doing a PhD about 5 years ago, but phdcomics set me straight!!
[...] Found over at Jamie Lawrence’s blog. [...]
Interesting post. Long, but interesting.
The first question I’d ask a PhD candidate is “why?”. That’s also what i ask people who tell me that they are doing an MS…
Usually the answer is “I don’t know, I didn’t know what else to do”. Which is why i hate people who go for a graduate degree just to say that they went for a graduate degree. It increases the incompetence in this field. We don’t need anymore of that.
Excellent in all points. Telling it like it is.
Genius! Should be attached to every PhD application pack! Check out phdcomics.com if you liked this
[...] Here is one of the best summaries of how things can go wrong when one chooses to follow the academic path. I got this from Hacker news. The author of this well-written piece came from the industry, and compares the world he knows with what he encountered at the academia. [...]
Interesting posting, had somewhat similar experiences with my PhD, here is the write-up based those experiences – http://amundblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-complete-your-phd.html
all true… and much more could be written about incompetency of many academics…
Yes, this post is a bit depressing and while there are many truths, the experience isn’t necessarily as bad for everyone. As a Ph.D. student about to move into candidacy (read as my proposal is about to be accepted and I can start on my dissertation), I agree that the process is lonely and quite frustrating at times. I do regularly question if I made the right decision and then I remember why I chose to get a Ph.D.: because I want to teach and research in academia.
If there one bit of advice I can give someone considering a Ph.D. it is this: Don’t do it unless you want to teach and research in a college or university. If your motivation is prestige, curiosity, or simply that you can’t figure out what to do after your undergraduate or master’s degree, you’ll be miserable. If, on the other hand, you love research and teaching and you find that academia is the only place in which you can act like yourself and interact with professors on a peer level, then go for it.
Another bit of advice: pick your committee chair very, VERY carefully. Although others may disagree, if you want to get through your program in a timely manner, choose someone who is reliable and has a good reputation for meeting with students over prestige. You don’t need a flaky chair as it will slow you down needlessly. Pick reliability over fame (remember the famous professor will have even less time for you–how important are you really to a person who is world renown?). Ditto for your other committee members.
I learned the hard way about this in my master’s program. I had a world-renown professor who was both my thesis advisor and my assistantship advisor and I also taught this professor’s lab class. One would think that there’d be plenty of opportunities to meet, no? In reality, this professor only came on time to meetings less than 50% of the time. 25% of the time he never showed while the remainder of the time he was late–and I mean something on the order of an hour to an hour-and-a-half late. The message was abundantly clear: I meant almost nothing to this person. (Also note that while I was in this master’s program I published an article in a refereed journal and graduated from the program with honors, so the bad student possibility isn’t likely to be valid.)
The only other advice I could give would be to have passion about your field and research topic–and I mean a LOT of it. So much passion that it eats you up if you can’t exercise an opportunity to release it. This passion has to extend over more areas than just a narrow research topic and should also encompass an entire field or discipline. This is what will sustain you in the wee hours of the morning as you struggle to write just another page…
[...] a few study hacks and motivational tactics. I thought you might enjoy some quotes from this guy – Things I learnt during, and about, my PhD [You may want to read his disclaimer first.] Happy laughs. . . . . This post represents the advice [...]
Jamie, you’ve tells it like you sees it. And it’s how I sees it too.
I wish I could disagree but ….
At least Hilary kept you sane
I found that learning Ruby and Latex was fun. We can have a great argument over this when Mike gets back from Germany and you call up to Limerick. Three different versions of the war story, unfortunately I think that both Mike and mime aren’t too dissimilar to yours as you know …
If you’re not interested in academia, you probably have no business doing a PhD.
Don’t forget about research labs, which are an even bigger employer of graduated PhDs.
Hey, this is kind of depressing …
But a research lab in a large company won’t hire you without a PhD, right?
[...] Things I learnt during, and about, my PhD [...]
The only way to encourage people in something is not to tell them the good aspects of it, you can also tell them it’s bad aspects. By this you will make (some of) them to think they are not the only one with those problems.
Thanks for encouraging me!
Actually, some research labs/companies will hire you without a PhD, particularly those outside the life sciences. I worked for two labs before starting my PhD and many of the people I worked with didn’t have PhDs. However, yes, it’s certainly easier to be hired by them, and into more leadership roles, with a Doctorate (or at least a Masters).
But, I’ve kinda gone off the whole research field, whether academic or not. Nothing I have done, or seen done, in research has made an iota’s difference to the outside world. In the end, another business will pick up those ideas (and modify/simplify them) in 10-15years time and change the world — but the actual researchers won’t do anything.
Depressing but true. I’m less than 6 months aways from finishing my PhD and have promised myself to never glamorize the PhD process in anyway because I would hate for someone to enter into academia without knowing what I know now. Thanks for shedding light on the PhD process and speaking the truth. While your post might be situation-specific, much was true for me; and my area of reasearch is no where near computer science.
I actually think it is possible to enjoy research and teaching yet absolutely loath the PhD process.
I used to be an academic. I used to supervise PhDs both content and methodology. I think your assessment of what you get from *some* supervisors is both rational and fair. Some of us try harder than that though. an inteesting PhD thesis would be, from an a priori orientation, to explore who make the least impact lazy schoolteachers or lazy doctorate supervisers?
[...] Things I learnt during, and about, my PhD | Jamie’s Weblo [...]
[...] indebted to them and their contribution to my personal growth. I don’t plan on becoming an embittered ex-Ph.D. student and I will still certainly recommend the experience to others, when their motivation and goals are [...]
Sad but true–at any age and at most institutions. Thanks in great part to forms of promotion, rewards, and the infamous citation index where the collegial pat on the back is shared and re-shared and re-shared, few in academia foster or practice the romantic vision of socratic dialog or marxist dialectics. One should go for the credential if one “needs” it. Afterwards anyone can decide whether to prioritize research or practice–and where. Contrary to Alaa Salaam’s comments, I would suggest that those who leave academics are often those that are/were most competent to conduct research and to contribute sensibly to the great god of originality. They were daunted, instead, by the formulaics, tribal languages, egos built on insecurities, and dashed hopes for a brighter, better tomorrow. Fortunately, there truly are a few wonderful and dedicated researchers in universities and institutes who do indeed, however, contribute to some of the marvelous inventions, innovations, and ideas from which many of us in society ultimately benefit. Let’s hope that they carry the most influence, ultimately, over the span of time.
Wow! When you wrote this, I was finishing up my 3rd year in my C.S. Ph.D. Now, I am moving toward the end of my 5th year, with no end in sight. My university does not have firm deadlines for Ph.D. students. The numerous external funding sources I have used don’t seem to care how long I have been here, and I am rather convinced that I could be a Ph.D. student for life. (Could, not should!) I am not sure what you mean by “fining” universities for non-completing students. Perhaps we are in different countries, or you are using some sort of public funding, whereas I used private grants. Differences aside, the rest of your article was spot-on.
I entered the Ph.D. program with a B.S./M.S. and after I had a few years of experience in the real world. I began my Ph.D. because I was dissatisfied with boring/repetitive/non-original industrial work, and a Ph.D. seemed a fast-track to interesting new things. I began with no clear idea of a topic I wanted to research, but my advisor told me that the funded research, with which my tuition and stipend were paid, would provide ample fodder to find a topic. He was right, sort of.
Around the time that you wrote this article, was when I realized that the line of research I was doing was not only flawed in such a way as to render it useless in the real world, it was actually so flawed that neither I, nor even the best bullshitter in the world, could slip it past a dissertation committee. I still feel stupid for even thinking of that idea, and at least slightly bitter at my advisor for letting me work such a transparently bad concept. After this realization, I spent the next 6 months or so trying to find a similar topic inside of the overall area I had spent so much time studying, before coming to the depressing realization that I simply did not have the mathematical background to make a real (in the academic sense) contribution to this area.
I was dangling by a thread, and jumped on an idea in a completely different research area that my advisor had suggested to another student a year before. Unfortunately, after several months of reading, I concluded that this idea had been done repeatedly about a decade before, and my advisor simply hadn’t known about it. Cue a few more months of searching that research area for a another topic, with no good ideas for a defensible topic. Then cue a longer period of generally thrashing around looking for any topic at all.
That brings us to the current situation. Like you said, I haven’t quit, but I haven’t really “stuck it out” either. At this point, I have mentally given up the possibility of finding a defensible topic. I guess this proves that I was really never qualified to do original research, which I suppose is the purpose of the Ph.D. program.
However, I have spent way too long in academia, and academic C.S. is far too different from industrial C.S., so without a Ph.D. or recent experience, I can only hope for an entry-level job at this point. Even worse, since my resume clearly shows that I am “damaged goods”, having spent so long in academia with nothing to show for it, even the more desirable entry-level jobs are closed to me. (Why hire this 30-something loser when we can go with the fresh and peppy 22 year old?)
So I have lingered as a grad student, doing the bare minimum to not get kicked out at annual-review time, but with no real chance of defending a dissertation. Go search for phdcomic #1012, “Your life ambition — What happened??” <– this is my life, sad but true.
My question to the original poster: When you said you would never finish, did you only mean that you would never be personally satisfied with your dissertation? Did you eventually defend a dissertation and graduate, or did you actually quit? That part was not clear from the article.
I think universities should fire academics if
for X years, they cannot win any significant external funding, nor if no Y number of first
authored papers in N years. They should not
get paid for 3 months out of a calendar year,
so that those whose who are not worthy of
industry relevant consultancies will find out
their real value. I think that is the way to get
rid of incompetent annoying people from the
university campuses.
Ah-mazing write up, and sorry about the suckiness of the experience. It’s such a lonely road, hard for anyone to understand who is not you / going through it with you.
I too failed to finish the PhD. I went in to “learn more stuff” and boy did I. But I was depressed because I was failing to be a successful PhD student: pass the exams in time, and start being active with papers and conferences. Basically I was staying mum. I was still learning (everything in sight, not just my field) and not ready to say anything yet.
Now years after leaving, it seems to me that I deserve a “qualification to conduct research” that I might not have earned while in grad school for 4yrs 10months. I don’t know, somehow, I’m just putting all that learning together, and I feel very able to solve bigger problems with better technique than before school. But sadly, by your metric, I’m “on sabbatical” which means I still have the no PhD/failure thing as well as the eternal “sticking with it” thing.
I can’t bring myself to go back because I’m happier now than then (I don’t know what I’d have done without my shrink), but I can’t quit because it’s so do-able (more now than ever) and it’ll give me closure, a qualification that I covet, and the chance to learn a little more stuff.
Excellent and true write-up. PS: the PhD where I schooled didn’t seem to have a 3year or 4year plan. Did you do your work in Europe? Bcos in the US it seemed to me a formless “n” years.
I am currently completing 2 masters degrees. I found your blog after a particularly infuriating meeting with the chair of my thesis committee. I hate him I hate him I hate him. But the worst part is that he and I are in the same ethnic community, so his name will follow me, and my future children and my future grandchildren for the rest of our lives. Your blog and a few beers helped me unwind, and realize that I am not alone in my grad school hatred.
in some way this article helped me. anyway, i hope i finish soon.
I am delivering my Ph.D. this Wednesday after 4 years and I have been having super-high stress levels for the past two years. The situation is exactly as you describe it, it’s torturing for the last few months. There were many times I ended up saying that I hate my life. Don’t take up a Ph.D. guys, really….
Very informative…phd is a difficult choice…
Since I came to the conclusion during my 1st year that nobody will read my dissertation, and no one cares………….why don’t they just give me the damn PhD already?
I am due to submit in three weeks, and googled your site with “i hate my ph.d. dissertation.” Unfortunately I agree with most of your observations by now and currently (I hope that will go away after a few weeks of rest) wish that I never did this thing. Sigh …
I did not have the greatest of times during my PhD’s either, absent disinterested supervisor and a fieldwork “collaborator” who made everything more difficult.
But even with a PhD life’s no picnic, I resigned from my Post-doctoral fellowship yesterday, as I could not take any more.
I was offered a position to undertake a proposed project I had submitted, and they guaranteed funding. After many fruitless meetings they decided that the guaranteed funding was not in fact “available” and that my “advisor” had not even read the proposal and just wanted me to support his post-grads so he did not have to.
What’s more I am not eligible to many outside funding sources as I am a British citizen working in Thailand, and though my faculty here said I could apply to the university for funding-my advisor would not let me.
Additionally my faculty is the only one in the Uni who does not house it’s staff-or rather it houses all staff except Post-docs (and there are only 2 of us), and despite the fact we have to pay insurance monthly-we can’t claim…
This is only a small selection of the problems here (a full list, even in bullet form would go on for many pages).
Sorry for less optimism, but I am starting to think that you have to be insane to get into the academic route in the current atmosphere…
I feel exactly the same way…. This makes me feel I’m not alone….
Doing PhD full time is hard enough but doing it part time with a 9-6 day job and 3 small kids to raise is like climbing mount everest with a bag pack three times your body weight.
I’m constantly having this mix feelings of why I’m putting myself in this predicament. The reason why I wanted to do PhD was I wanted to join the academia and engaged in research and teaching after several years of working in industry. After going through many hardships, now my reason has changed.
In all my life I never knew, I ABSOLUTELY did not know what i was getting myself in. No wonder they call this the terminal degree. Either it kills you, it kills your motivation or it causes you to kill your spouse (who doesn’t understand what you’re going through). Added to that no one with any sense at all would remotely consider doing further studies after going through this most depressing, frustrating, life sapping, energy draining experience. Basically, writing a dissertation is form of suicide that’s a slow, inhumane way of “slaughtering yourself”.
Honestly at this point i’m so fed up…..I just need to get this doctorate done and move on with my life.
As it is right now, I’m looking forward to completing this study by July. If I don’t I’m going to have to pay tuition for the next academic year.
I have to admit my supervisor really has been fair. She’s around and she responds to my emails. My issue though is that she keeps changing her mind. One sec “oh that’s a good point to make” then the next “oh that’s a generalisation….you can’t say that”.
As far as i’m concerned, my study is just to make my supervisor and defence committee happy. I have learnt this study is not “my work” its “me doing what my committee wants me to do!!”
Thanks for allowing me to vent! I will go back to reviewing chapter 4.
Signed
I hate this dissertation!
1. “And undertaking a PhD requires many of the same skills as starting a new business: self-motivation, attention to detail, unhealthy work hours, forward thinking, pitching your vision to sceptics and laymen, etc.” — you’re right. good idea. but a non-profit business, PhD’s teach you to embrace poverty
2. I left 5 1/2 years ago now. Sabbatical has become “separated.” Still, part of me says gotta go back to school to get a PhD “someday.” One hopes I have the good sense to stay away for a long time. Seriously.
3. Ok, honestly, I would love the chance to roam a fabulous and wealthy and utterly intellectual campus again, and get paid to do it. But to be expected to do the PhD thing as well, that kills the fun.
Excelent, I really enjoyed the acid sense of humour particularly in the “supervisor” and “academics” part. You forgot to mention that some of them can “re-take” your ideas, usually repeating the academic mantra: “ideas do not have value for themselves” but then… you find that they are preparing an article/book, with the same (now very valuable, fresh and not anymore yours) idea.
[...] headline is copied from Jamie’s weblog and describes very precisely my current state of mind. Three and a half months has already went by [...]
I wish to thank you for your post. I am about 8 months away from finishing (doing a doctorate in physics), I worked the weekends, didn’t take holidays(not at all unhappy about the amount of effort I put into it, I learned alot by myself ) and will have a decent thesis. But I have had a parasitic leech who attached himself to me from the first day (aka my supervisor ) who has contributed nothing, and it is very depressing that this mother fucker’s name will be on my thesis as if he has contributed something. I was naive when I started , I said we are scientists, we like what we do, we are educated intelligent people…. why should there be problems. Now I realize that this profession is full of sleezy, dirty, good for nothing scientific parasites who contribute nothing, do not fucking show up to work (I was in the same office as this lazy mother fucker for two years and I can tell you that I had an office to myself), and the minute you have results its us and our results. I do not understand what this man does. The industry pays my funding, and for this I give them my source code every few months and shit, the laboratory is supporting my activities (and for this the company who is paying my salary is giving them money). What is the role and job of this man I do not know (and finally when I confronted him and asked him, he said he can’t respond to that question!! Imagine after two years of “supervising” and “directing” a thesis and you can’t even say what your fucking job is). In anycase, my advice for anyone who is considering doing a phd is invest some time, contact their former students, ask around before you decide to sign up with a supervisor. THERE ARE A LOT OF CHARLATANS IN THIS FIELD!
I’m sorry if I come off as crazy, I really hate this mother fucking piece of shit. If i ever see him in the street after this thesis is finished, he’s gonna take a fucking bat to the knee and head.
You probably wrote this many years ago and maybe now you even laugh at this. But it is exactly the description of my every-day life.
Science is good, how on earth could they make this shit out of that?!