Hey, I feel pretty isolated doing my PhD too but not for the same reasons. My problem is that I don't seem to fit in the clique that has formed in the research group. I have been here almost five months now and it's really getting to me. I spend most of my days in silence unless I ask a question and even then the responses are abrupt and over with in a matter of seconds. Not only that, I started at a completely different time to all the other PhD students and as most of them go to the other campus and so I don't know any of them either. I'm really enjoying the project but it's really getting me down and I feel like quitting because of it. I don't want to spend another 2 and half years miserable but then I don't want to give up my PhD. I completely sympathise!

Hi Despair, I am sorry to hear that things are like that for you. I am lucky in that at least the colleagues I have are lovely but I have been in jobs where the atmosphere has been like that and its awful. Are there any other departments with postgrads that you could sit in on seminars with and get to know those students instead? Even if its not in your discipline it would still be PG contact and a way to make friends.

You could be me writing this I feel exactly the same, and the same time period in!!! And just got back from a cross uni conf!!!

how are you feeling now? hope it was temporal depression..

Which one of us? Me? I feel exactly the same - I am tearful, grouchy, fed up and desperate to pack up and go home I have spoken to my supervisors and they are looking at what they can do to help but I am not feeling optimistic to be honest. I don't think the money is available to facilitate a move to the other campus coupled with ongoing adequate technical support. P