Hi guitarman,
it's been a while since you posted anything up. I'm currently also a Phd student and it's been almost 1 and a half since i've started. My whole PhD program should be about 3 and half including write up as a whole. I'm majoring in power systems and controls and all these while i've been feeling miserable and pointless in doing it. I'm not a fan of maths or electronics but somehow i get to score well in my undergrad and i'm also doing pretty ok with my current research.The question is weather i still want to do it or not in fact i think i pretty much hate the technicality of EE,having to learn all the complicated stuff and probably throw it away later to learn another. Everything seems so complicated and damn technical,it's just felt like i have no space to breath at all or even relax. The only reason why i did my PhD is because i thought i wanted to be a lecturer,but then i was thinking how can i teach a subject which i myself have no passion? i woudn't even want to do any further research at all if i'm a lecturer. I'm simply not interested eventhough i can do it. My supervisor is convinced that i can finish this but i'm just not sure if that's what i want anymore. I hope to hear any comments.Thanks

Regards
alvin

Wow how did you even find this thread, it's so old now! Anyway, my e-mail indicated there was a reply to it, so here I am, back from my slumber lol..

I did do a new thread to say that all was going great. I got a GREAT new job in industry and have completed my MSc (that's what I deferred to).

Power systems and controls - pretty cool. I do analogue design for power applications like motor drives.

Man as soon as I joined industry the maths part took a bit of a back seat - there are a lot of rules of thumb and there's just not enough time to be doing complicated analysis all of the time. Of course the job can still be tough, thugh - I regularly read up on the topic to keep ahead of the game and learn new things. But I hear you... If it's just the complicated nature of the work, then I would urge you to push on, as once you get past that barrier, it can be really enjoyable - like learning guitar! Learn the tough stuff and then without thinking you'll be playing tunes (or designing things).

To be honest electronics doesn't rock my boat as such - some people seem REALLY into it, but there are loads of other people who just treat it as a job. I think there's a point in every engineer's career when things can seem overwhelming - let's face it - iot is one of the TOUGHEST yet poorly paid jobs for what the job entails. Anyway... I don't know exactly the source of your misery - would you say it's electronics - or the PhD tint to the job? I know I wanted to quit engineering altogether when I was doing mine... What would you retrain as? A big step - you could always stay in electronics but do something else (test.... applications - deal with the end product and meet customers). If you expand some more I can maybe help you out. Life's too short to be miserable - if you REALLY want to make a change, the sooner the better. Who cares about making others happy - it's a dog eat dog world, unfortunately! You should explore all options with no bias and see how you feel about each.

Do expand on why you feel the way you do as I can't tell if it's PhD anxiety or hate of the job.

Hey,i'm so glad you replied.yeah,kudos to emails:) E&E doesn't rock my boat as well as others. It's so depressing to hear how the other ppl are actually enjoying or saying it's ok to what they are researching on because for me it's dry,boring and hard stuff.Having to sit in front of the screen for hours staring at equations and circuits and cracking our heads everyday. Worst still,the work often also follows me even after i stopped working,somehow it's like the problems are sticking to my head. I;m so sick of having to spend my efforts and brains learning programs after programs, E&E theories after theories and discover later that you are not using it anyways. And the technological advancement of E&E is just too way fast to even catch up or be an expert in. I admit there are some moments of joy like when i get to make stuff work or when i successfully troubleshoot a problem but those moments are just too way short compared to the moments of suffering trying to figure out the problem.And yeah,E&E is DAMN tough in comparison to other courses and its way unrewarding. I can't believe my friends who are in business lines earn far better than an engineer. And more than an E&E engineer?? i actually did work as a test programmer after i graduated from my undergrad. and working life for me wasnt' enjoyable,just staring at the screen everyday troubleshooting codes.By the time i get back home,my mind was in a state of oblivion. My ex- project supervisor actually called me to ask if i'm willing to come back for research and so i thought why not since everything is paid for. But in actual fact,i wasn't even interested in research particularly in EE but i was just thinking maybe i could become a lecturer. So here i am,after after 1 and half years,i have good progress but it seems that it's not what i really wanted to do any longer because i can't bare the thought of teaching something which i myself hate eventhough i perform reasonably well in it. Sometimes i just wished that my results are so bad that i know i'm definately out of this field. There is always this desire to quit engineering altogether even when i was in my undergrad years and go into some other field which involves more of meeting people and thinking less technical stuffs but i think the thought of throwing all the hard work and results away somehow just buried that thought. And now,these thoughts are back again simply because i know i need to make a decision weather to complete my PhD all the way is what i wanted to do. I'm some sort half way towards my PhD and i'm pretty sure many will call me a fool to drop it off now after all the hard work of research.But i know i'm not a quitter if not i would have quit much longer ago when everything is blurry and don't even know what i'm doing. Sometimes i wonder that's the problem.
Are you still in the engineering line btw? Sorry to hear my ranting,appreciate your feedback.

I agree - it's hard. Pretty damn hard. EE has to be one of the hardest courses out there in my opinion, and I agree it is ridiculous some business courses etc get paid more. So the effort:reward ratio is pretty poor. However the salary ain't too bad in general - say £40-60k average after 8-10 years at it? I'm approx £30k after 3 years. The stuff I know, without being big-headed, is unbelievable lol... digital and analogue design on nanometre scale, advanced maths, circuit layout, systems, scripting and coding, digital signal processing, RF, all the general EE concepts such as frequency compensation, fourier transforms, data converters, switching converters, lots more stuff.

The work will follow you - unlike that for other disciplines. Probably because it's quite artistic, you can't help but thinking about this or that - you can see that as a good or bad thing.

Ah so you were in test before! And now you're in controls? Isn't that like programming PLCs for big companies like Rolls Royce etc?

Without sounding too negative, taking the PhD to be a lecturer but not liking the subject isn't a great reason. Why not go into general teaching? At least that'd only be a year or so of further training. If I were to change career I couldn't imagine doing anything that'd take too many more years/more money.

Sometimes the company you work for can also affect your outlook - I've been in a real stinker... but the current one is REALLY good, part of the team and doing my own thing etc. Definitely make sure it's not something like that rather than the profession.

If you're definitely unhappy I would make sure to seek a change. I did this when I quit my PhD, as you can read from this thread. I was SO unhappy, and now things have never been better! I am still in engineering, doing analogue design for motor drivers, mainly. There's lots to learn and it's complicated - but I find it not such a bad job and pays decent. So a good middle ground, IMO... I'd hate to work in a bank, or be a stressed lecturer, or be some vicious businessman - also would hate to do something I love and get paid peanuts. I come into work wearing a t-shirt and get on with the design work.

Got to run, fee free to add more. But my honest advice - be true to yourself as cheesy as that sounds. Listen to YOUR needs and bugger being afraid of what anybody else thinks.

Yeah exacty, there are just so many things to learn and master in E&E. and after 6 years of studying it,i still have to say i haven't even touch the peak of the iceberg yet and most probably i've forgotten lots of what i knew before. Example,i remembered i mastered the C language for hardware programming, and i took lots of frustration just to learned it,but eventually i got the hang of it. And now,i don't even know how how to program it anymore. And there are tons of these kind of cases where i just spend time and effort learning and losing it. FYI,i';m doing controls for power systems,researching mostly on converters ,modulation and compensation of transmission lines. I must say i'm pretty surprised that you are still in the engineering field after hearing what you said in your old posts that this is not your interest at all. You quoted "but when if finish my PhD, I can't see myself staying in this line of work". I thought you wanted to be a cop? And now it seems that you find engineering enjoyable again? Yeah,i want to be true to myself but yet sometimes it's so confusing isn't it ,not knowing what you really want to do or what you are good at or weather you're going to enjoy it :|

I thought about becoming a cop for ages and started the training and everything! I'm glad I never went for it, though. I'm not really that fir and don't think I could face the abuse every day. Bit of a pipe dream...

There was no way I was going to retrain - I just couldn't afford it (monetary wise and time-wise!) - and I did like analogue design, it was just the PhD tint that was really getting me down.

I hear you about it being complicated - nobody remembers it all - that's why there are so many reference manuals!

that's pretty ironic that before that you say you hate it and then liking it.Anyways,do you have any slight regrets quitting your PhD since you are still in E&E now anyways?

Jesus, did you read the thread? It was the PhD side of things that was really getting me down - I went into it loving the subject, I now love it - only hated it during the PhD.. think it through.

Honestly - no regrets whatsoever. Only thing I regret is not getting into work sooner!

Sorry for missing that point.I'm happy to hear that you are doing great now and enjoying your job.
Guess i will have to make some leap soon too....