From my own experience (obviously we all have very different experiences of the process)

1. Academia is not what I want to do as a permanent thing, but then I didn't think it was anyway - always a means to an end
2. Academia is not always as hard as is sometimes made out
3. Academia is also not super easy
4. I prefer working in project teams for a clear goal when compared to working on my own towards a moving target!
5. There is as much gossip and back stabbing in my department as there is/was in industry. Office politics are unavoidable in any work environment
6. Academia can be a lot more up and down than my previous jobs - probably because there is no team to talk things over with.

======= Date Modified 26 Jul 2012 15:29:25 =======
Go knock on his door and speak to him. Many people (especially academics) either don't check their emails or easily forget on of the hundreds they receive each day. If he's a colleague there should surely not be a problem with knocking on their door for a chat?

I never email my supervisor, I just go and knock on his door or he comes and knocks on mine.

======= Date Modified 27 Jun 2012 20:53:12 =======
Well you certainly don't fit the assumptions I made!

If you are lacking motivation then you certainly do have a tricky time ahead of you, especially given the additional demands of your illness. I know that a regular poster from a short while back called BilboBaggins completed a PhD despite illness (of a different type I think). Bilbo completed the PhD part-time, however there was certainly not a lack of motivation in that case!

My PhD requires no lab work (it's all computer simulations) so perhaps I'm not the best person for advising in this case. There must have been a reason you chose that PhD in the first place though? Most students seem to go through a "dark patch" between 9 and 12 months if this board is anything to go by, so it may at least be of some comfort that you are not alone.

I suppose the biggest thing is that if you do quit you need to have something lined up before you actually commit to quitting. Perhaps knuckling down and forcing yourself along for a few months whilst looking for other options will either:

a) get you through what turns out to only be a bad start
or
b) Allow you time to find something else that you would like to do.

Other than that I suppose simply approaching it as a job you don't (at the moment) like would be the best course of action. Millions of people do jobs they don't like to pay the bills - hopefully for you it won't be for ever though! Until you have something else lined up you may as well get on with the work (and the money from the funding if there is any) that you have.


Edit: Just to add - If you need structure (as you suggest) then you need two things. You need a plan for your time obviously, but you also need someone to be held accountable to (as well as yourself!). Keep logs of what you do to motivate yourself and perhaps ask a colleague (preferably a fellow student) to check up and you and make sure you are doing what you say you will.

Also, maybe a chat with your supervisor would help - assuming they aren't awful. Their job is meant to be to support your PhD after all (up)

Ok, first of all I will disregard your health problems in what I say. Not because I am belittling them but because I have no idea what they are or how they may affect you.

Did you come straight from undergraduate/masters studies? I am guessing you did. If not then DISREGARD THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH. It sounds like you are bored and not motivated and you are therefore not putting any effort in. Again this is speculation, but when you did your first degree did you find it relatively easy? Didn't really have to try too hard? If so then I would say that this is just you having a lack of study skills. If you have never really had to study hard before then you never learn HOW to study hard and how to make yourself work when you don't want to. This in turn leads to you "feeling dense". The key to getting through this is to realise that you are not superman/Einstein/whatever, but that this doesn't matter, you don't need to be. You need to be able to ask others (other students, your supervisor) for help. You need to be able to spend a week reading theory books to understand something so you can then spend just a few hours doing something you need to do in your PhD. You need to educate yourself in HOW to study. Of course you could quit and go and get a job where your boss MAKES you do the work you have to do. You might prefer this, many people do, but even in the "real" world, if you want to get somewhere you have to put a bit of extra effort in, which you may or may not find just as hard to do. I apologise if I have guessed wrong on this, it's just a common progression, you may well not identify with what I've said in which case ignore it - I do not mean to offend.

Assuming you didn't come straight from undergrad/masters - What did you do previously? You must have left that for a reason. If so, will you not just be jumping out of the pan and into the fire so to speak? If not then I guess you can search for a job. If/when you find one and get offered it, then tell your supervisor. DO NOT leave the PhD programme (assuming you're funded) without first having something to go to.

So, to answer your questions:

1. Start looking for a job whilst continuing with the PhD - only make the decision once you have a job in place
2. Just be honest. You say "I am not enjoying the PhD and feel the funding could be spent better on someone else. Thank you for the opportunity, I wish you well for the future" or similar.
3. Only you will know that.

First thing - Speak to your supervisor. If you were to quit could you at least get an MRes? This is still a qualification that is useful so three years aren't wasted. Also, you could get the results you need within a year. I don't know the details but if your optimistic outlook is one year more then bear in mind that that is only 6 months longer than most PhDs take, though many in fact take just as long. If you have the funding then you may as well keep at it.

Finally, and I think I may say this on practically every thread that is on this site about quitting - Do not quit unless you have something else lined up. Jobs are easier to get if you are already employed/in education.

Good luck.

Um that's three questions ;-)

As far as I can see:

PhD students pay fees - this is money for the university. Even if you are funded, your fees are covered by the funding.

Hence they want more PhDs

They are benfitting from:

- More money
- More publications by the university
- If you are cynical you could say "cheap labour" for things like TA work and/or other work.
- Professors need people to do a lot of the work they propose. This work brings in more funding for the uni.

The worst they can say is no. Teh you are in the same boat as you would've been anyway. Therefore I suggest you ask them about the funding.

Just to add that a further tool for productivity is http://mytomatoes.com/ (it's been mentioned on these boards a few times)

It basically is just a timer that times 20 minutes. For those 20 minutes you work solidly (force yourself to do so). You then get 5 minutes of complete break (force yourself not to work for the 5 minutes). You then do 20 more minutes, then another 5 minute break etc.

I usually do 20 mins, then 5 break , then 20 work , then 5 break, then 20, then 15 break. You'd be amazed how much you do only working 1 hour out of 1 hour and 25 minutes, but because you focus properly for the full hour you really fly through the work, and because you have regular breaks you don't feel that you are working all that hard.

Hope that helps - Even if you don't stay on with the PhD it may make the time you do spend doing it more manageable.

======= Date Modified 25 Jun 2012 09:36:15 =======
You've had good advice here already, but just to highlight again:

Do not leave until you have something else lined up.

I know the other two have said it already, I'm saying it again because it really is important!

The other thing is that you could do what I do and what I know Delta did. Work 9-5 on the PhD and leave it at the office like a job. Plenty of people do jobs they don't like and by doing this you are no different to them. Still look for other things, but if you can completely separate the PhD from the rest of your life it will reduce the stress a bit! This is just a suggestion, doesn't work for everyone and not everyone would even find it helpful. I just find that (even though I like my work) I can switch off from work completely in the evenings and at weekends and that is great. You don't need to do more than a good 9-5 to get the work done in most cases anyway.

I worked in industry for 3 years after my MEng degree (2007) before returning to academia (2010). You actually have a lot of advantages compared to others. You should be able to highlight:

1- Ability to work hard with a good work ethic
2- Experience managing things (projects, your time, others time)
3- Desire to do it - you will probably take a large pay cut to do it, you wouldn't do that unless you really wanted it.
4- Maturity and experience, you will have handled tough situations more often than most applicants

and probably more things I can't think of right now.

I applied for a PhD at the uni I am at, and wasn't actually offered it. Instead, the professor interviewing me offered me an RA post doing the PhD at the same time. Better pay, actually slightly less required time to complete, more responsibilities (good for CV after). The reason he offered that was due to my industrial experience and I think I've got a better deal than I would've done.

What practical experience do you expect someone who has gone straight from undergrad to masters to PhD to have that you don't? You've done exactly what they have plus more!

Basically I don't think you've got a problem, assuming your original qualifications weren't gash, I would expect the applications department to view your application very positively.

Probably not the answer you want, but it depends. Which conference? Which Journal? In general a journal is better, but a paper at super hard to get into conference A is better than a paper in ridiculously low level journal B. At least in my field anyway. At my uni we are encouraged to publish, usually with the more preliminary stuff in a conference and with the full work in a good journal. I see it as - each publication is most of one chapter for my thesis. I intend to have either 3 or 4 publications by the time I finish (I have one and am writing up another and am 1.5 years in). Probably two conference and 2 journal if possible.

The paper I've written so far was a conference paper, but at a prestigious conference, and is viewed as fairly good. The one I'm writing is for a decent (but not the highest level) journal and would be viewed as slightly better. It is a continuation of the work from the conference, but much broader in scope and more detailed (with a lot of extra unpublished work added!).

Obviously this is just my experience doing an engineering PhD whilst working as an RA at a certain uni. Perhaps it's different elsewhere and in different fields?

I would suggest setting up a regular meeting with your primary supervisor at least. Face to face, at least once every two weeks. I don't have this, I simply knock on the door of my supervisor when I need help and hope he's in. He knocks on my door when he needs to tell me something. I sometimes don't see him for weeks, sometimes I see him every day for 2 weeks! This works for me but I would suggest it is highly unusual.

Most academics are very disorganised and/or very busy. This means they often resist regular meetings. If you can get them to have regular meetings with you from an early stage however, then you can hopefully defeat this. The most common complaint on here is that people cannot contact their supervisor. A regular meeting avoids this.

To sum up:

1- Try and get a regular meeting, I would suggest once every 2 weeks

2- If this can't be done then make sure you can knock on their door and/or pester them when you need them.

I am truly shocked to my core about the lack of cake that is being delivered on other PhD courses - it saddens me deeply inside.

The only way to rectify the situation is to take a firm grip on the situation yourself. Talk with your colleagues and organise "Cakey Friday" or similar, where each week one person on the rota brings in a home made cake. The simple rules are: If you don't bake (and sign up to be on the list) then you don't get any cake. This is how my friend operated the cake system in his office.

My cake based operations are slightly more complex. We have talks each Friday between PhD students. Whomever is giving the talk must provide cake for everyone. In addition, if someone goes to the shop in the office they will inevitably buy some sweets/cake. The unwritten rule is that you share them. Finally, I have additional meetings for an extra-curricular activity for which there is a cake rota.

All simple measures, but ones I feel are of huge importance to the PhD process. If I was in your position I would consider contacting your supervisor about the lack of cake or maybe taking it higher to the dean. Academia requires huge amounts of thinking and cake is proven to make you better at thinking (in my scientific trial of 1 participant - me).

To ensure high quality academic work - Ensure high quality cake.

(mince)