Hi All,

I am writing this and after 2 days is my 2ed milestone discussion. I am very frustrated and feel l am the stupidest in my research field. I may have made incorrect previous decisions and now I am paying the price.
I chose to work in a field of research that I don't know anything about its basics, but it is interesting and I enjoy the (practical) work a lot. But the PhD study is not only about writing codes, but rather it must be scientific publishing and theoretical development, and this is what I found to be a very big challenge with my limited scientific background in this specific field. I have 3 supervisors, the first is in a completely different field of specialization, but he is a nice person and takes into account circumstances, and I have family circumstances and many challenges, the most important of which is the language barrier. The second is well understood in the field, which is a good thing and important addition to the team. The third is someone from outside the university, very well versed in the field, but his requirements and standards are very, very, very high, at least for me.

He puts a lot of pressure on me so that I hated everything around me, he does not see any achievement that I do as an achievement, in every meeting he sees only problems and makes me feel that I do not understand anything, which made me really do not understand anything. Although I am a person who used to be an accomplished and excellent person and get the highest grades in all my academic levels to the master's stage, I started feeling like I hate myself, I hate my life, I don't enjoy anything anymore, not with my kids, not with my life, nothing.


I am seriously considering deferring my studies to a time that I don't know when. During this time I read more, learn more and become stronger scientifically. But the idea is not easy at the same time, changing life from one country to another is very difficult, in addition to other things. I don't know what to do, I'm trying to appear as a strong person in front of my family. I want not to lose myself and my health and to make decisions that I do not regret.

I feel very pressured and frustrated so I decided to write here and hope to find some advice.

Thanks

Starting a discord channel is a great idea !!

Sure, let's do it

Hi rewt



Thanks for taking the time to reply to the post. You are right, conferences are good way and also meetings with other PhD students even from other areas. However, none of them are available for my case. As you said the conferences are all online which is not great. And our uni is closed for HDR desks and offices.

Hopefully I can found some mates to work with

Hello everyone,

I am a computer science PhD candidate. My work is related to time series and machine learning. I am working almost lonely.. my supervisor dosent have a research team in this specific field. Unfortunately I didnt recognize this ( there is no research group ) until late stages ( i am now at the second year). This is so bad for me because I am very much a person who like to study and work with groups.

I am looking for cooperation and coaching as well. It would be great if I can know some one that can help me through my PhD journey. Also, if there is anyone share the same research interest and like to collaborate to produce papers with significant contributions.


If you are, or know someone who are, please let me know.

Many thanks

Hi glimmerbat,

Thank you so much for your valuable reply.
I like your suggestion about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and I will consider this.

As you had experience with Time series, may I ask what sources you recommend the most to learn? Unfortunately, we don't have this kind of Journal clubs in my uni, (as I know ).
Actually, my main supervisor is from a different area of interest, so even the other students that she supervises are working on other areas than mine.


if you recommend any groups like on meetup or such that's could help me a lot.

Thank you very much

I am currently a PhD student, with Arabic background ( I have already completed a year since I started the PhD journey but during that year I got a maternity leave for 70 days and hence my confirmation is delayed) my confirmation of candidature is scheduled to be held on the end of March.

However, I am still not confident about what I am doing or going to do!
I am from computer science field, I decided to do my PhD on time series analysis, after I read a bit about it and i found it interesting. Now, I am struggling to find what is should be considered as a contribution !!

I am still even not sure about the research questions..

I have the following problems:
Besides the family responsibilities i am trying to work on my PhD research most of the day , around 10 hours daily, even weekends.

I consume along time to grasp the concepts well, especially when it's related to theory.
Most of the times I have done experiments and reported the results to my supervisor.. later I depicted some mistakes in the code which leads the results!!!

I am criticising my self alot, I think I am not focusing well .. however dont know what can i do to progress well in terms of time and work quality..

How I can be confident while I am not very knowledgeable compared to other on the same field.

How can I progress towards my very soon CoC??

Where can I find peers who work on time series analysis?

I am awfully sorry for this long writing! But I feel like oh finally there is a place to speak !!!