I quit my PhD in amsterdam after 2 years of horrible study(I know I should have quitted earlier now..), and now start my PhD again in Finland.
The shadow of the previous failure still remains, but the motivating environment here is gradually blowing that away. I finally see the possibility of actually enjoying a PhD, without any time to go for entertainment or a luxurious afternoon on a sunny beach. I was counting the time to go off work in amstedam, but now I didn't realize 10 hours have passed since I started working in the morning.

sometimes, changes can be good! and I hope everything will go where from now.

Tervetuloa! Onnea!

Lycka till och vällkommen!

Nice post Tom. Great to hear from someone new (and in Finland...is that a 1st?) too.

is the 2nd floor from Finland as well? I don't speak Finnish yet, but I want to try to learn

Good luck Tom. This is also my second go at a PhD - only lasted a year the first time.

Tom,
When you transferred to your uni in Finland, could you take off from where you left off in Amsterdam? In other words, did the new uni let you do your work without making you start all over again with new topic, proposal etc.?

hehe, it is a new topic, but really exciting. I don't mind working from scratch again.. hmm, similar to the idea that if you find the right person, you can't wait to spend one more day with him/her.

Smilodon, so how is the second Phd? better?

Oh, the bottom one is Swedish, in Finland Swedish has status as an offical language and it taught in schools, a legacy of Sweden's political control of Finland.

Well there was a long gap ( 20 years!) and a big change in subject area between the two. I really never thought I would go down this road again.

It's very different this time - things that were better then are worse this time (social isolation, supervision) and vice versa (institution and place, subject area and project).

surprising that you would do this after 20 years.. must be really a motiving topic then.. most people can't take the 4 years of study, quite "boring" for "normal" guys. but I do appreciate the passion for research, I think a PhD study without such a passion is just a waste of time, everyone should do something he really enjoys. especially PhD doesnot pay well either.

I agree - there is no point otherwise. It's a very insecure and stressful career path. My interests have changed over the years and were probably in the process of changing the first time around. It also didn't help that I hadn't a clue how to do sustained work of any kind. I think I've got that hang of that now!

Hope your new project goes well - it is very stressful quitting a PhD, but I have met a few people who have done so and started again.