Hi everyone,

I've read alot of the posts on this site, and learned alot. It's a great community. I have found myself in an interesting position now. I'm a 1st year phd student in a doctoral school in Italy. Originally, I joined this program, thinking that it would be my only option to do phd work (really it was because my MSc supervisor nudged me a bit, and there were early deadlines, so I accepted the position quickly). After 8 months my research has not gotten very far...not much more than discovering a research area (socio-technical software systems) and reading some literature.

I have asked myself "What am I doing here?" so many times, and I've been holding on because I really want a phd (I have some researcher and academia plans for the future). Anyway, my motivation has been falling alot, and every time I meet my supervisor I just want to shout "THIS IS NOT INTERESTING!!!" and so often I just want to escape.

However, the school is in such a beautiful location (North Italy is a dream). Sometimes I pacify myself(only 2.5 years left), other times I get depressed. Anyway, just this week I attended a talk by a prof from Canada who was working in my field. She said she was looking for collaboration, and after a brief chat I got her contact info. By email she confirmed that she has funding, a state of the art lab, and projects for exactly my interest area. She said she would support a transfer if I wanted, or a co-supervision. After reading a paper she recommended I really felt inspired, moreso than in a long time.

For the rest of the week I've been mulling this over and over, and I want to bail on my current program. Problem is that I've invested the 8 months here...and I don't know how to break it to my current prof. It seems like I could gain alot there, but I don't know what to expect.

Today I spoke to my supervisor about a collaboration, and he basically said that since the thesis isn't concrete yet we wouldn't have anything to collaborate on properly. When I mentioned co-supervision he asked to be included on cc in future emails, but at the end said he may support that (well...the meeting was really disorganized, I tried to discuss several things). During the meeting I was thinking alot like...man, I gotta drop it. After the meeting I really felt flat because he mentioned something important, that I should know what my thesis plan is before doing anything..., almost like the thrill of this new-found opportunity was a let-down...just now though I've looked at my goals and think I may just go in next week to arrange a drop...

Any thoughts? Thanks.

Any thoughts...I'm leaning heavily to switching?:-(

Sounds like a no-brainer to me... just as you're getting fed up with what you're doing, someone swoops in and offers to whisk you away to an exciting new project? How often does that happen?