In the second year of my PhD and not coping at all - I've realised I don't have the intellectual ability or motivation to complete a PhD and feel like I am wasting myself and others time. I don't feel like I am learning any useful skills or getting any sort of training that will be used in later life - I don't want to become an academic or enter a career in research.
If I feel like this now, I imagine things will be worse next year when the pressure is really on.
I'm depressed, my attendance is poor, I'm missing deadlines and my project is a mess. I think I might ask to suspend studies so I can think about what I want to do.
The biggest practical problem to me finding a job is the contract between myself, the university and my industrial sponsors: I'm fairly sure it holds me responsible for all tuition fees if I fail to finish.
Any advice?

i read somewhere that it is normal to feel like that in the 16 to 25 months of your PhD. are there any specific reasons causing your lack of confidence? it may help identifying the root cause of the problem and dealing with it. i recently felt the same due to supervisor problems which resulted in lack of progress, though things are gradually improving. am a second year.

oops - deal with it .

ignore that - spelling hiccups.

I can't fully understand concepts or perform at the level required - I wasn't able to produce a basic literature review when I started so how am I going to write a thesis?

I still haven't got any real results yet, and although my supervisor is a good person, can be critical and unhelpful.
I understand a lot of people feel this way at this stage but i'm becoming unhappy, unmotivated and withdrawn and not eating or exercising enough. My girlfriend is the only thing that keeps me going sometimes.

Hi, I felt like this a lot in my first year - and still do now I'm in my second year. For me, PhD students are all super intelligent, totally motivated and driven to succeed - nothing at all like I see myself! Nevertheless, I remind myself that I competed with others to win my studentship, so I deserve to be here in that sense.

Whenever I attend conferences, seminars etc about being a postgrad student and completing a PhD, the main message I hear is that getting your doctorate is 10% intelligence and 90% persistence - I'm hanging onto this!! The only thing I would say to you is you need to find some reason to continue with your studies, one aspect that will keep you going. I struggle daily with my studies, but I won't let it beat me - is there anything you can think of that you can hold on to, that will drive you to finish?

I think you need to find out just what your options are - do you have a atudent advice centre? or talk to the PG advisor, or even the PG administrator, to get the facts sorted. You certainly should have the option of intercalating, to give you time to consider whether you do want to continue the PhD. The fees thing sounds a bit weird, but until you know for sure it is going to be hard for you to decide what to do.

It sounds as though you are very clear that you are not going to need a PhD for your future career, so you are right, there is not much point going through the anguish just to get 'Dr' before your name. But talking to the careers center might be useful to give you an idea of things you can do if you drop the PhD.

Have you produced a literature review now? If so you should have some idea of where your research is going.

A PhD is hard, it really is. If you found it easy I would be more worried than if you found it hard because that could be a sign that you underestimate the work involved. As it happens I don't think this is the case.

Are there any technical problems you don't understand?

Did you do a Masters? How did you find your first degree?

Writing is a skill that has to be learnt, therefore the more you do the better you will be.

Treat criticism as gold dust! Unless it is just downright wrong (and sometimes it will be), then even if they don't intend to, someone criticising your work is doing you a favour. Learn from it and do it better.

Hey there, I am not clever I am not that bright, I left school with no qualifications, I have only got where I am through hard work and a lot of slog. You need the ability to follow conventions more than the need to formulate life changing theories. As long as you can read things critically you should be able to make the connections between others work and your own.
It irre;levent what you want to do after your PhD This is about you at this moment so forget what you want to do with the PhD later.
Be methodical and tackle small pieces at a time, don't be downhearted by criticism from sups. You will get criticism whatever you do in life. Your supd must have thought you capable of continuing otherwise they would have bought this up by now.
Chin up love, try to re-capture what it was that made you interestd in the first place,
xxxx

Regarding dazednconfused.

Yes I agree with everything there.

I failed my A-levels, therefore I thought I didn't have it in me to do A-Levels, let alone a degree. A PhD at that time would have been laughable.

As my degree tutor used to say, 'You can't eat a cow, but you can eat a lot of burgers.'

I agree with the above. I failed some A levels but managed to get to uni as a mature student (22) then had to resit 2nd year and failed my degree. Gave up education for a while then did an OU degree in my 30s. Surprised myself so decided to do an MA in a subject I was interested in just for me rather than any future reasons. Surprised myself again and with encouragement and support from fellow students and staff am now doing a PhD. It is good to take things in small steps and move up to the next one when you feel ready. I feel overwhelmed sometimes with what I have to do but keep thinking that I wouldn't be here unless I deserved it and was capable. I think it is much harder to bluff your way in academia than in some other jobs out there.

I can relate to a lot of things you say here as this was me last month. I felt that I couldn't 'fully understand concepts or perform at the level required.' Towards the end of my first year, this was really bad as i was trying to learn this new mathematical method to be able to use an empirical approach to my thesis - i attended classes, worked on it, but i couldn't do it in the time available. so what i did was tell my supervisor that i was struggling with it. i informed them on my strengths and weaknesses - i.e. what i knew and what i was good at and they agreed to change the approach of my thesis to a theoretical approach as opposed to empirical.

' - I wasn't able to produce a basic literature review when I started so how am I going to write a thesis?' I haven't quite produced a lit rev on the basic focus of my thesis yet - my struggle so far has been demonstrating that the whole concept is important in the first place. so you can write a thesis, am writing mine without one. by the way some students in my department do a lit rev at the end of their thesis and that becomes chapter 1.

'I still haven't got any real results yet, and although my supervisor is a good person, can be critical and unhelpful.' I know what you mean. I have got a result but it needs to be developed through another literature review to come up with a real result. May i ask, is your topic totally new, or is it on an area with existing literature. Mine is the former, so i have really struggled with literature reviews and results.

i agree with dazednconfused - rekindle your motivation - try linking the lit to what you want to say or your idea - and finally start writing anyway. it doesn't have to be perfect but it will help you clarify your thoughts and make links between different things. i noticed that since my last submission which had a result - though not the best in the world-, my supervisor has become more helpful and interested in my work and less critical. am sorry if this is not helpful. one last thing - i spoke to a fourth year student about my work and they really helped me develop my argument - maybe you could do that?