======= Date Modified 26 Oct 2011 05:38:13 =======
Hi all,

I am currently a first yr PhD student in Singapore in mechanical engineering. I do not have a Master's degree and directly joined the PhD program with limited background in the field. However, I do like my field and my advisor is really supportive. As of now, I don't have a research topic and I sense that my advisor is getting frustrated by this. On my part, it feels like looking for a pearl in the ocean. Moreover, my main intention to do a PhD was to learn more about my field, but I don't have any inclination of becoming an academic. I suggested some topics to work on, but he said it will be difficult to change topic after almost a year into this and said I can probably work on this in my postdoc. Having been a project assistant as a undergrad, I have seen the hardships PhDs and PostDocs go through and I don't think that is the life I want to have. Moreover, PhD doesn't seem to be about sparking creativity and new ideas, but seems to be driven by the race to 'publish', which I really dislike. This race is pressurizing me to learn stuff quickly and is totally contrary to my belief that taking the time to understand fundamentals and making lots of mistakes is the way to learn, atleast for me. This situation is sort of chipping away at my enthusiasm for my subject..

I love the freedom of being a rookie and stumble along, and so am thinking of downgrading my PhD for Masters if they let me, or quit otherwise. Also, since I have no intention of being in academia, I suppose having breadth in understanding is more important and interesting than being really specialized in a particular field. My question is : Are my options based on sound reasoning?

Thanks a lot for this wonderful forum...
confused guy

Have you tried to discuss this with your supervisor? Your situation is currently like me, a PhD student w/o Msc. That's the cons from jumping straight away to PhD. Discuss first and know what you want. That's the most important thing. Downgrading will takes time, first discuss with your supervisor, if she/he agrees then meet deputy dean (academics) of your school and of course you need to inform post gradute studies too.

I agree with you that we all make mistakes and I believe that this is part of the learning process. It sounds like you're a bit lost and I wonder if you'd feel differently if you got some support from your sup. As tea4wo mentioned, would it be worth talking to your sup about this? They may not have any ideas of what's going on and may be able to help you with your difficulties.

By the way, I didn't have a masters either and I struggled at times but I was able to learn whatever was required to finish my phd so, in my opinion, a masters helps but it isn't always 100% necessary (although it might be in some fields!). It's worth baring in mind that if your uni didn't feel you were able to complete your phd, they wouldn't have taken you on ;-)

Thanks for your replies. I haven't yet spoken to my advisor about this. I am not at all inclined to go the academia way, but I get the feeling that my advisor is thinking along those lines as he has mentioned me doing a postdoc (I have not even completed 1 year of my PhD..!)..so I don't know if PhD is the thing for me. I had applied to the masters program, but ended up getting into the PhD program. I was hoping I would learn about the subject through courses.. but turns out, there isn't many courses that are related to my field and so I am basically learning on my own.. Also, at present, I am the only guy in the lab in my area and there isn't anyone I can speak to about this.. I like my subject a lot and feel I would learn a lot better and with more freedom if it were not for the push to publish papers etc... any thoughts on this?

it sounds like you might be more suitable to do a master taught course rather than PhD- PhD or postdoc is A LOT about racing yourself to publish a paper unfortunately! The main reason is because of your funding resource, you can't drag a project for too long "without any result"- funding bodies normally require you to make some kind of progress report time to time as well...

Not sure about singapore, but it's not compulsory to publish a paper during your first or second year, some people don't even publish any paper until they finish the whole PhD!

talk to your supervisor first, he might have better suggestion- or there might be a reason why he pushes your publication (i.e., he's applying a funding based on your research?)

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