Hello,

Since october 2018, I am a full-time and fully-funded PhD student in chemistry at the University of Sussex (UK). Before that I was studying in my country (France) and got a "Research Masters" in chemistry which corresponds to 5 years of full-time study with a final full-time internship in an academic research lab during 6 months. Since I had already that experience in research and labwork, I started quite early the labwork within the first year of PhD so I've roughly spent 50% of my time in the lab and the 50% remaining at office/trips etc.

The problem is: I am thinking of dropping out since a bit before Easter. Today I am now sure I am not made to be a PhD student, to be isolated that much, struggling all the time to have positive results to improve your mood and smile again, or just to know what to do the next day. I've also faced so many health issues during that year like never before in my life (twice more anxious that I used to be, panic crisis at night, 50% of the time with a shitty mood while I used to be a very positive and happy person, etc...) Now, I don't enjoy and want to head the lab any more as I'm sick to be in that unhealthy environment all the time.

I accepted that position because the subject was matching like 200% with what I did during my final year's internship in France and because of the excitement to do a PhD in a country like the UK where research is a big thing and Universities much prestigious; but now I feel like I accepted the challenge too quickly and underestimated how tough it was.

So now I decided to drop out the PhD and go back to France, I wanted to know if I could hope for another Masters degree like MPhil with the work I've done in one year (is it possible first?) knowing that I will also have a publication from an educational journal following an outreach event we've organised in sussex.

Most universities allow PhD students after a year to leave and write up their work as a Masters. It is pretty common for people to fail the first year transfer and be allowed to submit a masters. So if you are doing well experimentally they should let you write up.