i've just started my PhD and it is quite quickly becoming obvious that i am so far out of my depth that i feel truly awful. my project is far removed from my original degree and i have no grasp of the basics of my area. i really feel that i am fighting for my academic life and i do not seem to be able to impress upon my supervisor the gravity of the situation. so here i am, reaching out to you in a desperate attempt to gain some perspective. please help me!

You poor thing. Listen, i was feeling pretty much the same last week, having also just started, but its getting slowly better. You must be reasonably intelligent otherwise they wouldn't have offered you the place originally. ( thats what i keep telling myself anyway!). These first few months are supposed to be spent reading and immersing yourself in your subject area, so you will be able to get up to speed with what you are doing. So don't panic, just take it in your stride, one day at a time, and remember, all your supervisors were once in exactly the same position as you. You have a fantastic opportunity, you just need a little faith in yourself.

i wanted to leave on the first day of induction week.

and many more times since then.

but i'm still here and butting on. all i can say is, don't let the bad experience get you down too fast. give the good experience time to come knocking. because there is both, good and bad - it might just be that you started with the bad.

Hi phd_chick
Please don't feel alone. Like angie, I have also just started and I also feel so out of my depth. I thought I would be doing just a lot of reading around now, which I am but I just feel thick. I have had 3 update meetings with my Prof. and I actually take notes so I can look up half what he is on about when I get home. He is also pushing pushing to get me on my way testing by January using tests I don't even know exist yet.

He is also expecting about 6 publications to come out of my research?????? I cancelled my induction course after finding out it wasn't compulsory because I just don't feel like going in. I am enjoying the MSc module I am doing to learn imaging, I enjoy the research reading and my project is sort of focussed but just the whole thing seems beyond me and my capabilities. So, don't feel alone, I am hoping I will feel better soon too. The other day when feeling down I just told myself this is a big project like I have done before but bigger and to just forget the PhD letters.

i am so glad ive just come back onto this site.i too am in the same situation and feel like throwing it all in and knowing that im not the only one feeling that makes the whole thing slightly less daunting.

good luck and stick with it :)

I have been in the same situation many times over the past 2-3 weeks! What I have actually found is, the less work I do the more panicky I get over it. But if I do a bit of reading, it tends to start putting my mind at ease a bit more about the whole thing. I am hoping that the more I do, the more confident I am going to feel about the whole thing. Rightly or wrongly, I am thinking of my project as some sort of monster that has to be tamed somehow!
I have to agree with the others in that you wouldn't be where you are now if they didn't think you are capable of it! I have this concern too - but you would be wasting their time just as much as yours if they didn't think you were capable. I was completely daunted by my superviser at first as he spoke about things that he seemed to expect me to understand (I didnt), but I need to realise that he has had many more years of experience over me - and that's what I'm there to learn.

thank you for your replies, they really are of some comfort. i still feel awful about the whole thing but knowing that i am not the only one in this position gives me some hope that everything will work itself out. i think it is probably a combination of things as well as the PhD that is contributing to feeling like this but i am just going to keep pluggin on with it and see where it takes me. once again, thank you so much xx

p.s. good luck to you all with your phds x x

Hello. I've just started too. And I was really excited about starting but by lunchtime on the first day I had this huge feeling of dread that this really was a bad idea! I too am far removed from my undergraduate subject area and I've had 2 years out working in the "real world" in a totally unrelated area. I feel hopelssly out of my depth and my supervisor keeps changing his mind about what I need to read, and this is after he just left me to it for the first few days and didn't do any form of formal induction / hello etc.

(cont!)The way my team works is that everyone mucks in with lab work as the theory is that I will learn by "osmosis". However I am helping in the lab but don't have a clue what is going on, feel as useful as a chocolate fireguard and to top it off I don't know when I'm due in the lab as everyone is in the office all day so do things as and when, so I'll have just planned my day and then be taken off to the lab. (I did ask about this and a lab meeting was called but no useful info actually came out of this!). And the rest of my team don't talk much and I seem like a slacker as I arrive at 9.30 and leave 5.30-600 and they're always still there! Finally, I've just moved to London for this and it's really scary! Phew, sorry for mega-rant this has been building up for the last week and, having just found the forum, I'm glad it's not just me!

Hi Walrus, I feel good I am not alone too :) Also in London, also just feel dumped in amongst a lot of demands and I dread looking in my inbox now as I know it will be a 'Have you done....', 'Have you contacted...' 'Have you considered...' and I have only just started.