My supervisor doesn't know, although I'm pretty sure she suspects I'm planning to leave. She's a very nice person and she gave me very good advice several times when I told her I was getting over-stressed and getting sick of the work, however every time I just relapsed into hating it. I just decided to look for jobs and keep doing my PhD in the mean time, so I don't really plan to announce it until I've signed the contract for my job.

I don't really have anything to write a masters dissertation about, my work ended up just being something that took forever to do and it was always about "the end goal" that never quite came.

I did actually put a lot of thought into it, I made my decision almost 4 months ago, I've just been having job interviews while doing a little bit of admin work here and there at my lab. Also, I literally just now got a job offer!

So here I am, spending most of my time now studying up some web development for my new 9-5 job. I'm not going to have a PhD. Damn it! Why can't I pull it together and do some sort of study before my examination in a month from now? I don't really know what to do, and most of the things I could do I don't want to do. I just want out, and to be happy and relaxed and to enjoy life, but I'm worried I won't be happy with the regret of not finishing it. Is it actually a good idea to treat it like a job? The PhD doesn't work that way - you can't do it out of spite or while hating it, you have to BE it. If you lose your interest or fascination for your topic it's over.

I get attracted by people's promises of having free time and a life, but I'm worried I'll be bored without working on something 'important'. At the same time, while I have thought about doing another PhD, I can't really fathom spending another 4 years or so on a studentship wage.

Either way, this is what's happening. I have no idea where I'll end up. I don't want to lose track of my field, I want to still be active and go to meet-ups and events. I just don't want to hate it. Hopefully my new job won't be shitty and it'll be a good springboard for a career.

If anyone's withdrawn like this, with a decimated sense of self-worth and lingering on in post-depression blues with squandered funding and expectations, I wouldn't mind some chatting :S.

I ended up working in my supervisor's field, and with her guidance I started studying and working on some very abstract stuff with a lot of heavy maths applied to very subjective things that I was dispassionate about. I didn't really know where to start or how to justify any of my work, which meant that I spent an entire year just developing some software that ended up not working very well. I found that most of the time I'd rather be at a hackspace or programming something else, so I took up a lot of little side projects like some indie game development and started a band, both of which I didn't get enough time to do properly so they all collapsed. Eventually my entire time was taken up by my research, which I hated and just did on a sort of autopilot. I should have had the foresight to quit earlier when I realized I'm not in my world.

Eventually it all culminated in a severe stress/panic/depression stage after my last paper submission when I realized that my paper that I'd worked on for a year, had already been done, and also that I'd done it badly. Worse, the paper got accepted. I got so stressed out that I lost weight and my hair started falling out. That's when I realized that this sucks... I have better things to do with my time, and probably I could achieve something great somewhere else. I wanted nothing else but to get out, so I set the gears in motion to leave and I applied for jobs, went through interviews and now I have a job lined up. The strange thing is that now I don't feel as bad... just a weird nauseating malaise and a constant feeling of doubt. Maybe I could do one more study, maybe I can change projects, maybe my supervisor can help. How can she when I simply don't relate to her interests at all? What a blunder.

- continued

So yeah. Here I am after 2 years quitting. I feel like I'm jumping off a bridge, and I have no idea if it's the right thing to do or not, all I know is that I don't want to do it anymore. It's amazing how much you internalize your research and how personal it feels to be the one guy that didn't finish.

I find it helpful to just talk about it with other people, because otherwise I just end up writing endless pros/cons lists in the middle of the night, which is why I'm posting this. I'm depressed, and I think just venting will help.

I'm a PhD student in an interdisciplinary research field (music technology). I had an awesome time for my undergraduate and masters, and essentially became an expert in the topics that I was interested in. I like to do practical things that have artistic or engineering value. I started my PhD while part of a tech consulting startup, which I had to quit on bad terms with my partner because I decided to dedicate my whole time to my PhD, so that says a lot about how enthusiastic I was when I started. I am at what is most likely the most prestigious research group for this topic in the world, and work with a renowned professor as my supervisor. Unfortunately, that's where the good ends and the bad begins.

- continued