I am in my second year PhD and want to quit. A little background, I happened to get into PhD because I got a chance to get away from something and I got into it without much thinking. However, six months into this, I knew I am not into research and want to get away. I enjoyed my coursework but research, almost never. Being miles away from my friends and family (I'm an international student) to do something that's not enjoyable is wearing me down so I decided to quit.

However, I don't know how to say to my sup that I have decided to quit. I want to get a job and have been applying, both in this country and my home country. My sup is a native and he dislikes people of other nationalities working in his country. How he "had to" take me into his lab is a totally different story. Now i want to leave this without burning bridges, so that I could get a recommendation, if needed in future. However, If i say I am quitting this to take a job in this country he won't be happy especially since I am the first student in his lab to talk about quitting (our lab is new). He's been helpful regarding research work, but I don't especially say he's supportive. I don't expect his recommendation to be great as there hasn't been stellar performance from my side due to my lack of motivation in research and disinterest. However, my first year coursework grades are good.
My program doesn't let me exit with masters so essentially I either dump this year from my resume or perhaps enroll as transfer student in some other uni and get masters. Also my mom hasn't been supportive about me quitting but she doesn't exactly realize how this is taking a toll on me as I spend days crying in my bed.

How do I approach my prof with this news? And also convince my mom it's best?

Thanks Satchi. I hate confrontations and avoid them and that's why this is being so difficult. I think I just need to find a way to make this more peaceful.

Dwro8ea, I hope best for you!

Pjlu, Thanks for the reply, that was helpful. This was one thing what I was worried about. I tend to agree to things when people convince me but after sometime I realize that I was manipulated and this has happened to me many times before. I can take his anger and disappointment but I'm also worried if he will ever recommend me in case I need a reference in future. I think I found some jobs that interested me and are in similar field and I want to try them out but if in case they need any reference, I might lose them. Also, I tried finding how I feel about research in general. I'm not at all interested/excited about it. I get a flicker of interest in few instances but that is short lived and usually vanishes in few days. I don't hate it, I just don't really care about this at all. I'm indifferent to this or that, which should not be the case, for a PhD student.

nathaliephd, I read your article. My sup and lab members has no idea of me trying to pull out a prank like this. All my friends are going on good and even talking about quitting is something they don't want to do. One of my friend has suggested me to fail QE so that I can quit Phd but still get masters degree but I don't like the idea because 1. I think it's unethical 2. I never ever failed in acads and am a really good student and don't want to fail something to avoid something else and 3. I don't see the point in waiting till my QE for destiny/uni to throw me out. At our uni, quitting is something not spoken outwardly. Few people did but that was totally unexpected and sudden.

Thanks Meaningfullife and anon007. We've been having discussions for quite sometime but everytime it's only him who ends up talking about stuff and getting all excited about research those topics while I just sit there dumb because I don't even feel a pinch of his excitement or interest in those topics - mostly because when I get introduced to a new topic and work on it, I get disinterested in after a while and that topic is as good as old newspaper to me. It's more like I want to know something of everything but not everything of something, which exactly is what PhD is all about. My postdoc is helping me a lot and I'm trying to meet their expectations but I can't. My sup is disappointed with my progress and has been saying this in a mild way for sometime.
I took a 2 week breaks twice and the feeling is the same. I would like to take a longer sabbatical to think over but sup's not happy to approve leaves anymore.
Right now, everything I am doing or not doing is because I don't want to stir up hornet's nest - I don't know how to break this news to sup and how to convince my family who have very high expectations of me.

Thanks brit27.
I dont really see myself making a career out of research. Even if i complete PhD and get research based job, I want to move towards management roles later. A project started out very recently and I prefer to drop out as soon as possible so that project won't be in ble because of me, but I am also afraid how he will react about me dropping out. I want to leave this but only worried about the hopes my parents have on me and my professors reaction.

I came abroad for PhD with an bachelors degree with around 1 & 1/2 year of irrelevant work ex in between. I got upgraded to phd with funding from college when I applied to masters as they thought my application was good enough. Uni's in top 100 (okay) and I was getting funding (wasn't financially well off) I moved half way around the globe for it. However, I am more into business administration stuff and want to get MBA from good uni once my application is good enough.

Truth is I don't enjoy research much, just I like reading about different things not dive into one particular area and I realized that in last one year. My sup is alright, postdoc helps me but it's only them who feel a thing about what I do, I don't. I know I am not a top class PhD material and can assure that I won't be doing anything groundbreaking even if I spend all my life here; it's not underestimating my capabilities but that's the truth - I'm better off with job where I know what exactly I need to do and how to do.

Now I am in my second year and have 4 more years to go, 3 at the least. I want to quit this because I don't see myself working in R&D in industry down the lane when I'm more into business of it and not in academia, for sure. I don't see how spending another 4 years doing what I don't care about while detached from everything and everyone. I got over homesickness phase but I miss my bf, family and friends back home. And when I want to work in business aspects I don't really see the point in waiting 4 years doing a phd and then doing an MBA. However, I can't downgrade mine to masters since I am on funding. And my lab is newly established so I'm worried how my quitting will hurt my sup's and lab's reputation (I don't know much about academia working's). My sup won't be happy about me quitting at all, so if I end up leaving despite his will, I think I can forget recommendations for my next & future jobs from them. And I don't know how to convince my parents about me quitting, as they have very high hopes on me .

Right now all I want to do is quit this, go back home and get a job, build my application and get an MBA sometime. Yet, I am worried about convincing people that PhD is not for me and quitting is okay. Can you give me any ideas how I can deal with this?