Hi Docmartini,

I think I'm in a similar situation to yours - really struggling to find motivation at the moment and am reluctant to discuss how I'm feeling with my supervisor for the same reason. I'm afraid I don't really have any useful advice, but is there anyone other than your supervisor you can talk to about how you're feeling? At my university, we also have an advisor in addition to supervisors, who is not directly involved in the project, but who you are supposed to be able to go to with non-academic concerns or things you don't feel you can discuss with your supervisor. Or how about other PhD students or postdocs in your group? I would suggest though that if you are seriously thinking of quitting, you should talk things over with your supervisor at some point, even if just out of courtesy. If she realises that you are feeling that way, she may be able to offer some advice or more support for you to continue.

Hope things get better for you, whatever you decide!

Hi all,

I’m currently coming to the end of my second year in a science PhD, and am really struggling with motivation to do anything. In the past 2 years, I’ve more and more come to realise that a career in research/academia is not for me - I don’t want that kind of lifestyle, and I find the planning and carrying out research very stressful. For quite a few weeks now, I’ve really been having a hard time getting started each day, I dread going in to the lab/office each day and even ‘working from home’ I can’t seem to get anything done. Today, for example, I’ve done nothing AT ALL related to my PhD! Some days I find it hard even to get out of bed, get dressed etc…I feel like I know nothing, and that a lot of the work I’ve already is badly designed (and it doesn’t show anything interesting…).

Saying all this, I do want to finish my PhD. I feel I’ve come too far now to think about quitting, and also want to prove to myself that I can do it. But as I don’t want to stay in research, I want to finish it as quickly as possible. I’ve got funding for 3 – 3.5 years (the extra 6 months if needed, it’s almost always given to people), and have 2 on-going experiments which should give me enough data for 3 chapters, plus a smaller experiment which I will include but is not enough for a full chapter.
My experiments were due to be finished in Feb 2013, but my supervisor is now suggesting additional work which will not give me data until August 2013! This might be ok – it wouldn’t require work in between Feb and August so I could write most of my chapters up before then anyway. I’m not sure though if what I’m doing will be enough in total for a PhD – I THINK I’ll get 3 chapters out of my current work, but I’ve tried several times asking my supervisor for an opinion on whether I need to set up another experiment, and he seems very reluctant to give me a straight answer. My worry is that if I don’t start anything else, he’ll suddenly decide next year that I need more data, and if that’s the case I would rather start the work now than drag things out! I think if I had a plan to stick to, if I knew exactly what I had to do to finish, then I would find it much easier to get going.

Anyway, thanks if you read my rambling, I’m not even sure what the point of this post is except that I’m just feeling frustrated, useless and guilty and needed somewhere to vent. Anyone else felt the same at any point, and any tips on how to get through the next year/possibly longer?! The thought of spending another year feeling this way just seems impossible to deal with at the moment.