Signup date: 23 May 2021 at 8:47am
Last login: 24 May 2021 at 10:31pm
Post count: 1
I started my PhD in October last year but I had been working with the supervisors of the project for a year at that point. To me the process has been anything but productive. I tried my best to insist when we were focusing on something that was fruitless or come up with better models only to be consistently ignored. I often hear the first year of a PhD is one where you will not make significant progress and this is natural. However, the reason why the progress is so bad is on them, and of course, there is no admission when it comes to assessing this. I feel like due to this my motivation and excitement for the topic are gone. I was afraid to quit so I asked for a two-month suspension of studies. During that time I looked for jobs and became extremely anxious about how hard the process would be. Out of sheer anxiety, I decided to go back and assured my supervisors that I had solved the personal issues (they didn't know the truth) that made me suspend my studies. This was only a couple of weeks ago but right from the beginning, it has been worst than ever. I feel completely depressed and I am concerned about how I feel. This was mainly triggered by the fact that I was told by the supervisors that they were happy to have me back to work on this great model they have. Queue a couple of days later, I get an email saying upon further thinking I probably don't have the specific skills required to participate in this and that I should go and do something "I like more" (this came out of the blue, I never said anything or gave any indications). I answered that I was concerned about the time since starting on something new that was interesting could mean months of work and I needed to present advances to the board of the program (they knew this, so it felt like they were setting me up to fail). They basically ignored me and just said at some point that hopefully, I'll be able to contribute to their problem in other areas (there is no reason why they should think I wouldn't). After this, I am now being drowned in work in the very same area they said I could not work in. To me, this is absolute madness, and it feels like the last drop. My doubt is whether I come out as the bad guy for coming back for a couple of weeks only to quit definitely now. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, sorry for the long post :(
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