Thanks, my PhD program takes 5-6 years in total. So I am half way or a bit less of the way through. I wonder whether other people are in similar situations or whether mine is particularly bad. In terms of being depressed, I don't think it's anything clinical at this stage as for the two weeks I went home over Christmas I was really upbeat and happy. It's as soon as I return to the lab situation when I feel really depressed and cry a lot. And that has gotten worse over the last months and I don't see it getting better without seriously changing something.

I am really not sure what to do.:$

Dear all, I am 2.5 years into a PhD program at a top institution in Engineering. I have passed my qualifying exams 7 months ago and ever since finishing classes/quals and only focusing on research I have been very depressed. Progress is very slow, I realize that I may still be here 3 or more years from now and I am just not that interested in the day to day work in lab or in my topic. On top of that my partner is on the other side of the atlantic and I feel that getting a PhD prevents me from staring a life and settling down. Especially since I am not interested in an academic job, but rather want to work in industry (and not in a research department) in a company. I have tried to restructure my day to day work, but I think what I really have a hard time with is the lack of day to day structure and the lack of a clear trajectory for how and when the PhD will finish and the lack of working in teams together with others . I enjoyed the pre-quals time with classes, and hence a clear structure and being around people much more and it's only the last 7 months when classes stopped and it is full time research that things got really bad. In fact I got so depressed and unhappy that I was crying almost every day and it got worse and worse for the past 7 months. Getting a PhD is really important to me personally, but at some point a few months ago the depression got so bad that I saw no other way out and I applied for a job in industry. I have several offers now and am wondering whether I should take them. After all I may regret not finishing the PhD at a top program (I have never quit anything in my life and usually stick things out til the end), which always has been so important for me - but on teh other hand I just cannot continue this way for another 2-3 years without getting serious health problems (and that would not be worth it either). Any suggestions?