Thank you as well Sneaks and Doodles. Wow I love this forum. I will consider all your points. I have my one year meeting coming up, maybe I should just be honest with my supervisor then?

Thank you for your reply, it was really sweet. I don't have any other ideas, jsut not research or industry. I do look at career options but nothing sticks out. I've realised I'll never be one of those people who knows what they want to be. But I think if I just had any job that someone with a degree could do that would be fine. Just not something like stuffing envelopes which I used to do urgh.

I am scared of approaching anyone about it though. I have a tendency to be smiley noone would see it coming... Plus I am awful at confrontation. I need to get some guts.

Also I have just started a new project which I know my supervisor wants to get a publication for asap. If I quit that might slow the process down. But then tbh I probably wouldn't help too much anyway.

I need advice because I can't talk to anyone in my department and noone outside wk understands what it's like in PhD world. -You can't just quit.

I started my PhD last year because I didn't know what career to go into and thought, what with the recession, getting another qualification in the meantime was a good idea. Also I had been in the most unstimulating job previously and wanted something more stimulating. I didn't realise at the time that I was going into it for completely the wrong reasons. Within a week of starting I realised I had made a mistake, that I hated lab work, found the reading quite hard, the project boring and generally felt completely out of my depth. I think I had gone from one extreme too far to the other.

Despite clearly being too dumb to do a PhD, I plodded on because I didn't want to let people down, waste the people's time who had trained me and the department's money. Plus my supervisor is quite nice and my department is lovely. Also, I hate giving up.

My problem is that I have everything most people dream of as a student only I don't want it. I feel so ungrateful, but it's just not for me. Part of me wishes that my supervisor was horrible or the work environment was unbearable just so I'd have a reason to leave. I just hate the thought of another 2 years when I already know I'm not going to go into science. But having done a whole year, if I quit I would have wasted yet another year of my life. Plus it is so looked down apon.

Finally despite my supervisor being nice, I only had an informal interview for the studentship and I think he regrets it. I clearly can't keep up. He discusses research plans with a post doc, who quite often takes over my project, leading me to wonder why on earth I'm there in the first place.

I just feel quite unhappy even though everything around me is right. I should have just gone with my instinct and quit after the first few weeks. Instead now I am trapped and have made a bigger problem for myself.

Help! Has anyone else also felt this way?