Wow. This thread seems to have been around for 2+ years and is still going! Glad I found this - I am joining, too.

My goal today is to go through the papers that are scattered all over my hard drive, organize them in my EndNote library and make them public so I can share them with my group. (been meaning to do this for a long time...)

I will also start working on my slides to present next Friday--My aim is to get the background part done.

Have a productive day!

I would be really interested in hearing what people think, also, because I have been having this exact same problem for a while now. (although I am not a post-doc)

I am in my second year into a PhD program in Biomedicine and still feel like I am not meant to be a researcher in science. I majored Molecular Biology only because I had originally wanted to pursue medicine which required me to take quite a few science courses, not because I loved science. As I learned more about medicine I started to realize that it was not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I stayed in science because that was all I had been doing in my entire undergrad years. Now I am well into my PhD, feeling lost, because I don't know what else I should do...

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Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts and perspectives with me! i didn't expect this.

Hi mumbler - Thanks for such a thoughtful reply. What you are saying makes a lot of sense. It's interesting how all your family members are PhDs. That might be a big motivating factor in your case. Good luck with the rest of your training!

Hi Verucasalt - You were more interested in other subjects than sciences at school (like I was), but seem to be unhappy with your current life... Thanks for sharing it though! Btw, sorry to hear about what you've witnessed. That must have been an added stress in your case. In terms of expiry date, I think the same applies to the corporate world, or any system/structure that's built upon hierarchy... Just a thought.

Hi Mackem_Beefy - Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed post. It sounds more like a life story.

You said your first postdoc was the best six years of your life. One of the postdocs I know said something similar; he thought about quitting his PhD all the time (a bad boss), but he made it to the end and is now "a happy man" as he put it. He keeps his excitement which is kind of contagious. :) But then he was always more interested in science at school like you...

But perhaps what is more important than "passion" is the "want" to get good at it, or the "drive" to finish it...

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Did you always want to be a scientist or to pursue a science-related profession growing up?

Just curious because I never did. And this bugs me whenever I feel that I lack what it takes to be a successful PhD student. I don't know if this feeling is coming from a transient hardship that almost every phd student experiences time to time, or if it's coming from my lack of innate passion for science growing up... perhaps this tells me that I need to pay more attention to my inner voice and act accordingly? So I was wondering if having never wanted to pursue research in science as a child might be a good indication that I am in the wrong place...

You might wonder then why I started my PhD in the first place. Well, I took a cancer biology course as an undergraduate and wrote a term paper on certain topic which both she and I took great interest in... She was impressed by my work and asked me what my plan after graduation was, and I said I liked teaching and would like to become an instructor. She then strongly encouraged that I do a PhD with her, and that's how I got into this; however, ever since then, I felt like it was not my choice but hers... and that I passively followed her decision. (Anthony Robbins said "If you don't have a plan for your life, somebody else does.") One researcher wrote an article in EMBO very recently where he compared doing research in basic science to a vocation, saying that prospective trainees need to become fully aware of this fact before making a decision to do a PhD. And I am not sure if I will be strong enough to finish this...

Thanks for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Thanks for your thoughtful responses, Dr. Jeckyll and Rick. They help a lot.

I am more inclined to decide against it, but I still need to think more about how to best address this issue and justify my decision...

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I am in my second year of PhD in cancer biology and still don't have real data to present because I have been having difficulty focusing on one specific topic... (FYI, I am in Canada, and here, the average length of time to complete a PhD is 4-5 yrs.. and it varies a lot). A conference is coming up and my supervisor wants me to present a project that I have never been involved in. She suggested that I work intensely on data analysis for a couple of weeks and then present a poster so that I can up my profile a bit. What are your thoughts on this? I am not sure if it is the right thing to do because (1) it wouldn't be fair to those who did the real work, and (2) I don't think it's something I will feel proud of when I look back years later... but perhaps I am being naive. I would love to hear your perspectives on this!