- Joined
- Feb 24, 2016
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- 298
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I'm currently a 5th year MSTP student, 3rd year in graduate school. My time in graduate school started off well, but all of my dreams, expectations, and self worth have been progressively crushed as I go along. At first it was just a lot of lab experiments failing, which made my existing anxiety worse, but to outside observers I was progressing normally for my stage of training. But around Year 2 my relationship with my PI started suffering, as he started getting annoyed and telling me to make my own decisions about experimental design, ask him fewer basic/silly questions, manage my time better, etc. I got the sense he was never quite happy with me. Now it's 3rd year and outside people are starting to notice my struggle too... I managed to pass quals, but then I had my 3rd thesis committee meeting a few months ago and the committee was quite concerned with my unpolished/preliminary data, lack of progress, etc. My PI told me later that they were concerned about me, and that I really need to get my crap together for the next committee meeting and any other presentations, etc.
I also recently applied for the F30 twice and both times my score was too low to even be discussed at the review meeting. My only publications are a review article, an intro to another article, and two articles I barely helped with data collection and proofreading. More concerningly, I have barely any data for my actual thesis, and all my data is just ****ty - missing a control here, a replicate there, the cells were in bad condition there, I lost a file in here, my knock-in mouse line didn't work, etc etc etc. My PI says not much if any of it is publication quality, and I need to redo a lot of it.
From the outside, it just looks like I had one bad committee meeting and can still get back on track. But to me it feels like a deeper problem. It just makes me nauseated to look at my own data some days, or midway through the day in lab I shut down and can't function and want to go home. I wish I could either quit the PhD, or restart it from the beginning without all of the wasted time. I clearly don't have the brainpower or correct mode of scientific thinking for the PhD, but part of me says I should just power through and publish at least something small... Is a mediocre PhD obtained at the cost of my mental health (which is already in the toilet, in addition to anxiety I think I have depression, and my psychiatrist thinks ADHD) worth it? I don't want to quit if it means burning bridges with my PI , the MSTP program, other students, and making it hard to apply for residency, etc. Realistically, I think I will just go forward, take a 5th PhD year and finish with the bare minimum... But do you guys think quitting the PhD and returning to medical school is a real option here?
I also recently applied for the F30 twice and both times my score was too low to even be discussed at the review meeting. My only publications are a review article, an intro to another article, and two articles I barely helped with data collection and proofreading. More concerningly, I have barely any data for my actual thesis, and all my data is just ****ty - missing a control here, a replicate there, the cells were in bad condition there, I lost a file in here, my knock-in mouse line didn't work, etc etc etc. My PI says not much if any of it is publication quality, and I need to redo a lot of it.
From the outside, it just looks like I had one bad committee meeting and can still get back on track. But to me it feels like a deeper problem. It just makes me nauseated to look at my own data some days, or midway through the day in lab I shut down and can't function and want to go home. I wish I could either quit the PhD, or restart it from the beginning without all of the wasted time. I clearly don't have the brainpower or correct mode of scientific thinking for the PhD, but part of me says I should just power through and publish at least something small... Is a mediocre PhD obtained at the cost of my mental health (which is already in the toilet, in addition to anxiety I think I have depression, and my psychiatrist thinks ADHD) worth it? I don't want to quit if it means burning bridges with my PI , the MSTP program, other students, and making it hard to apply for residency, etc. Realistically, I think I will just go forward, take a 5th PhD year and finish with the bare minimum... But do you guys think quitting the PhD and returning to medical school is a real option here?