I'm deep in the throws of dissertation writing and defend November 6th. Edward doesn't only watch when you sleep, he watches when you cry over data, smash your keyboard, and throw citation manuals across the room. Get yourself an emotional support Edward 🤍

Ok the stupidest of stupid questions. Just started grad school. In undergrad I could get away with just bringing my tote bag to campus because I was just carrying my laptop + water bottle. But now I’m on campus all day so I need laptop + water bottle + lunchbox + bag of little hygiene items like concealer and tampons etc + book to read on the bus + notebook for class. Too much to fit in my silly little tote bag. So I’m thinking backpack. But I’m a vain motherfucker, I don’t want a basic black Jansport. I love the look of messenger bags, but I haven’t seen any big enough. Actually, I did see one big enough on Facebook Marketplace, but the seller ghosted me. Tragedy!! Anyways. I would like a cute backpack or bag of some sort that can fit my laptop, lunch box, water bottle, etc and all the miscellaneous accoutrement that naturally collects in a bag. Seeking suggestions, links, ideas, and pictures of your cute bags.

Automod wanted me to add my location and field. EU and Anthropology. But cool bags are universal I think

Soooo…

My paper, which is one of proof-of-concept scope, is now on its 6th reviewer.

1 endorsed it after revisions

2 had the same comments as 1 but rejected

3 had some stats questions, I responded, they stopped responding, then got “revoked” by the journal in question.

Then the editor brought on reviewers 4, 5, 6 essentially at the same time.

All 3 of these new reviews:

- State the paper is a promising proof of concept paper and well scoped

- Summarize the paper’s results

- Then go on to state the limitations and next steps nearly VERBATIM that I already discussed, but act as if they found them organically without saying the authors discussed them.

- They then suggest I discuss the limitations/next steps more in depth with demands I hit topics I already talked about. Very strange.

Anyway, they all come back as major revisions, no new things to actually address, and ChatGPT produced a near identical review of my manuscript with the same issue of restating what’s already in the paper but in a way that makes it sound like we didn’t discuss any of it. One even suggests entirely new animal experiments that were already framed as next steps.

Anyway, my PI suggested we just “throw them a bone” and reword a few sections. I’m literally just sending line numbers saying certain things were already discussed for a few sections because it’s ridiculous.

I’m a third-year Math PhD in the US, and lately I’ve been feeling pretty discouraged about my career prospects.

My main academic background is in PDEs and applied math. Over the past couple of years, I’ve also moved into machine learning. I have a first-author NeurIPS paper on text-to-image generation, a second-author NeurIPS paper on ML theory, and some work in PDEs.

I’ve been applying for Summer 2027 internships, mostly ML, research, and SWE-related roles. I’ve sent out more than 100 applications so far.

I haven’t received a single OA or interview.

I knew that being a Math PhD rather than a CS PhD might make industry recruiting harder, and I never expected publications alone to guarantee anything. But I didn’t expect to get almost completely filtered out before even speaking to anyone.

That’s probably the part that’s affecting me the most. If I were interviewing and failing, at least I’d know what I needed to improve. Right now I don’t even know what signal I’m getting from the market.

I’m starting to wonder whether my background simply doesn’t fit the roles I’m applying for. Maybe PDE + ML looks too scattered. Maybe I don’t have enough engineering or industry experience. Maybe I’m targeting roles that are much more competitive than I realize.

I really don’t know what to do at this point. My depression has been getting worse, and this whole process is starting to feel overwhelming.

I have received a rejection from a journal. Normally, I just move past it because academia is 99 percent rejection. But this one is different. The editor expected me to talk about a topic or argument I never intended to make. A simple analogy would be me talking about calculus, and the editor rejected because I did not talk about geometry. It is really frustrating because it was not judged based on its own arguments; he kept asking for geometry when it is not what the paper is about. Also, I noticed that even journal editors use AI to give comments that they are too vague to understand. I did submit to journals before. Back in 2020, comments were more straightforward and "human". Now, the comments are up there in the air. I cannot fully explain it. It is just like they are vomiting words of no meaning.

Hi all, Im doing PhD in US as an international student, I had previously made a post about how my advisor got upset when I had submitted a paper without his appdoval to submit as he wanted to change few authors (https://www.reddit.com/r/PhD/s/QHkr9cd7oA).

As a result, he got very aggressive and condescending and said bunch of things, due to which im taking therapy.

Anyways, that issue has been dealt with, but I feel like ever since then, he has been attacking me for every small mistake I do. Today I was showing him a report on a different thing, which I had been sending him again and again as each time he keeps finding grammar error or image position mistakes ( I use grammarly by the way). He pointed out that I didnt analyze it properly and Im being lazy and its bad for my career as people will not trust my data. I have been working on this for months, I have data in gigabytes and even showed him a model for this, that he agreed with at the time, even explained stuff on white board about what I think is happening, all before that submitting paper fiasco. Now all of a sudden all my format is wrong, my model is wrong, people dont trust me, I am lazy, etc.

Indirectly told me I will loose funding if I go home during christmas(https://www.reddit.com/r/PhD/s/EPLcPL1R0k).

I really am on the verge of quitting but I have done so much hardwork and just getting a publication, I do not know I feel stuck.

This is the only place where I can probably share what is happening and with my therapist of course. But ya'll are my PhD family so I just come here to vent, feel free to give any advice, I dont seek anything in particular, just came here to vent.

Thanks for reading.

I just did something this morning that felt completely out of my character and i've never done this with anyone before as i've always been a people pleaser. I passed by my supervisor for the first time this month, i smiled at him, he asked "How are you?", i replied "Good", still with a smile on my face, but as soon as he was behind me, the smile was immediately switched off and i was just thinking about how sick i was of this guy. Like i was straight-faced, eye rolling at him.

For context, i'm in my 4th year, it's 3 + 1 extra because i couldn't finish on time. And yet i still feel like i might not finish on time. Why? Because i'm doing this completely on my own, with zero supervision. More context, at the beginning of this year, i told my supervisor i wanted to quit because of the stress. He insisted it would be a waste so i suggested adding another co-sup so that i'd get more help, he refused. Doctoral school told me I could change supervisor and in fact they'd help me find another one. I spent a whole month thinking about it and turned it down because I thought "he didn't help me much with the research but maybe he'll help when i write my dissertation, i mean he's not a bad guy he's just not helpful". Stupid decision btw, my sister, my boyfriend both told me "he didn't help you before, why do you think he'll help you later" and they were right, and I didn't take their advice.

This month, I start writing my dissertation, I sent him the outline of the thesis to get feedbacks but that was 2 weeks ago, that's why when i saw him today and he acted all innocent and smiley, i knew he never opened what i sent him despite being very reassuring when we discussed about it. So that's how he is, 4 years of empty promises, 4 years of "i'll look into it", 4 years of saying "yes i'll find you a conference, if you like Japan i can find you a conference in Japan no problem", I still haven't gone to a single conference, haven't published a paper and probably never will, not with his "precious help". I do not know how any of this conference, article thing work and plus i'm buried deep in my job anyways with bugs and problems that never go away, results that i feel are not worthy of being presented to anyone. So 4 years of constant lying has made me a gangster, I now don't give a fuck and just want to finish and get out with or without his help. To be even more gangster, i plan to give him the mic to ask questions during my defense because he will know my work as much as the jury would (if not less) so he can join the jury too. But well, that's a thought.

I still work very hard daily to get this done, I'm not slacking off waiting for the plane to crash, I'm working hard whether the plane crashes or not because i don't care if it crashes or not, I now only care that when it does, at least i will not feel ashamed about what i did. Is this scary as shit? Yes it fucking is, i'm under constant stress, recently i've been waking up with the recurring thought of hurting myself, nothing extreme but i did hit my chest very hard, and my arm because i always feel like i should be doing more, working harder, but i'm not. I already work 9 hours a day (not including breaks) and yet i still constantly feel like i'm not doing enough and i hit/hate myself when i can't push myself to do more. The best part is this will be over in 6 more months so i'll just have to suck it up until then and hopefully not destroy myself before then. Luckily i do have a very good support system, my boyfriend really knows how to catch me when i come crashing like a truck so i'm very grateful for that.

I had been under the impression that when you did a PhD, you stayed on campus for the duration of it, but one of my coworkers is ABD and living/working in a different state than the university she's doing her PhD at. She also works full time at a different university (where I also work) in a job not tied to her doctoral work, which I also didn't realize was a possibility while doing a PhD.

Have other people done something similar? How typical/feasible is it to leave campus after you've finished your program's coursework? I'm applying to PhDs (social sciences) right now and I just kind of anticipated staying on campus for the 5-ish years of the program, I didn't realize there were other options.

I’m in my first year of my clinical PhD program in the United States and I feel inadequate. I took my first ever midterm, studied like crazy despite being at a conference two days before I took it, and I was constantly going to office hours to ask questions three weeks before the midterm. I finally got my grade back and I got a 70. My professor said it felt as if I had put no effort into her exam and the reason behind my grade was because I didn’t write enough in our open ended portion of the exam. I got partial points for getting the question right but I got a good portion of the points taken off for not explaining enough. I feel so stupid and inadequate. Is it over for me?

Have you ever been tasked with something completely impossible during your PhD or Masters?

And nobody told you it's actually impossible, so you've put some really extra effort for a prolonged period of time only to realize it's impossible much later on?

How did it affect you? What did it change in you? Why did it even happen in the first place? If it happened during your Masters, how did it affect your PhD? Share your stories.

To give some context I’m working on this sensing technique since my masters days, I used to really like it. My major work was to design and fabricate the sensing platform for the real application (it could be anything from pharmaceuticals, pesticides, pollutants, Drugs etc). Even my PhD project was originally to design the platform and test it for potential real world applications.

Few things led to other and somehow I kept getting closer to detecting more real world samples (or close to real world samples). Past few months I was working to detect antibiotics in blood Serum, suggested by our clinical partner.

And I realised that the question was never how low you can detect, it was more about how reliably and reproducibly you can detect. And it’s almost impossible, With bigger sample sizes, more batches, more donors added, the measurement errors keeps on increasing. And we don’t have any reference methods in this technique. It’s very exploited everyone mostly make another platform- test some molecules- make a paper. Then molecule change, platform change or both change and it keeps going like that.

But I realised that it has no future in the real world applications. And my plan was to continue with this for one postdoc then work with industry closely to make the platform more robust and make my own company. Now I feel like it’s a very dead end road. And I might need to find another plan. It feels like my whole life was a lie.

For context the environment is my program is not what I would call supportive. I have either seen or directly experienced students getting randomly audited, or threatened to be kicked out over honest mistakes. I am supposed to submit my dissertation manuscript to the committee tonight so they can review it before the defense (a month away). I am paralyzed by the fear that in my 20 pages of citations, I represented something wrong, that someone in my committee will catch it, and that I will be expelled/not able to get my PhD after 8 years because of it.

Is it reasonable to spend all night double checking every citation? 🥲

Edit: it's a social science PhD. I don't want to reveal more specific information in the fear that my committee somehow reads this and knows it's me.

I started my PhD last Fall at a really good public university in the USA, studying Electrical Engineering. It took me a while to find my footing. The first semester I got B's due to an unexpected medical emergency. The second semester I got an A in one class, and a C+ in the other- considered failing by my university (the professor was abusive and actively made fun of me for asking questions, I don't want to get into it, but it was a very toxic learning environment. I was not the only grad student who failed and- coincidentally- all of his students passed just fine).

So I've failed one class, I know that's not great, but I'm still well within the 3.0 GPA I'm expected to keep and the graduate advising office here has told me that as long as I keep that GPA, I will not be kicked out of the program or put on probation. An unfortunate setback, but oh well.

My advisor had arranged for me to work at government research lab over the summer to collect data for a joint paper between his lab and theirs. One week before I left, he informed me that he would no longer be funding my PhD because he 'didn't have the money'- he let me go and another student struggling with mental health issues. I didn't believe him, but I kept my mouth shut and hoped he'd 'find some money'. Of course he didn't (though I hear he has 3 new Post-Doctoral students in his lab this year, somehow I doubt that they're all pre-funded. He's not a good human being, to say the least.)

Point is, I still spent the summer working on HIS research- because that's what the government research lab was paying me to do. I have the data now and am working to get it published into a conference paper so I can move on from this awful experience and get crap done in my new lab. the issue is, the University advisor and my boss at the Government research lab keep moving the goal posts. They want more data taken, and more elaborate analysis techniques. And now they don't just want a conference paper, they want me to turn it into a journal paper (presumably because it looks better for them).

These people are not paying me anymore. I came out of this last meeting with them absolutely furious at their audacity and arrogance. Apparently this advisor didn't think I was good enough to pay for, but wants me to work for free for him. And all the while, I've got major projects brewing in my new lab.

I've told both the University Advisor and the Government Rep that I want to be done with this project. There's a conference submission deadline in early December, and I'm submitting to it. If they need more research done, then they can find someone else to do it. I have told them this directly and explicitly.

They're not listening to me. I've made a point not to share my data with anyone from the University, so that they can't publish without me, but I need to focus on my new projects. What am I supposed to do in this situation? Do I push for a conference paper against their wishes so I can finish? Or let them bully me into a full journal paper that will inevitably take much longer and require much more data? Or do I just drop this whole shitshow and keep the data for myself?

Thank you to anybody who takes their precious time to read my rant. I think I just need someone to tell me “yes this happens during a PhD, accept it and keep working” but I’m just emotionally hung up on it.

It’s been a month since I started my PhD. I’ve been out of school for years now, but I had an odd confidence that I’d excel if I just put enough effort in.

But I feel overwhelmed already. I’m taking three classes, two of which are math-heavy. I am trying to get used to my assigned research project, while also writing a separate paper, while also organizing an old rejected paper for resubmission. I leave my apartment at around 7:30am, stay inside my lab cubicle doing work (except for meetings and classes), and get home at around 7pm or 8pm. Everything takes so much longer for me to finish. It doesn’t help that I have severe anxiety and depression and also some mental disability that I’m trying to get a diagnosis for. I think I’ve been pushing myself too hard because I haven’t been able to think clearly for the past few days. But if I don’t push myself I’ll get behind so I can’t stop.

Today, I had my midterm exam for one of my math-heavy classes. I studied for hours, so it’s not like I wasn’t trying at all. But I’ve long lost my intuition with all these algebraic manipulations and the class didn’t come with enough practice questions to cram my brain with. It felt like my brain was glazing over the questions. I’ve never been stuck in an exam to the extent that I’d keep everything blank, but I guess today is the first time. All of the other students were scribbling something till the last minute to get partial credit. Even with the proposed grade adjustment, I’m going to get a 30% at most.

I know that this does not immediately put me in academic probation or anything, in fact this midterm is only 10% of the final grade so I still have a chance for a B even, but I feel so defeated right now. I now realize there was very little that I could’ve done to avoid this outcome, but I’d held off on my other tasks just to prepare for this exam. If I knew I was doomed from the start, I would’ve worked on other things. Now I’m just really sad and I also have multiple deadlines closing in on me.

I am going to skip gym and eat so much junk food tonight, and hopefully I’m at least a little over it by tomorrow morning. But dang is this really hard. I’ve got no idea how my peers and senior lab members are keeping it together.

Hello everyone, i have been looking for PhD opportunities without being actually employed by the uni/instituion, meaning signing up a student and working on my Phd on my own pace or within specific amount of hours weekly, sometimes with some obligatory class attendace for 1 or 2 days.

My situation: i am working full-time in Austria, i am a Non-EU resident.

I would appreciate some advice from people who saught a similar path, and specifically questions like:

1. how does it actually go, should i look for a supervisor first?
2. should i have my own phd proposal or could i join a research team?
3. what about NDA and confilct of interest wit my job?
4. what universities in europe can offer such programs?

Thank you all again :)

I have a master’s degree and around 12 years of industry experience at a FAAMNG company. I’m seriously considering returning to academia to pursue a STEM PhD at 37–38.
I’m curious how professors view applicants with this background. Would substantial industry experience be an advantage when approaching potential supervisors, or would my age and time away from academia put me at a disadvantage?
I’d particularly appreciate perspectives from professors and anyone who made a similar transition later in their career.

I’d like to begin fresh in a field which I’d like to explore.

TL;DR: I don't identify with research anymore and very likely won't find any good academic position after the Phd. I think working with ANYTHING else that allows me to have a slightly better living condition is the way, I am gratful for advice on what to do next.
(There is some venting here too, feel free also to not give advice)

I am on the last year of my Phd in pure mathematics. Academically it wasn't a good experience from the start. I moved to a different city and right off the bat started having financial trouble from expenses with moving and mental health services (at that time unrelated to academia). I've moved 4 times since then, from one shitty place to another. The only nice place I was renting was sold and I had to move.

My adviser never really helped me much. After critizing me harshly and in public after my quals, he started to give me some problems to solve, I would be stuck on them for a while and instead of helping he would just give me another problem. This while other students of his were working with him on ongoing projects. I recognize they are better than me but I think I needed more help.

A couple months ago I started to colaborate with another researcher here. He recognized I was in a complicated situation and put me to work in a project of his. I did some small stuff and got happy and motivated with maths again.

To put shortly, I lost motivation again because his expectations don't align much with what I think is acceptable from a mental health standpoint. For example, getting angry with me for not answering the phone at 6AM on a Monday (we had a meet schedule for Tuesday). And, unluckily, a lot researchers in my area in positions of power seem to be like this (or worse).

I don't think I am good enough to get any good postdoc or academic position after finishing. But I also have no idea of what else to do. I see in this subreddit a lot of people that want to move to tech, industry etc. I wouldn't mind pivotting to something completely different, the problem is that my only work experience was tutoring maths to undergraduates and teaching programming at a small unviersity. By looking at Linkedin, tech seems to be full of assholes but at least it pays better.

It is a poor LATAM country, so the stipend alone puts you in the top 66% richer (that is still poor in a developed country). What could I do to keep a similar/slightly better salary? Do you know people that went from math to something completely different? What are they doing? How did they make the change? What skills they had to develop?

My external examiner is an incredibly well-established and respected scholar in the field, and has been publishing in it since the mid-80s to considerable acclaim. She retired from her professorship quite recently but still oversees two journals and published more research as recently as last year.

I love her writing and cite it in my research but we have never, ever spoken. There is next to no reason that she would have ever known I existed. I (history PhD; Irish university) suggested her as an option because she's nearby in Scotland and I thought it was a funny hee-hee ha-ha suggestion when I was asked for a shortlist of five options by my supervisor. She doesn't know me from anyone, why would she travel all that way? To our complete shock, she replied to my supervisor saying she wanted to do it two weeks later. What was I going to do, say no?

That was a few months ago. My completed thesis is mediocre at best. Like, sincerely embarrassing. My viva was scheduled for two weeks earlier than I was expecting and I am terrified that this is because I have failed and so there's no reason to try and get me ready for graduation. I'm preparing and have a mock exam with my supervisor in about a week's time, but I'm completely at a loss as to what to expect. HELP!

Hey guys,

I will be attending this year AIChE in Minneapolis since Nov 8-11, if anyone is willing to share a room and cost then let me know. DM me ASAP bcz hotel price is getting high.

my phd buddiessss i need some help. at the moment, i am taking 2 courses and teaching one (assignments and 5-6 articles). i am conducting an eeg study and one side project. i am writing revisions to a submission. and having 3 regular meetings a week to discuss the projects. I AM PARALYZED😭😭 and can’t function because of all the stress.

i feel like even 12h work a day is not enough. how do you manage your time?

I'm a final-year engineering student, and since I did an undergrad research internship, my supervisor has become my final engineering project supervisor.

He's decided on my final-year project and wants me to do a PhD or a funded master's degree at this university, along with giving me a bunch of projects to work on, which are admittedly very fun and interesting.

I really like what I'm doing, and I've independently (I think) decided that a PhD is something I want, but it's so weird that this man is basically deciding my whole life for me.

I'm very grateful, and I gotta stay loyal, but this is just a very weird feeling that I'm having, like I have 0 agency in my life.

Is this normal, or is this how you guys end up here?

MSE, UK

The responses to my question below made me think: how will I know my love (or passion or obsession) is strong enough not just to finish, but to thrive in a PhD?

https://www.reddit.com/r/GradSchool/comments/1x5nxsc/comment/pgtqwdz/?screen_view_count=2