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 🤍

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.

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

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 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 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.

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 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.

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’m an upper year PhD student in STEM and I feel like I have lost my ability to speak or articulate my thoughts. My vocabulary is awful, I go into meetings with my committee and can’t get the words out. Everything feels like foggy. I know what I am talking about and I used to be able to argue points so well, but within the last 6 months I feel like my cognitive capacities have declined substantially.

I’m not sure what to do, any advice?

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.

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.

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?

So I recently completed my masters and have some experience in quantum optics(tho my lab was quantum optics lab, my work wasn't exaclty on that, but closely related). So with that, I applied for project assistant positions and got one at a national institute(IISc). When I was joining I thought I will be working closely with a PhD scholar on an 'ongoing' project, so it was perfect for me to watch and learn and also assist, which gives me some research experience for my CV, and I might get a paper too.

But, after joining, the scholar said they were stuck as well...

So atp, I have no particular project going on, and also no stipend. Its only been a week since I joined, and my goal is to join a phd abroad in TU Delft or any other uni doing good quantum research.

So my question is,

1. Am i in the right path?? Because having no project and no fund here has taken me aback for some reason and made me think that i mightxve made aweong choice. Is this normal(phds not having a proper project)??

2. Even if I continue here for six months, get to know the lab and research, without a proper project or result, what are the chances of me getting into a phd abroad??

3. Tho I am from a physics background, the lab is interdisciplinary. Does that have any weight??

4. What do the professors abroad actually look for while accepting students?? Because some even with publications are struggling to get into a program with funding.

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

TLDR: I finished a my PhD program in Accountancy and I feel like I shouldn’t have been able to do that if I have adhd.

Hi all, I finished my PhD in August (hooray!) after a long five dedicated years. However, since starting my full time position I feel like my focus has been horrible. To be fair, I feel like it’s gotten progressively worse over the last 10 years but not enough to be disruptive. My spouse has said for years they think I have ADHD (he’s an NP in mental health) but I mostly brushed it off.

Because my focus is getting disruptive, I’m consulting a doctor about it, but I feel like I shouldn’t have been able to do everything I’ve done if I had adhd and it just NOW being as bad as it is. Any personal experiences or advice appreciated!

How are you doing? What is your degree in? What is your day-to-day like?

I'm currently in my 5th year and life is just much different now than it was toward the beginning. Sometimes it's hard to believe it's even the same program I'm in. I've gone through divorce, the deaths of multiple family members, and much much much more. I hardly even feel like the same person.

The average duration in my program is a touch more than 6 years (it's an APA-accredited clinical psych program, but not the best-funded, so our students have to work external jobs a bit more in order to survive). I'm on track and everything is going pretty well, considering :) I just wanted to hear from other people who are super deep in and toward the tail end and their interesting anecdotes.

Blessings :)

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?

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?

I am currently entering my 3rd year of a STEM PhD program and I am really struggling. I came in to the program fresh off of undergrad because it felt like the next logical step at the time (also, I did not want to take out additional loans for school). I just got through my candidacy exam by the skin of my teeth, and just recently hit ABD status.

Now here is the issue- I hate research. I had a bit of experience coming off of my undergrad years, but the more and more I do it the less I enjoy it. Going into lab each day is miserable. My PI is wonderful, and I genuinely have no complaints about them. My lab environment is also great, my coworkers and myself are all good friends. I just cannot bring myself to enjoy the actual research part. I find myself avoiding it more and more. I do have a yearly crisis around this time of year, but this feels worse than usual.

I love teaching, but a lot of times I let that be my priority over my lab work. I know I am not making good progress but I really just cannot bring myself to go sit in lab for hours and hours for another failed experiment. Even just thinking about my lab work is so anxiety Inducing sometimes I just end up crying or upset.

People in my program stay anywhere from 5-7 years. I just do not know if I have it in me to stay that long. I try my best to be involved, we have graduate clubs and things I am a part of. I love my friends and the life that I have built here, but the actual degree seeking part is draining the life from me. Based on my current progress, I have a feeling I would be in this program closer to 6 years total.

The worst part is, I don’t even know what I want to do. I chose a STEM degree because I love learning and it was challenging- but now I have no more classes and it feels like I’m not actually learning, but just mindlessly repeating.

I have thought about other programs- other professional programs, maybe law school related stuff, but I don’t know if a PhD is even necessary for the jobs I’m interested in. I have heard more and more that a PhD is actually over qualifying in some fields. I feel like I’m in too deep to be able to leave and pursue something else, but the thought of having to do research forever is scaring me. I also hate quitting things and I know my ego will be bruised. I am also scared my friends and colleagues will look at me differently if I leave. When I chose this degree I left my passions behind for the pursuit of a higher salary. (Edit: leaving my current situation would be a risk in itself, I have minimal savings, a partner here, and I am a first gen college student. This program is at least stable for the time being).

If anyone else has been in this situation, how did you approach it? Is it worth it to keep chugging through a field I hate for the sake of doing it?

they are ghosting all the messages i bump, i have involved my department admin, but not other committee members or my dept chair. it’s been 18 days and they said they would approve it verbally in a meeting when i showed my revisions

anything else i should do?

its a pity (for my academic career, like getting a LOR in the future) but i know they dislike me

i had a successful defense and overall phd. published a lot with them

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?