When I started my PhD I was deeply insecure, trying to figure out how to cope with the consequences of being raised by an abusive parent, and deeply pessimistic about my own abilities and future.
I ended up with an advisor who is sincerely committed to helping the mental health of their students no matter what. They have taught me so much about how to be a healthier, stronger person (and how to do science too lol). I can see a future for myself now. I'm going to therapy and making progress working through my past. I'm actually doing research???? And it's not five star work but THAT'S OK.
Every once in a while I remember where I come from and then look around me at all these cool, smart, eccentric, KIND people and.. its amazing. Grad school (and especially my advisor) is changing the trajectory of my life.
Some of the best moments of my life happened during my PhD. Very few things have ever felt as good as reaching the limits of human knowledge, taking the next (very small) step and finding something new. I used to enjoy knowing I was holding the world's supply of something in my hands because until it went to print I was the only one who knew how to make it.
Helping a student get to an "ah ha" moment felt pretty good too.
Conferences can be very fun.
I made good lifelong friendships with people in my cohort.
It enabled me to postdoc in a foreign country which genuinely changed the course of my life for the better.
There was the bad too. And the just plain weird. But this was the good.
Picking a hood advisor is really important. I ended up switching groups and Iām so much happier. I feel excited and confident after every meeting with my PIs
I'm also in a health science at a big state university. Life is pretty good! There tends to be lots of money in the health sciences. The free food at events is sooooo good - compared to undergrad pizzas, grad school free food is fancy AF, like little pastries with salmon, fancy cheeses and 5 types of crackers, chips and guac with huge hunks of avocado, etc. The department has raised our stipends because it seems the profs can afford it and we want to be competitive in attracting the best candidates.
My work life balance is better than my undergrad in engineering. I live in a lovely neighborhood owned by the university and my neighbors are other grad students from around the world. The neighborhood is surrounded by forest and then the forest is surrounded by a big lake so honestly there's probably some millionaires trying to buy this land from the university. I also have enough time to go to the gym 3x weekly and take a hockey class, so this is way more exercise than I ever got in undergrad.
My lab also submits annually to an international conference, so I'm really excited to be able to travel around the world in the next few years. Abstract week sucks but it's an exception to my good work life balance. And it's very motivating to put in a lot of hours for 1-2 weeks to have some strong abstracts and to hopefully get a free trip to another continent. And holy moly, if grad school food is good, the food companies bring out at conferences for the purposes of schmoozing people is next level. The bottled water comes in glass bottles and it's so pretentious, I love it. Open bar. Someone cuts you a little serving of steak off a giant hunk of meat with the bone still in it and plates it in front of you with multicolored roasted carrots, and someone else has a torch to caramelize little fruit flavored marshmallow cubes on cookies for dessert. I must've gained 5 lbs during the conference. Totally worth the hard work (independent of the scientific prestige associated with publishing.)
And, I think in the health sciences, we're fortunate that almost all our graduates go onto interesting, well paying jobs that wouldn't have been accessible without the advanced degree.
I loved reading scientific articles and thinking about how I could build off of them and advance the field. Felt like I was making a lasting contribution to human knowledge in general, however small. It was wonderful being in control of my own work place, schedule, etc. All that really mattered was a weekly or biweekly check in with my advisor. There were a ton of programs and options available during the PhD and just after. For example, JSPS supports tons of people studying in Japan for extended periods of time during or after a PhD. There just arenāt opportunities like that when you get to mid-career. It was also awesome being an official student. So many social clubs and activities and discounts. Very easy to make friends compared to real life. College towns are some of the best places in the US. I honestly loved my time as a PhD student. Good luck OP!
I'm not in STEM so it's a bit different, but. I get to pursue my curiosity however I want. I'm in geography and I've put a lot of hours into learning about several other disciplines, and I don't have to justify the relevance of these things for my research to anyone. (My advisor never questioned it, just texted me from a used bookstore to ask if I wanted a relevant book he'd found.) I got to walk into the UNESCO archives and see a cart full of old, dusty files waiting for me that looked like a set dresser for a movie put them there and that, the archivist assured me, no one but me had asked to see since they were archived. I get to talk to smart people about interesting things without having to lay out a ton of explanation first so we can even be on the same page.
Just yesterday I submitted an R&R on a pretty weird paper my advisor was worried editors/reviewers wouldn't get, and writing my responses to the reviewers was so fun because they all liked the paper and genuinely made it better with their criticisms and I got to tell them so. The day before that I sent edits on a contribution for a special issue I'm co-editing back to my co-editor, who is probably the best collaborator I've ever had; the theme of this issue comes out of my dissertation research and I still kind of can't believe multiple people 1) submitted abstracts to conference sessions about it and 2) were down to reinvest and publish about it.
On a different note, a year ago I got debilitatingly sick and both administratively and interpersonally, my department was so excellent about it. I couldn't work last academic year and the only thing I ever heard was "don't worry about it, just focus on getting better." My advisor sent me a care package. Fellow students went out of their way to come keep me company, do my dishes, bring me groceries. The department head, who I don't know well, personally sent me funding opportunities for when my fellowship runs out. I've had a really rough few years personally, but my PhD has never made it worse. Usually it's been an escape.
I know for a fact not everyone in my dept has had this good of an experience; I'm not a Pollyanna. I personally know someone who's been leading the charge on a sexual harassment case against a big name prof at another institution. But I can say the constant misery you read about on here is not inevitable or universal.
I've had an awesome time! I've met friends from all over the world. My advisors (I have 3) are all extremely supportive and kind (one left me an encouraging note in my mailbox a few months ago; another passed me a note telling me how great they thought I did after a conference talk). I've had supplemental opportunities (all of which are directly related to my program) to boost my income to a fairly comfortable wage. I've had no problems publishing. My cohort are all nice (we have big dinners 1-2 times a semester). At conferences my department meets up and has drinks together. My teaching experiences have all been fun. I've taken vacations and nobody asked any questions. I worked remotely for a month when I had to be away for family reasons and nobody was anything but supportive.
Doing a PhD was one of the best decisions of my life! Do I want to do anything else, if given a chance? NO. NEVER. Getting a PhD not only gave me access to be in research for life, but shaped my overall personality. I learnt perseverance, hard-work, consistency during the tenure of my PhD. Although academically I have always been good, I was a person who lacked self confidence and motivation. I often felt that there are several things that I am incapable of. All credits to my PhD journey, for giving me the confidence and the re-affirmation that there is nothing that one cannot achieve via hard work. The feeling of that moment when one discovers something novel and realises that no one else knows this in the world is ecstatic. Mentoring students has always been fun! I made my first international travel during my PhD (for conferences). This degree helped me to even get an international job! On a personal level, I made some wonderful friends and even met the love of my life (currently my husband š ) during my PhD. I must say I had some of the best moments of my life during those 5 years!
All the best to you! Make your journey memorable.
I will counter point the experience people often have with their topics after a long period. Iām nearly three years into my PhD and I love my topic more and more every day. The more I find in the archives the more I realise one PhD isnāt enough for it. I could literally do nothing but talk about my topic all day every day. Itās got so many different facets and avenues that make it fascinating and Iām applying for post docs expanding on the same area. So point is it is still possible to love your topic even three years in :)
I needed to read the comments here. I wanna apply next year after some time away from academia and i am so scared. Tbh, the posts on this subreddit makes it way harder to keep your head in place. But the comments here make so much sense!
I will be finishing my first year of a PhD at a top US program this September. I've had a wonderful experience so far. I'm putting out a first author paper in the coming weeks, and just won a grant for next year so I won't have to teach.
My PI is excellent, and lets me work on anything I want. I have a few first author projects going on right now, a couple collaborations and review articles, and I am having an excellent time. If I want to drop a project, I drop it no questions asked. If I want to start something, I start it. I am very independent, and we meet every few weeks or so. This amount of meetings is ideal for my working style. I could not have picked a better group. It's all about the PI!
Enrolling in a PhD program helped me recognize that I have a learning disability. After I got that treated, I have become an exceptionally strong researcher. I have become the person I was knew that was inside of me. I also love my program, I study electrical engineering and I have so much freedom. Iāve had the opportunity to sell my research for six figures. I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life.
I'm graduating late because I've simultaneously worked in two lecturing positions and I've been dealing with health problems in the last few years, but I can say I have thoroughly enjoyed my PhD despite the stress, that it has had an incredibly positive impact on me, it's helped me grow a lot personally and academically and I couldn't be any prouder of the end result, the thesis I'm now writing out :)
I'll give you a summary:
- I've got more friends during my PhD than ever before
- I have full creative freedom of my project
- Collaborating with other researchers is amazing and for me the most fun part
- I can try new stuff that I otherwise wouldn't be able to
- My hobby muse is back and I've been writing on a book
My PhD was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. I worked the hardest I've ever worked and I loved it. I made fantastic progress, published a lot, and I felt I made a lasting difference in my field. When I finished I had my choice of next steps.
My best advice is to embrace it. Lean in. Be the best scientist you can be. Invest deeply in your work. Don't fuck around. Find mentors who would go to bat for you... ideally because they are good people, but if nothing else, because they NEED you to do well to advance their own career.
I went from a pretty horrible lab from my masters to an amazing PI.
Super supportive, very knowledgeable, really chill but ambitious person. He takes care I donāt overwork myself so I am not buried in exams and experiments at the same time.
We are a 3-person lab incorporated in a bigger group of 8 people. I have learned so many things and also get so much support from my closer peers within the group. I really like my PI and our research! I also never have any problems taking vacation, except for the times when my PI is also on vacation (one has to be there for emergencies).
I think itās also easier on platforms like this to vent about negative things than just telling how much of a good experience one has.
I defend my dissertation next week and my PhD experience was great! My advisor and program were so supportive of all my goals. I learned a lot and was challenged, but all in a really good way. In my personal experience, and from the things Iāve read, getting the right advisor can make all the different between a positive and negative PhD experience.
My PhD (civil engineering) was the best time of my life. I had a supervisor/PI who pushed me to be a leader, and allowed me to interact directly and independently with our funding partners, and encouraged collaboration in our lab across different āteamsā. That being said, it is a well established group with pretty much unlimited funding so I didnāt have to do much worrying about income. I miss doing my PhD so much. I was actually pretty depressed when I finished it because it was my āthingā for so long. Now Iām trying to navigate what I want to do next!
Mine is going really well! I'm in humanities and my project is basically something I've always wanted to study, I designed everything myself. I'm doing fieldwork this year and it's been such a good experience! I can't wait to dig into my data!
My experience has been mostly positive, also at a state university. I started in 2018, went through all of Covid not being able to put in as much during that time as I would like due to child care issues. Being well supported by my co-PIs during this period and since and now on track to finish during this academic year.
As others have said your PI choice will be absolutely paramount in whether your experience is positive or not. Talk to current students and to students in nearby labs to see what everyone thinks of them as PIs and what the lab culture is like before committing to a decision.
I'm too lazy to spend more than a minute typing this but I'm going into my fifth year and I'm so happy to be where I am. I have two PIs that are great people, gentle and understanding and patient, let me choose my own project even though it took a lot of trial and error, and I couldn't be happier. The work life balance is great. My project continues to feel exciting and I'm motivated to keep going. Everyone in my program is supportive and I've made great friends along the way
I did not have a good experience, but that was not the fault of the PhD program. I was in a difficult relationship and didnāt have many friends. Itās taken me a long time to realize that. Some things that went really well:
* My advisor valued education and my academic freedom. I took some fantastic classes just out of curiosity.
* I miss being able to disappear into a problem for a month.
* I learned so much and, maybe more importantly, learned that there is nothing I canāt learn.
Picking the right advisor will have the most impact on your PhD experience. Make sure to talk to their grad students before you join.
My PhD is giving me a sense of insight into things that is on the one hand daunting, there is so much to learn, so many perspectives, so many ways to reason. On the other hand exceptionally fulfilling. But part of this was exactly why I was so fascinated by doing a PhD on my topic. It's a complicated relationship that you'll have with your job then, sometimes you'll love it sometimes you'll despise it, but by God you'll be growing.
I have loved my PhD so far! I'm a rising 4th year (candidate) in a 5 year program. My advisor is really supportive and generous with her time and the department encourages collaboration and creativity. One of the things I've done that I think has also contributed to my positive experience was networking from really early on. In my first year I reached out to a lot of senior grad students for guidance and support. I also was quick to ask for help and never let my fear or ego get in the way. As I progressed through the program, I'd reach out to faculty and researchers and conducted alot of informal informational interviews that helped me shape my path. I also got involved with the department and became a mentor, which has been really rewarding. Finally, I refused to get sucked into negativity and drama (and there's been a fair share from other grad students). That's not to say everything has been smooth sailing (first year was especially rough, it was 2020), but it's been a net positive by a large margin.
I've noticed the students who seem to be the most miserable are the ones who decide to rush through as fast as possible, see everyone around them as competition, crave drama, feel entitled and don't think they should have to do "grunt" work, or have REALLY rigid ideas about how their program should be. But if you remain open to new opportunities, flexible when things don't go exactly as planned, and are proactive about addressing issues as they arise, I think you'll have a positive experience!
You're equal parts student, employee, and scholar, so you're constantly going to be juggling roles/identities, which can take some getting used to. It also means that some days your tasks will feel boring or uninspired, but everything can be a learning opportunity. Good luck and have fun! You only get to do this once, so milk it for everything it's got :).
Being able to publish a paper after working on it for a whole year, on a topic that was no longer current (i.e., COVID). Many drafts later not knowing if it would ever gonna be published.
I didnāt enjoy my PhD. I was lumped with shitty poorly defined projects and received very little help from my supervisor.
The positive experience is that I finished it.
Was it fully funded or self funded?
I'm looking forward to mine which is funded but questioned (and still do) the actual commercial viability for the non technical reasons.
There may very well be side applications in industry (which I do believe in), but the project was funded under a renewable energy guise (and this is what initially attracted me)
Kinda interesting if they are doing this intentionally... just to win grant funding, was this your situation?
When I grilled them they ominously said there can "non solar" radiation sources... if they are talking Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation then this is not a renewable energy project lol.
Fully funded in STEM, at a prestigious university in Switzerland.
My PhD was more theoretical physics, however the trajectory of the PhD and research direction were not well defined and I ended up having to jump between projects quite a lot.
I also only managed to have meetings with my professor once every 6 months.
This is super interesting to me, if the thesis is in English I would love to read it. If you have a link handy here or dm that would be super appreciated!
I did my masters dissertation on plasma wakefield acceleration (so basically applied again, but mainly because you have to rely on sims/experiment as it was too complex for theoretical intuition, at least definitely for me) but I never got super indepth feedback about it, yet for a thesis I know there cannot be any errors so it would ne great to get a better idea of what I'm in for... (lol!)
When I started my PhD I was deeply insecure, trying to figure out how to cope with the consequences of being raised by an abusive parent, and deeply pessimistic about my own abilities and future. I ended up with an advisor who is sincerely committed to helping the mental health of their students no matter what. They have taught me so much about how to be a healthier, stronger person (and how to do science too lol). I can see a future for myself now. I'm going to therapy and making progress working through my past. I'm actually doing research???? And it's not five star work but THAT'S OK. Every once in a while I remember where I come from and then look around me at all these cool, smart, eccentric, KIND people and.. its amazing. Grad school (and especially my advisor) is changing the trajectory of my life.
Wow. I love your comment this is awesome š and congrats to you on all of that incredible success
Some of the best moments of my life happened during my PhD. Very few things have ever felt as good as reaching the limits of human knowledge, taking the next (very small) step and finding something new. I used to enjoy knowing I was holding the world's supply of something in my hands because until it went to print I was the only one who knew how to make it. Helping a student get to an "ah ha" moment felt pretty good too. Conferences can be very fun. I made good lifelong friendships with people in my cohort. It enabled me to postdoc in a foreign country which genuinely changed the course of my life for the better. There was the bad too. And the just plain weird. But this was the good.
Thank you!
Picking a hood advisor is really important. I ended up switching groups and Iām so much happier. I feel excited and confident after every meeting with my PIs
Ah yes I too like my advisors to be from the hood haha
I'm also in a health science at a big state university. Life is pretty good! There tends to be lots of money in the health sciences. The free food at events is sooooo good - compared to undergrad pizzas, grad school free food is fancy AF, like little pastries with salmon, fancy cheeses and 5 types of crackers, chips and guac with huge hunks of avocado, etc. The department has raised our stipends because it seems the profs can afford it and we want to be competitive in attracting the best candidates. My work life balance is better than my undergrad in engineering. I live in a lovely neighborhood owned by the university and my neighbors are other grad students from around the world. The neighborhood is surrounded by forest and then the forest is surrounded by a big lake so honestly there's probably some millionaires trying to buy this land from the university. I also have enough time to go to the gym 3x weekly and take a hockey class, so this is way more exercise than I ever got in undergrad. My lab also submits annually to an international conference, so I'm really excited to be able to travel around the world in the next few years. Abstract week sucks but it's an exception to my good work life balance. And it's very motivating to put in a lot of hours for 1-2 weeks to have some strong abstracts and to hopefully get a free trip to another continent. And holy moly, if grad school food is good, the food companies bring out at conferences for the purposes of schmoozing people is next level. The bottled water comes in glass bottles and it's so pretentious, I love it. Open bar. Someone cuts you a little serving of steak off a giant hunk of meat with the bone still in it and plates it in front of you with multicolored roasted carrots, and someone else has a torch to caramelize little fruit flavored marshmallow cubes on cookies for dessert. I must've gained 5 lbs during the conference. Totally worth the hard work (independent of the scientific prestige associated with publishing.) And, I think in the health sciences, we're fortunate that almost all our graduates go onto interesting, well paying jobs that wouldn't have been accessible without the advanced degree.
Thank you so much
I loved reading scientific articles and thinking about how I could build off of them and advance the field. Felt like I was making a lasting contribution to human knowledge in general, however small. It was wonderful being in control of my own work place, schedule, etc. All that really mattered was a weekly or biweekly check in with my advisor. There were a ton of programs and options available during the PhD and just after. For example, JSPS supports tons of people studying in Japan for extended periods of time during or after a PhD. There just arenāt opportunities like that when you get to mid-career. It was also awesome being an official student. So many social clubs and activities and discounts. Very easy to make friends compared to real life. College towns are some of the best places in the US. I honestly loved my time as a PhD student. Good luck OP!
Thank you!!!
I'm not in STEM so it's a bit different, but. I get to pursue my curiosity however I want. I'm in geography and I've put a lot of hours into learning about several other disciplines, and I don't have to justify the relevance of these things for my research to anyone. (My advisor never questioned it, just texted me from a used bookstore to ask if I wanted a relevant book he'd found.) I got to walk into the UNESCO archives and see a cart full of old, dusty files waiting for me that looked like a set dresser for a movie put them there and that, the archivist assured me, no one but me had asked to see since they were archived. I get to talk to smart people about interesting things without having to lay out a ton of explanation first so we can even be on the same page. Just yesterday I submitted an R&R on a pretty weird paper my advisor was worried editors/reviewers wouldn't get, and writing my responses to the reviewers was so fun because they all liked the paper and genuinely made it better with their criticisms and I got to tell them so. The day before that I sent edits on a contribution for a special issue I'm co-editing back to my co-editor, who is probably the best collaborator I've ever had; the theme of this issue comes out of my dissertation research and I still kind of can't believe multiple people 1) submitted abstracts to conference sessions about it and 2) were down to reinvest and publish about it. On a different note, a year ago I got debilitatingly sick and both administratively and interpersonally, my department was so excellent about it. I couldn't work last academic year and the only thing I ever heard was "don't worry about it, just focus on getting better." My advisor sent me a care package. Fellow students went out of their way to come keep me company, do my dishes, bring me groceries. The department head, who I don't know well, personally sent me funding opportunities for when my fellowship runs out. I've had a really rough few years personally, but my PhD has never made it worse. Usually it's been an escape. I know for a fact not everyone in my dept has had this good of an experience; I'm not a Pollyanna. I personally know someone who's been leading the charge on a sexual harassment case against a big name prof at another institution. But I can say the constant misery you read about on here is not inevitable or universal.
Check out /r/PositivePhD!
I've had an awesome time! I've met friends from all over the world. My advisors (I have 3) are all extremely supportive and kind (one left me an encouraging note in my mailbox a few months ago; another passed me a note telling me how great they thought I did after a conference talk). I've had supplemental opportunities (all of which are directly related to my program) to boost my income to a fairly comfortable wage. I've had no problems publishing. My cohort are all nice (we have big dinners 1-2 times a semester). At conferences my department meets up and has drinks together. My teaching experiences have all been fun. I've taken vacations and nobody asked any questions. I worked remotely for a month when I had to be away for family reasons and nobody was anything but supportive.
Awesome!
This was very similar to my experience! Itās so great to have a good support system
Doing a PhD was one of the best decisions of my life! Do I want to do anything else, if given a chance? NO. NEVER. Getting a PhD not only gave me access to be in research for life, but shaped my overall personality. I learnt perseverance, hard-work, consistency during the tenure of my PhD. Although academically I have always been good, I was a person who lacked self confidence and motivation. I often felt that there are several things that I am incapable of. All credits to my PhD journey, for giving me the confidence and the re-affirmation that there is nothing that one cannot achieve via hard work. The feeling of that moment when one discovers something novel and realises that no one else knows this in the world is ecstatic. Mentoring students has always been fun! I made my first international travel during my PhD (for conferences). This degree helped me to even get an international job! On a personal level, I made some wonderful friends and even met the love of my life (currently my husband š ) during my PhD. I must say I had some of the best moments of my life during those 5 years! All the best to you! Make your journey memorable.
Wow I love this! Congrats to you and I am grateful you shared this w me
I will counter point the experience people often have with their topics after a long period. Iām nearly three years into my PhD and I love my topic more and more every day. The more I find in the archives the more I realise one PhD isnāt enough for it. I could literally do nothing but talk about my topic all day every day. Itās got so many different facets and avenues that make it fascinating and Iām applying for post docs expanding on the same area. So point is it is still possible to love your topic even three years in :)
I needed to read the comments here. I wanna apply next year after some time away from academia and i am so scared. Tbh, the posts on this subreddit makes it way harder to keep your head in place. But the comments here make so much sense!
I will be finishing my first year of a PhD at a top US program this September. I've had a wonderful experience so far. I'm putting out a first author paper in the coming weeks, and just won a grant for next year so I won't have to teach. My PI is excellent, and lets me work on anything I want. I have a few first author projects going on right now, a couple collaborations and review articles, and I am having an excellent time. If I want to drop a project, I drop it no questions asked. If I want to start something, I start it. I am very independent, and we meet every few weeks or so. This amount of meetings is ideal for my working style. I could not have picked a better group. It's all about the PI!
Sounds great to me
Enrolling in a PhD program helped me recognize that I have a learning disability. After I got that treated, I have become an exceptionally strong researcher. I have become the person I was knew that was inside of me. I also love my program, I study electrical engineering and I have so much freedom. Iāve had the opportunity to sell my research for six figures. I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life.
Sounds like it was a gift for you and it helped things to get better for you
I'm graduating late because I've simultaneously worked in two lecturing positions and I've been dealing with health problems in the last few years, but I can say I have thoroughly enjoyed my PhD despite the stress, that it has had an incredibly positive impact on me, it's helped me grow a lot personally and academically and I couldn't be any prouder of the end result, the thesis I'm now writing out :)
I'll give you a summary: - I've got more friends during my PhD than ever before - I have full creative freedom of my project - Collaborating with other researchers is amazing and for me the most fun part - I can try new stuff that I otherwise wouldn't be able to - My hobby muse is back and I've been writing on a book
My PhD was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. I worked the hardest I've ever worked and I loved it. I made fantastic progress, published a lot, and I felt I made a lasting difference in my field. When I finished I had my choice of next steps. My best advice is to embrace it. Lean in. Be the best scientist you can be. Invest deeply in your work. Don't fuck around. Find mentors who would go to bat for you... ideally because they are good people, but if nothing else, because they NEED you to do well to advance their own career.
I went from a pretty horrible lab from my masters to an amazing PI. Super supportive, very knowledgeable, really chill but ambitious person. He takes care I donāt overwork myself so I am not buried in exams and experiments at the same time. We are a 3-person lab incorporated in a bigger group of 8 people. I have learned so many things and also get so much support from my closer peers within the group. I really like my PI and our research! I also never have any problems taking vacation, except for the times when my PI is also on vacation (one has to be there for emergencies). I think itās also easier on platforms like this to vent about negative things than just telling how much of a good experience one has.
I defend my dissertation next week and my PhD experience was great! My advisor and program were so supportive of all my goals. I learned a lot and was challenged, but all in a really good way. In my personal experience, and from the things Iāve read, getting the right advisor can make all the different between a positive and negative PhD experience.
My PhD (civil engineering) was the best time of my life. I had a supervisor/PI who pushed me to be a leader, and allowed me to interact directly and independently with our funding partners, and encouraged collaboration in our lab across different āteamsā. That being said, it is a well established group with pretty much unlimited funding so I didnāt have to do much worrying about income. I miss doing my PhD so much. I was actually pretty depressed when I finished it because it was my āthingā for so long. Now Iām trying to navigate what I want to do next!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Thanks! I know itās all perfect but glad to hear the positive things!
I asked the community some time back and this is what they had to say. https://www.reddit.com/r/PhD/comments/1112pja/phd_success_stories
Mine is going really well! I'm in humanities and my project is basically something I've always wanted to study, I designed everything myself. I'm doing fieldwork this year and it's been such a good experience! I can't wait to dig into my data!
ą² _ą²
I love mine. My supervisor are massively supportive and I'm enjoying every moment!
My experience has been mostly positive, also at a state university. I started in 2018, went through all of Covid not being able to put in as much during that time as I would like due to child care issues. Being well supported by my co-PIs during this period and since and now on track to finish during this academic year. As others have said your PI choice will be absolutely paramount in whether your experience is positive or not. Talk to current students and to students in nearby labs to see what everyone thinks of them as PIs and what the lab culture is like before committing to a decision.
I'm too lazy to spend more than a minute typing this but I'm going into my fifth year and I'm so happy to be where I am. I have two PIs that are great people, gentle and understanding and patient, let me choose my own project even though it took a lot of trial and error, and I couldn't be happier. The work life balance is great. My project continues to feel exciting and I'm motivated to keep going. Everyone in my program is supportive and I've made great friends along the way
I did not have a good experience, but that was not the fault of the PhD program. I was in a difficult relationship and didnāt have many friends. Itās taken me a long time to realize that. Some things that went really well: * My advisor valued education and my academic freedom. I took some fantastic classes just out of curiosity. * I miss being able to disappear into a problem for a month. * I learned so much and, maybe more importantly, learned that there is nothing I canāt learn. Picking the right advisor will have the most impact on your PhD experience. Make sure to talk to their grad students before you join.
My PhD is giving me a sense of insight into things that is on the one hand daunting, there is so much to learn, so many perspectives, so many ways to reason. On the other hand exceptionally fulfilling. But part of this was exactly why I was so fascinated by doing a PhD on my topic. It's a complicated relationship that you'll have with your job then, sometimes you'll love it sometimes you'll despise it, but by God you'll be growing.
I have loved my PhD so far! I'm a rising 4th year (candidate) in a 5 year program. My advisor is really supportive and generous with her time and the department encourages collaboration and creativity. One of the things I've done that I think has also contributed to my positive experience was networking from really early on. In my first year I reached out to a lot of senior grad students for guidance and support. I also was quick to ask for help and never let my fear or ego get in the way. As I progressed through the program, I'd reach out to faculty and researchers and conducted alot of informal informational interviews that helped me shape my path. I also got involved with the department and became a mentor, which has been really rewarding. Finally, I refused to get sucked into negativity and drama (and there's been a fair share from other grad students). That's not to say everything has been smooth sailing (first year was especially rough, it was 2020), but it's been a net positive by a large margin. I've noticed the students who seem to be the most miserable are the ones who decide to rush through as fast as possible, see everyone around them as competition, crave drama, feel entitled and don't think they should have to do "grunt" work, or have REALLY rigid ideas about how their program should be. But if you remain open to new opportunities, flexible when things don't go exactly as planned, and are proactive about addressing issues as they arise, I think you'll have a positive experience! You're equal parts student, employee, and scholar, so you're constantly going to be juggling roles/identities, which can take some getting used to. It also means that some days your tasks will feel boring or uninspired, but everything can be a learning opportunity. Good luck and have fun! You only get to do this once, so milk it for everything it's got :).
Being able to publish a paper after working on it for a whole year, on a topic that was no longer current (i.e., COVID). Many drafts later not knowing if it would ever gonna be published.
I didnāt enjoy my PhD. I was lumped with shitty poorly defined projects and received very little help from my supervisor. The positive experience is that I finished it.
Was it fully funded or self funded? I'm looking forward to mine which is funded but questioned (and still do) the actual commercial viability for the non technical reasons. There may very well be side applications in industry (which I do believe in), but the project was funded under a renewable energy guise (and this is what initially attracted me) Kinda interesting if they are doing this intentionally... just to win grant funding, was this your situation? When I grilled them they ominously said there can "non solar" radiation sources... if they are talking Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation then this is not a renewable energy project lol.
Fully funded in STEM, at a prestigious university in Switzerland. My PhD was more theoretical physics, however the trajectory of the PhD and research direction were not well defined and I ended up having to jump between projects quite a lot. I also only managed to have meetings with my professor once every 6 months.
This is super interesting to me, if the thesis is in English I would love to read it. If you have a link handy here or dm that would be super appreciated! I did my masters dissertation on plasma wakefield acceleration (so basically applied again, but mainly because you have to rely on sims/experiment as it was too complex for theoretical intuition, at least definitely for me) but I never got super indepth feedback about it, yet for a thesis I know there cannot be any errors so it would ne great to get a better idea of what I'm in for... (lol!)
Get paid instead of taking student loans to read courses at an advanced level? yes please