desp1

I am going to have to disagree with you here. I have had extreme bad luck with funding, bad reviewers, and the structure of collaboration in my department. Similar things are happening to other students. I don't want to be defensive, but if you knew all the facts you would not be suspecting what you do, but I can't go into specifics due to fears that someone at my institution may see these posts and figure out who I am. In a nutshell, your view is too uncharitable given my circumstances. But thank you for saying this anyway. I do like healthy criticism.

The problem is, most professors here are reluctant to take on new students because they are already over-extended. I would also need time to get them up to speed on what I'm studying (though that is one possible advantage to summer). I do have a committee and in fact was very near to being able to start writing my thesis, but then my advisor started giving me more irrelevant work, being hard to reach, forgetting everything, etc. and there have been a number of other issues which were completely outside of my control that caused me to lose more time. The combined effect of all of this is that I am far behind and feel totally stuck. I did not switch earlier because (a) I had no idea it was going to get this bad, (b) I wanted to publish something first so I could make myself more appealing to future collaborators, and (c) I didn't want to get caught in the perpetual TA trap due to lack of funding many PI's have been suffering from in my department since sequestration.

I am a 9th year Ph.D. student and in the last 2 years or so my advisor has become disorganized, has started forgetting to work with me, has missed some times he was supposed to meet me, and now only responds to about half his E-mails. He is now forgetting to inform me when he will be out of town and has forgotten some major discussions we had. Furthermore, the things has asks me to do are less and less reasonable and have become repetitive. He keeps wanting me to re-write my computer code over and over to test different things with no coherent idea where we are going. He insists all of this is "normal" but rumor has it that he has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. If he forgets to respond to me this summer on his sabbatical or misses meeting, I am likely scr**ed because by the time he gets back that will be another 5-6 months of mental deterioration. I am desperate and fear that it may be too late to switch advisors. Should I drop out or do I have recourse? I am afraid to tell the higher-ups about this because I have no proof of his diagnosis despite the fact that he has been showing difficulty even remembering his own office phone number and is far more disorganized than ever before, even compared to previous times when he was under a lot of stress due to grants, etc. Help!!!!!!

Sounds to me like at the least you can pay the interest on your loans, so that even if you don't chip away on the principal, you'll graduate with only $20k in debt. And even small payments toward the principal will make that number smaller still. Don't set an impossible goal for yourself....but keep up the great work and it's wonderful you are contributing toward retirement!

It can be done, if you are really super-super frugal, and if your stipend is reasonably generous. I have never had student loans but I have managed to save about $37k, not counting any family contributions, and while paying all my bills. If I can save $37,000 in grad school with no debt, I'm sure if I had had $20k in debt, it would have been destroyed by now. But the catch is, you REALLY have to make sacrifices (no car, shared housing, don't eat out/travel much), and of course your stipend has to be decent. If you're stuck making $16k/year, it won't happen.

I already talked to him, and I am below the first and second year students on the priority list because that's how long they guarantee a position in my program, though I am above most of the others on the priority list. He does not know the exact number of students that will be admitted in the Fall.

That "fully funded" was a euphemism for "working two jobs, one of which is unpaid slave labor".

I am in a physics Ph.D. program and have been here for many years, and had no trouble with TA positions before. I just found out I am unemployed for the summer because the number of summer classes has fallen. Does this mean I should worry about Fall and try to find a job elsewhere, or is there no relationship? Anybody else had this happen?