PhD advisor makes me want to dropout

[ticks_and_stuff]

A huge rant but.. if you can give me advice I'd be very grateful! 

 

So I'm a third year PhD student (in biology) with a Masters degree already. I joined my current PhD program to work for a specific PI and to take on a specific project. When I started I had a list of questions that I needed to answer, which shaped the project.

 

I was under the impression that if I worked hard (and by hard I mean insane amount of hours) that I would finish when the project was "completed" and not after a set amount of years. Anyways, after 2 years I have answered all of the original questions with great results, however my PI has decided to add more questions to my project.  Although they are related, they are very time intensive and will add another 3 years to finish.

 

I have been told to not work as much (more like 40 hours per week), but that seems to be a waste of my time when I could be more productive and move on to a postdoc quicker!

 

I am wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation and how you handled it.

[Dedi]

I actually agree with your advisor to not work as much. What's the rush? You need to take care of yourself, too, otherwise you will burn yourself out. You won't be able to finish your degree and then what? You can't be a postdoc without your doctorate.

I'm excited about doing my research as well, but I know I need to take time for myself (socialize, sleep, eat, meditate). I work with rats, and they need time to grow up into adults. That time period keeps me sane.

 

It's not about the destination; it's the journey that matters. Enjoy some time to just be a graduate student.

 

Otherwise, imo, you sound impatient and childish.

[GeoDUDE!]

I actually agree with your advisor to not work as much. What's the rush? You need to take care of yourself, too, otherwise you will burn yourself out. You won't be able to finish your degree and then what? You can't be a postdoc without your doctorate.

I'm excited about doing my research as well, but I know I need to take time for myself (socialize, sleep, eat, meditate). I work with rats, and they need time to grow up into adults. That time period keeps me sane.

 

It's not about the destination; it's the journey that matters. Enjoy some time to just be a graduate student.

 

Otherwise, imo, you sound impatient and childish.

 

 

I disagree; The student should work however much he/she feels comfortable. This is especially true if you feel like you are 'putting your life on hold' for graduate school: its the advisors job to best facilitate the needs of the student while upholding the standards of the department: once the student surpasses the standards set in the beginning, there should be nothing holding the student back. 

 

You might think it smarter to spend time in graduate school, but after a masters degree, a 5 years of PhD is a long time. 

 

Have you asked your advisor about this? Have you made it clear that you want to move on to a postdoc asap? Thats the first step. 

[victorydance]

May be he didn't feel like your project was good enough as a dissertation? 

 

I don't care how many hours you put in, no one finishes a bomb ass dissertation in three years these days.

[dr. t]

I agree with GeoDUDE. This seems like a vital piece of the story.

 

Have you asked your advisor about this? Have you made it clear that you want to move on to a postdoc asap? Thats the first step. 

[Eigen]

Are you close with any of the rest of your committee members? 

 

Could you see what their opinion of your project as a complete dissertation is?

 

How many publications have you gotten out of the work so far? Are there more you could push out reasonably rapidly?

 

In general, the "list of questions you were given to answer" as a starting grad student isn't usually a complete list of what you need to do to graduate. The answers to those questions then shape other questions, that you answer, that gives rise to a full project. 

 

How did your dissertation proposal/prospectus go? Did your committee like it? Did they seem to think that if you completed the research you'd outlined that you'd be ready to graduate?

 

Have you proposed a specific 18 mo plan of research to your advisor that you feel wraps up your project, or did you just tell them you want to be out in that time frame?

[fuzzylogician]

I come from a different field so it's possible that conventions are sufficiently different so what I write here doesn't apply to you. That said: 

 

In general I feel that the questions you define for a project when you are a beginning graduate student are useful for setting the tone for the project and for defining its trajectory, at least in the beginning. However, projects have a way of evolving beyond what you plan at the outset, and I don't think it's reasonable for a student to expect to be able to concentrate only on the questions that they originally asked, ignoring important questions that have come up in the natural development of the project. It's of course not possible to answer every question that comes up, or no one would ever graduate from grad school, but I do think it's reasonable for your advisor to want you to follow up on some of these things. 

 

That said, there are other questions that have already come up that are also important here. First, do you have a prospectus, and if so, what does it outline? Do you have a dissertation committee, and if so what do they think about your progress? Will you be able to obtain strong letters of recommendation from your committee and advisor based on your current work? Do you have enough diverse experience to be able to draft a strong research statement that will get you your next job/postdoc? On the more practical side, are any of the questions that your advisor wants you to work on actually crucial for your work to stand and to be seen as a substantial contribution to your field? How many publications do you already have, or do you expect to have in the near future? That is to say -- are you a strong candidate now, or is it better for you to continue as a grad student a bit longer and improve your CV? Doing a fast PhD that fails to explore important issues raised as a direct consequence of the work, that could be addressed with another year or so of work, will not reflect well on the work.

[juilletmercredi]

It's not clear to me whether you are in the UK or other parts of Europe or the U.S., but if you are in the U.S., trying to finish your PhD in two years is unrealistic.  A PhD isn't just about going in with a specific project and then completing that project; if that's all he wanted, he could've hired a research technician or lab assistant to do that.  A PhD is about learning how to be a scholar in your field, and there are a variety of other tasks that you have to complete besides just the dissertation research project in order to learn how to be a scholar.  Usually a prior MS doesn't actually shave off that much time - maybe a year at most, even in fields in which the master's is necessary - so it's not unheard of for someone with an MS to still take 5 years to finish the PhD.  It's very common for advisors to think you need to add more or flesh out an idea more so that you can finish - even if you are already at the dissertation phase.  My own advisor asked me to add another dimension to my dissertation, and while I was initially unhappy with the suggestion I'm ultimately glad I did it, as it's another paper I can get out of my dissertation.

 

I have been told to not work as much (more like 40 hours per week), but that seems to be a waste of my time when I could be more productive and move on to a postdoc quicker!

 

I believed this until I was in my fourth year myself, that graduate school was just a way station on the way to a postdoc and an academic career.  It's not, and your advisor is right - it's far healthier to treat graduate school as a discrete period of life rather than treating it like an obstacle to be surmounted.  You're not wasting your time by developing friendships and taking care of your social and mental health; you're also not "putting your life on hold" by doing a graduate degree.  You are living.  This IS your life.  It's not on hold, it's happening.

 

its the advisors job to best facilitate the needs of the student while upholding the standards of the department: once the student surpasses the standards set in the beginning, there should be nothing holding the student back. 

 

I actually don't think this is true.  I think an advisor's job is to push a student to achieve what he/she believes the student is capable of, or to help shape a student's thinking about his/her research field and career.  But your advisor isn't really there to serve your needs in the truest sense of that phrase.  Yes, they are there to assist you - but not in the sense that you tell them what you are going to do and then they help you do exactly that and nothing else.  In fact, you enter a PhD program to learn from your advisor, so they would be remiss if they didn't push you to do more than you originally thought you would do/are capable of doing.

 

I also don't think telling the adviser that you want to finish in 12-18 months and look for postdocs is necessarily going to do anything.  If he's a good advisor and you put forward a timeline he thinks is unrealistic, hopefully he'll tell you so and tell you why - but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be like "OK, let's scale it back so you can finish exactly when you want."

 

I agree with fuzzylogician's take and think you should think about the questions they asked - do you have a dissertation committee, and have they approved your proposal?  What do they think about the additional work?  If you went on a job talk right now, are the questions your advisor wants you to explore legitimate questions that someone on a job talk would ask you about (and potentially be disappointed that you didn't study when you had time to)?  And yes - is your CV ready to go, or could you use the additional time to improve it and get a better postdoc?

[Sigaba]

 

Otherwise, imo, you sound impatient and childish.

 

@Dedi--

 

No disrespect, but I think you should go easy with framing these kinds of value judgments at least until you've had some time in graduate school. Once there, you may find yourself going on rants on a regular basis, if not also having full blown meltdowns.

 

The OP is confronting the dilemma that every graduate student will face at least once: determining if it is time to say "no" to a PI/POI/or other authority figure. While I agree with FL and JM that now may not be the time for such a response, being in a situation where one has to think in that direction can be remarkably stressful.

[Igotnothin]

The best thing you can do in my opinion is to really focus on publishing. With only 2 years of your PhD complete and no publications, it's hard to make a strong argument that you deserve a PhD.