Griffen03

I had already applied and been accepted before I started at my current school. They still had all my paperwork, including letters of recommendation from my MS school. Does anyone know if your department/advisor can tell you that you can't finish the semester when you tell them you would plan to withdraw? I'd like to finish my classes so I can get some credits to transfer (my grades are fine). Even though my advisor would like to know that I'm leaving sooner rather than later, I'm afraid he and the department will be pissed off and refuse to let me continue. Has this happened to anyone?

Thanks zabius. You are 100% right, I'm just scared to do what you recommend, basically. Like I said, its a small department and I'm insecure to begin with since I feel extremely isolated here. I need to stop being chickensh*t and just tell my advisor. I never thought that maybe the faculty will be understanding about my situation, I'll try to convince myself of that possibility. I take it from your response that you think it's a good idea to let them know I'll be transferring, instead of just saying I'm leaving the department. I guess it would be hard to lie when they ask me why I'm leaving. Anyway, thanks again!

I started my current PhD at School A immediately after receiving an MS from School B. I figured out that School A does not meet my needs in a variety of ways, so I applied to School C. I've been accepted to School C and have an advisor and assistantship lined up to start in the summer. I'm in the middle of my qualifying exam at School A and I'm taking two classes that I want transferred to School C. When do I tell my advisor I'm transferring? Do I even tell him I'm going to another school? I work in a pretty specialized field so he'd probably come across my name again in the future. My idea was to finish the qualifying exam in the next month then tell him, but since I'm in a field-research system, telling him earlier may give him time to find more help (plus I could just stop the qualifying exam). Then again, I'd have to deal with the whole small department knowing I'm leaving plus one of my commmittee members is my class teacher and may hold this against me (he's a nice guy but you never know). Any advice?

I'm at a new school for my PhD (started this past summer) and I'm not settling in. I know I need to give it some time, but I'm not excited about taking classes like I was for my master's, I really just want to do my research and graduate. For some reason I just don't have patience to read about topics that aren't related to my research. It doesn't help that I'm the only person in my lab and I don't talk to anyone all day. Has anyone else felt like this after transferring and if so, how did you rekindle your enthusiasm?