I_am_Myth

A year and a half into my PhD and things are going well, I am early to mid 20's in one of the top 5 universities in the UK. I've just written a paper that successfully fixes a problem in my field. Supervisor is quite happy with performance and I am on target to finish on time. I've always been quite a high flyer, but not sure if I want all that anymore. So why am I not happy? Why have I fallen completely out of love with research? Why do I want to quit it all and jut work a 9-5 with no weekends? I've realized that I just don't fit with the culture or work ethic of academia, don't get me wrong I work hard (too hard) but I want a good life balance and academia doesn't offer me that. So I have too opinions: 1) finish the PhD and then what? I've consider becoming a quant but that looks very stressful. Orginal plan was academia, but thats out of the window now that I've realized its not what I want. 2) I could quit now with a masters and get a job. I've been looking into something like actuary? Its seem like quit a stable and relaxed pace job. But worried that my potential would be wasted or I'd end up regreting it? 3) take a break from the PhD and get a job - take say a 10 month break and 'find myself' and figure out what I what I want in life, best of both worlds as I can always return if I want but, not sure if this is even possible? Anyone have any advice on what to do? Unhappy doing what I'm doing but not sure how to change for the better?

Hi All, So a year into PhD and really not enjoying it. I'm at a top 5 university in the Uk and I love research, but my supervisor is a big problem. He's increasingly inconsistent with his reasoning an expectations, he's extremely patronizing and I've never met someone more unrealistic in terms of what is achievable and what's not (for example he was 6 papers within 3 months - from scratch). Its causing me an incredible amount of stress and sleepless nights. Coupled with the fact he already has too many PhD students to manage (13 so far) frequently has no time for any of us (My milestone reports/vivas etc are 8 months overdue! Apparently he doesn't have time) and yet is still recruiting more. Finally, while my project is going Ok, I have zero control over the research, my supervisor dictates everything - I had hoped that this was just a time thing, i.e. a bit further into the PhD and he'll give me some room to move, however it appears not to be the case. My supervisor has zero social skills, and this makes it very difficult talking to him in social situations. I have made some very good contacts and networking opportunity throughout my university and my field, I've set up potential collaboration meetings with others in our university looking at similar things, only for him to out right say No, we are not collaborating with anyone. He is selfish and manipulative and I can handle this any more. I'm burnt out just dealing with him! I like my area of research, and their are some areas I'm deeply passionate about, however he refuses even to hear me out - and say the "project is set in stone". We are doing the basic really boring stuff and I'm like this is an amazing filed and I'm coming up some good solid well though out ideas that he wont even look at. It's sucked the passion out of me to be honest and I'm thinking about leaving with my Mphil. I could take a normal job,. but I can see myself getting very very board, I need the excitement of academia and a thinking man's career. Just to clarify I'm not the first PhD to have problems, but the department seems to blames the PhDs and not the supervisor. So I've looked around and found some PhD's that are in my field but go in the direction that I would like to go. So what do I do? I want to first write to some of these potential supervisors and see if I can even get funding. Then make sure they have social skills and make sure they have a smallish group. In the cover letter what should I say? they are going to ask why am I swapping university’s/sub-fields? I can't say its my supervisor - so how do I play it? Also I'm 25 now so starting a new PhD I might be a bit old no? Its the same field so the first year would have made little difference and I should be able to catch up quickly. Any advice would be appreciated, cheers guys!