UnhappyStudent

Thanks for the advice; this seems like the best option for me right now. I know I should be careful in expressing my unhappiness (hence why I needed to rant on here, haha). Also, I know doctoral programs don't tend to give you tons of freedom when choosing electives. My field is actually very interdisciplinary and I only applied to schools that would let me choose a sequence of electives outside of my home department during the first year. I asked graduate students and professors during my visit whether that was the case at my current institution and they all said yes. It's a minor annoyance, but it just adds to the list of reasons why I'm so unhappy here.

Hi, I am currently a first year PhD student in fairly high-ranked STEM program in the US. In our program, we are required to focus entirely on coursework for the first two semesters; we choose an adviser during the second semester and start research in the summer. I am completely miserable at my current institution for two main reasons. First off, the "graduate-level" courses we took during the first semester were worthless because we were taught sophomore-level material (and the same thing is happening this semester). Also, these courses are strictly required and we were not allowed to choose any electives. Thus, although I am doing extremely well in my classes, I feel like I have learned nothing since I got here. When I was an undergrad, I took graduate-level classes and those were challenging and rewarding. Because of that, I almost feel like I downgraded institutions when moving to my program. Additionally, it seems like only one or two of our faculty members are taking students this year and I don't want to work with any of them. I don't understand why my program admitted me when the faculty members I mentioned in my personal statement wouldn't be taking students. We are allowed to choose advisers outside of our department, however since I basically wasted a year taking useless courses, I feel like I'm at a disadvantage and will be disregarded because I don't have the necessary background. I am so unhappy that my anxiety has returned and I am seriously considering changing programs. When I applied last year, I got into a number of comparable programs with funding. Has anyone ever emailed a school that you initially declined to ask to transfer to their program? Or should I just quit and apply again next application cycle? The only thing keeping me going at this point are my fellow first-year students, who feel exactly the same way as me. Thanks in advance for the advice!