ciliegia

Thanks all, I appreciate your input!

Whether or not I earn a master's degree depends on when I could transfer (if it works out). Might be yes, might be no.

I am a PhD student currently working on applications to a few other PhD programs. The reasons I wish to transfer are a mixture of personal and academic (about 50-50). Should I mention that I have personal reasons to leave the area I live in now and move to the new area (thus highlighting that I am not leaving because I am not academically fit or don't get along with my colleagues) or should I focus only on the academic reasons (and not raise a possible red flag about personal issues interfering with my work)? Thoughts? What about at a possible interview stage?

I agree with everything you said and apologize if my response sounded too defensive. You are right: seeking support is important and can make life in grad school so much easier. I am actually currently using my university's counseling services (which, I am told, many grad students do, so when will the stigma disappear?). I just meant to correct my poor choice of words and better explain my situation, also for other people reading this and commenting on this thread.

TakeruK, can I just say thank you? Your response is perfect and I have actually taken some of the steps you suggested (unfortunately, there's nothing doing about number 2 - it's just the way it is). There is a lot of valuable advice with respect to 1, 3, 4 and 5, and I will take it to heart! In reading your response, I also realize that I probably came off as more shy and reserved than I really am. Connecting with my cohort is not really the problem - if anything, lack of free time for all of us was. I was actually one of the people who socialized most. But you are right that I should be more proactive about meeting people outside my program, and that is what I am struggling with and will need to work on. Thinking of other people as potentially shy actually sounds like a very good strategy. Thank you!

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response, fuzzylogician. Maybe I should have been more careful with my choice of words. I did not mean to say that I suffer from depression - I just was not sure what terminology to choose here (maybe I should just have written "down"). In any case, I did not mean that I am depressed in the clinical sense. These emotions arise because of the problems I have in my program and the concerns I have in my personal life as they tend to resurface when I have some time to breathe and think about where I want to go in life. I apologize for my poor choice of words and will change it in the original post if I still can. My concern about not having a relationship is complex and too personal to discuss in detail here. At the same time, I do not think it is unusual for someone in their early thirties to feel that something is missing in their life when they are single and would like to share their life with someone or even start a family. While a major concern for me, it is not a mental health issue or related to one. I would just like to leave it at that, but thank you for your empathetic response. When I said I do not expect to have a relationship while in grad school, I meant that I do not know how to meet someone in the first place and to establish and maintain a relationship when I have 70 or 80-hour work week. I would love to hear experiences from people who have started a relationship under such conditions though. I do agree that switching advisors is the one sensible thing to do if I continue in the program. It may not be so easy because the professor who asked me to collaborate with him also made it clear that he is reluctant because the other professor would be a better fit substantively. But this is the area I am most confident that I could work out. This still leaves the lack of motivation, which probably is related to the other concerns and worries that preoccupy me. Edit: it turns out I can no longer edit my original post.

And this is the one thought that keeps coming back to me. I think you are right. I already have a master's degree in the same field, so staying another year may actually do more harm than good (who needs two degrees of the exact same kind?).

I apologize for this long post, but I really hope someone can give me some advice. Is what I am experiencing normal grad school anxiety or do my doubts and feelings mean I should quit? I recently completed the first year of my PhD program in Sociology, and I have recurring, serious doubts about whether I should continue. My concerns are not about my intellectual suitability – I have received a lot of really positive feedback from different professors, and deep down I know that research is what I am best at. But I am not happy, find myself devoid of motivation and energy and experience bouts of what, for lack of a better term, I can best describe as depression. There are a few things that have made me less than excited about the program. I will try to make this as brief as possible: It turns out that my potential advisor, i.e. the one person in the department who works on the general issues I am interested in, and I just do not “click.” In terms of both personality type and methodological approach we are not really compatible. When I attended the visiting weekend last year, the department presented itself in a methodologically more open and flexible way than it really is. Another problem is that my research interests have moved away from my potential advisor’s interests and into nuances that she, judging by her reactions to my ideas, has relatively little appreciation for. This left me almost convinced, by the end of my first semester, that I would be leaving the program. Halfway through my second semester, I realized that my motivation had all but left me, so I decided to get the advice of a professor I trust. She convinced me that I would still be able to conduct my desired research using my preferred methodological approach if I reach out to those professors who are more open to mixed methods research and my substantive interests. There is indeed one professor I would enjoy working with, but the overlap of our research interests is not fantastic. He has invited me to collaborate on a research project with him, however, so there seems to be some potential there. Prior to accepting my offer, when weighing all my options, I received a lot of information about program requirements that, in the end, turned out to be outdated. Apparently. several PhD programs at my university are in the process of being reformed, and new requirements and regulations are being put in place. This affects the amount of credits I can transfer and other requirements I need to fulfill. In other words, the program is and will continue to be more time-consuming than I could have expected based on the information provided to me prior to accepting my offer. Unfortunately, I have a series of minor, although cumulatively noticeable, health issues that make me somewhat less stress-resistant than others. I have a very hard time adjusting to my new environment, which has a distinct small-town feel - I strongly prefer big cities. My cohort is a friendly, considerate and respectful group, but the workload in the first year has not really allowed us to develop real friendships. The people that I tend to socialize with most are now gone for the summer, which leaves me almost friendless in a place where I don’t feel at home. (It doesn’t help that I am a rather shy person and do not easily meet people.) I have traveled a lot in my life and studied, worked and lived in a series of different cities and settings on three continents. Nowhere else have I had such difficulties feeling comfortable as I do here. Usually, I adapt very easily to new environments and it takes me two or three weeks until I have some sense of being home, but here I am still struggling nine months in. My family is in a different part of the country, but being apart from my family is not something I ever struggled with before, and it is not a big problem for me now. I just do not feel like I belong. This a very personal issue that maybe shouldn't affect how I feel about grad school, but it does. I have been single for far too long and have little to no hope that this is going to change while I am in grad school. I will be well into my thirties by the time I will finish grad school (if I finish on time), and the thought of still being alone in my late thirties makes me feel nothing but depressed. This issue (and feeling that I don't belong) probably preoccupies me the most at the moment, especially as we are talking another 4 or 5 years at an age where I increasingly feel the need to settle down. While I enjoy doing research and see this as the one thing I am good at, I am not interested in teaching or in an academic career. In an environment where the entire program, activities and milestones are geared towards academia and the academic job market, I feel out of place and not very well “catered to.” To be clear, for the research career I am envisioning, I will need a PhD. The question is whether in light of all these concerns I should try to pursue a less scientific and more practice-oriented career path, which would not be terrible, although the thought does not excite me. To sum up, halfway through my second semester I had hit an all-time low on motivation, was unable to find any energy or excitement for my classes within myself and just kind of “functioned.” The conversation I had with one of my professors turned things around and gave me new hope. Flattered by the excellent feedback I received in my classes, my interest, motivation and optimism came back, and I was invited to collaborate on an interesting research project. And yet, my motivation has now once again hit rock bottom. I cannot force myself to do any work for the research project, and the thought of having to make progress on my own research this summer fills me with dread. The thought of the next year even more so. It has been more than 3 weeks since my semester ended, so it’s no longer just end-of-year exhaustion. I am back where I was halfway through my second semester and all the doubts and concerns have come back. And even if I make it through this “phase” now, will I encounter similar situations again and again while I am in grad school? And if this summer is the most relaxed one I will have while in grad school, how am I ever going to push through? Objectively speaking, I know that my good performance in my classes and my interest in research are the best reasons to continue in the program. But I just can’t tune out all those doubts and negative reactions. And while I can’t expect anyone on here to solve this problem for me, I would greatly appreciate any input on whether these kinds of concerns are “normal” reactions to grad school or whether I should see these as serious indicators that maybe grad school (at least in this program) is not the right thing for me after all.