Suraj_S

Years 1-4 of my Ph.D. were certainly fraught with shifting research areas. If you're worried about this, let your advisor ground you. But there's nothing wrong with being inter- or multidisciplinary if you can find the right avenues for such!

You are cut out for research.

I wouldn’t doubt your calling based on any of this. The problems you've faced seem primarily practical and external. Look inward and/or change your situation.

My update: actually, this is very much possible...

GA Tech's program looks bomb. I was tempted one night by its catalog, around when I was writing my PhDissertation...it seems flexible for UX/UI design vs. researcher. I'd go in primarily for the latter, but if design is your thing, it's probably still a good bet. I'm not sure why you'd be worried about GA Tech's industrial reputation--it's a top-tier tech university with plenty of strong post-grad outcomes.

I haven't been hired yet post-dissertation, but I list all of my authorships on my CV. I've known a couple of professors--advisor included--who graciously set up (and ended up writing) the majority of a paper we worked on together, but gave me first or second author. This as well as your experience suggest that seniority doesn't necessarily mean being first author: it may mean setting others up to be. But both of my professors are established in their careers, so they don't need first author on a review or couple of papers like you might. I have also written 50% of a paper but put someone else's name first; not of the person who did a comparable level of work that I did. Authorship, like a lot of aspects of publishing (I'm looking at you, peer review!), is not always as objective as we might expect at first...there are overriding reasons for the exceptions. Also, second (or fourth; ...) author on today's project could open the door to first author on tomorrow's. Moving up like that does happen.

I totally get this. I defended faith in humanity during my dissertation proposal. It arose from meeting the best person I'd ever met...in the end, she didn't care.

It isn't normal for Ph.D. students in my department to find their life partners among one another. However, my psych department's Master's students have co-mingled quite a bit--two such sets of friends are getting married. I went into grad school being in a long-distance relationship. That ended three years in...then, dated a couple of people: nothing overly serious. Then, had a relationship that ended earlier this year while I finished defending my dissertation proposal. Now--a little over a month away from defending my dissertation (hopefully, once and for all)--I feel keenly that I have one hope at life love left. The weak part of me wants to find her before I finish up; the strong part assures me, You have a task to fulfill. You've sacrificed your most important relationship to date. Wait a little longer. Success, in my mind, is not what academia is all about. It's about studying a topic so well that you either know or contribute to knowing about a topic more in-depth than anyone else has (or, possibly could). Doing a Ph.D. necessarily involves going off of the deep end of what is known. For me, that entails commitment and a sense of deeper purpose--following my calling; responding to my life's mission. Nothing should get in the way of our true love. This gives me close to all of the motivation I need to finish the job, and worry about what is meant to happen later. This is my experience of love, success, and academia. Thanks for creating this thread, @Adelaide9216--you've clearly got a lot of heart.

During grad school, what sacrifices did you wind up making? Some trade-offs are financial. Others are personal. A stand-in advisor of my dissertation committee told me: "You're going to have to give some things up." Of course, I did not comprehend what on Earth I would have to give up--and now that I have the benefit of hindsight, I can see two personal relationships I had to let go on my path to graduation. In the next month, I won't see any friends, too. Alright; your turns...

I'd be down to chat with some fellow psy peeps!

Other than my book review, the only two manuscripts my advisor reviewed were initially for classes she taught. How long have you waited for feedback? My own advisor is usually very prompt, but there are all sorts of stories of MIA profs that I've heard (unfortunately)...

Forgot to add--2018: Meta-Cognition - Thinking About Thought (HCIIC). So, cognition is my most common theme session-wise. I've presented three papers with "Psychoinformatic(s)" in their titles, so that could be said to be my main conference article theme.

I got curious tonight about the conference sessions I've been part of since my first one in 2015. The names of these sessions and their respective conferences are: 2015: Measuring and quantifying cognition - Human-Computer Interaction International Conference (HCIIC) 2017: Rethinking Psychological Theory: Personality, Empathy, and Enactivism - APA Annual Convention 2017 2019: Human-centric Computing - Future of Information and Communication Conference (FICC); The Psychoinformatics of Mixed Reality and Biomimicry (HCIIC) 2020: Self Regulation (HCIIC) Do you have a "conference identity"? By this, I mean if you have a niche area or kind of session that you present in (or topic that you present on) across conferences. I've mostly been the theoretical psychology, philosophy, and global problem-solving presenter.

I didn't feel abandoned by mine. I did experience frustration that my project's execution wasn't being grasped: expressing this to my advisors was a good thing.

Knowledge will find its way through the proper research channels. Just be patient and confident in the quality of your work: be open to opportunities to review, etc. Don't give in to critical reviews that miss the mark--respect yourself enough to look for better venues in these cases!