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!

I think a typology of various shades of advisor mood could prove useful. In my experience being advised (by three different professors), I have faced three shades of emotionality among them: glad, sad, and mad.* I have noticed that gladvisor happens when I am a good student; sadvisor happens when I have been bad. Madvisor can happen when the advisor(s) feel(s) that the student has not done their due diligence. Madvisorn-ess can be changed via calming, genuine assurance on the student's part that the research will get done properly. I don't mean for this to be about pointing figures, but I do think there could be value in discussing the more subjective and interpersonal (affective) dimensions of our advisor/advisee relations. The goal should always be gladvisor. *Of course, any typology is necessarily reductive to some extent. Here, I settle on "glad", "sad", and "mad" because they meshed well into "advisor". Feel free to expound past this framework, work with a different one--or, invent your own!

My first-author publication with my advisor was a book review. This was treated as part of my work as her Graduate Research Assistant during my first semester/year. I spent the first semester reading the book (The Extended Self: Architecture, Memes and Minds) and typed our review's first draft. My advisor fleshed it out and sent it back to me over Winter Break. We sent the final draft to the journal of interest by the end of my first year.

My Ph.D. advisor suggested I work on a book review with her during my first semester. She offered me first author, which was very gracious. From what I understand, journals are often seeking people out to write book reviews. Since they're lower-hanging fruit than book chapters or journal articles, they're not what everyone goes after. There's a bit of a demand problem: lots of opportunities, not enough people wanting to take them.

I have a friend, colleague, and old housemate who moved from Canada to the U.S. to study for his psychology M.A. His undergrad was only in philosophy, but our grad school (University of West Georgia) is known for offering a more philosophical and interdisciplinary curriculum. My friend did very well--he did a clinical internship (at a school, actually: under a psychiatrist IIRC) while here and went on to pursue his Ph.D. in clinical psych.

Since you mentioned Rutgers being on your list above, here's a link to their Ph.D./MSW dual-degree path. The only thing about this (and two other such programs that came up on Google) is that it isn't a Ph.D. in psychology. If you're passionate about psychology, most of these dual-degree programs might be too social work-/welfare-focused. If I find any psych Ph.D./MSW dual programs, I'll let you know.

It looks like dual-degree Ph.D./MSW paths exist. Have you considered that possibility, @RebeccaPsych?

This is probably the best pre-grad psych profile I've seen. Go get 'em!

Have you presented at any psych conferences?

Most of my first-year course essays were too immature to turn into publishable material. The possible exception was my independent study--'Intuition and Cognitive Science'--paper, which only recently (i.e., five years later) made some of its way into a conference proceeding proof. First year was largely for establishing departmental identity. My only full-length, non-empirical journal article resulted from a term paper for my course, 'Ecologies of Mind'. It took 1.5-2 years to get this published (in International Journal of Global and Environmental Issues). This was my most frustrating term paper to get to writing...it didn't change much throughout its development. Most of the work happened in bed on my laptop over the course of a week. The more independent my papers were in terms of content and direction, the more likely they were to get published in peer-reviewed outlets. If academia is your jam, over time, you will become more and more of a peer-reviewer yourself. This can come with the privilege and power to get more innovative conceptual material published! The majority of my own publications are non-empirical. Once I became program board member of a prestigious international conference, I became capable of converting content from past graduate years into conference proceedings. This venue is typically for more STEM-focused research, though.

I have 11 (one in press). Don't recommend this if the goal is to graduate in less than seven years. ?