Lonely

Hi Samman, You are right to say that I conclude things too quickly. Things might not be as bad as it looks. I told my supervisor about my leaving intention since the summer but she pursues me to stay, I already stay for this fall. But the more I stay, the more the relationship between me and my PI becomes bad. My PI is skeptical that I will not work hard and keeps reminding me of how she has invested money in me. It is so stressed that I can not stay there any longer. Actually, I wish I left my group since the summer. If I do that, the relationship between me and my PI would not become bad.

Hi, I really need advice. I didn't know that the situation was so terrible like that when I left a research group. I worry, cry and don't know what I should do now. I am an international student doing my Ph.D. at a university in the USA. I've joined a research lab for 1 year and get supported full time as RA. But after 1 year, I found that the research direction is not a good fit. The PI tried to pursue me to stay in the lab but I honestly tell her that the research direction is not what I want to do. After that, she told me that I needed to meet the chairman to secure my TA position. I met the chairman and he said that the department would not give me TA if I didn't have a supervisor. I know some students in my department don't have a supervisor in their 3rd year but still get TA support and I am just in my 2nd year. I wrote an email to a professor in my department to ask for joining his lab. The prof liked my CV and responded very fast and told me to meet to discuss. But after he knew that I was in the group of my old PI, he quickly changed his attitude and said he was about to retire and could not take me. I always know that my supervisor is a very powerful person in the department but I never expect that she will do things to harm me. Look back, one year in the lab, I work hard and did contribute to 1 paper. I did not do anything wrong to be treated like that. Why I can't do what I like? Now I think no one in my department wants to take me since they don't want to stand on the other side of my old PI and therefore the chairman has a good reason to not give me funding. My GPA is very good, so they found a good way to make me have to stop is to not give me funding. I am thinking of changing graduate school but I am afraid I cannot go anywhere. The science community seems to be too small. It seems like every grad school considers changing grad school as something extremely negative.And if the new school write a letter to the old school to ask information about me, they would write about me as the most terrible student. I am preparing for GRE to reapply but I feel hopeless. I don't know what I should do now.