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Stealth95

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  • Birthday 08/22/1995

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  1. Hello everyone, I am a student with an MSc in Physics who is supposed to start a PhD next month. The reason I am writing is the bad psychological situation I ended up after a hard choice between grad programs. I will try to go straight to the point omitting details on how frustrating the whole application period was. After many rejections last year and the year before, I was in the initially pleasant position to receive four offers. After long thought I reduced them to two, which ended up turning the whole thing into a nightmare. Place A: The school that I did my MSc. I would continue in similar topics with a different and very young supervisor in the same research group as my MSc (it's a bit more complicated than that but anyway...). I left and now I regret it. Place B: The place that I accepted to do my PhD even though I haven't visited it yet. Not sure about the exact topic, but it is supposed to be similar to A. It is slightly more well known as a name and the supervisor is widely considered as one of the top researchers in his field. None of the schools are top-10 super prestigious but the Prof. in B can be regarded at this level, if not better. I admit I made mistakes in the decision process but that's not important since I cannot turn back time. I was never 100% confident with my choice and when I rejected A it felt bad. But I had the same buyer's remorse feeling when I rejected the rest of the schools too, so I thought it is going to pass in a week or so. Here I am, four months later, feeling MUCH worse! I lost all motivation to work, let my father make all the arrangements for B (accommodation etc.), and did not even help him, I am constantly procrastinating everything related and even started having bad habits, like wasting time in computer games, unhealthy eating and sleeping every day after 4am. Starting a PhD this way is probably not going to have the best outcome. To be fair, the whole thing is indeed partly in my mind, but there are also some facts that changed recently and made A look better now. It has to do with location - I had personal reasons to prefer B's location which do not exist anymore (no, not girlfriend). Moreover, I would definitely prefer A's location for a job (after graduation), hence staying in A for PhD could help career-wise. I should also note that even though the offer from A is not officially on table anymore, I had good relations with them, so I might be able to get one for next year, if that's what I finally want and I don't screw it up. So one might think the discussion is pointless now, but I feel it is not yet. The way I see it, now there are a few options now: YOLO approach: Drop out from B prior starting and try to get an offer from A for next year (or as early as possible). This is going to piss off B but it is still better than starting, wasting their time and funding and not giving my 100% self because of my problems. It is also possible that A might stop being interested anymore, but I will get in touch with them and explain the situation before letting the other option. I also get an unexplainable gap year in my CV which might hurt in future job search. HONEST approach: Be honest with everyone. Tell A that I want to go to them but I am commited to B and discuss with B why I don't feel very excited starting there. This can have a bunch of different outcomes, from managing to go back to A with everyone happy, staying to B with everyone happy or even losing both options. In any case, it is probably morally correct to follow this route but also tough. Telling to my new supervisor "I chose you but I feel that I don't want to be here" is not the optimal way to start a relation. EVIL approach: Start normally at A and pretend everything is ok. Since I have never been to the place there is a possibility that I'll like it and get better with time. This sounds very unlikely now but things might change with time. On the other hand, things can get worse and depending on how bad, it might be possible to continue half hearted (hardly to do a PhD this way) or eventually drop out. In this case nobody knows whether it will be possible to get readmitted to A or anywhere else as dropping out of a program definitely raises questions. Anyway, if you read everything and reached this line, thank you very much. Honestly, I don't expect the forum to solve my problem as I probably need professional assistance, but writing things down helps in any case. Since, I spent the time to do it, I thought it would be great to share, for people who have been in similar position, others that are just interested in such stories or even someone who might have a piece of advice, which is of course very welcome. Best -S
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