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Hi everyone, I hope you're staying sane during the quarantine. I am nearing the end of my 4th year in my PhD program in Biology. Up until about a month ago I thought I would be able to graduate at the end of my 5th year, but my advisers very suddenly decided they wanted me to do more experiments. Meanwhile some of my committee members have emphasized that I should stop doing research and just write everything up and try to graduate. I very much side with them. Unfortunately, I feel pretty powerless against my advisers and they do not seem to understand why someone would want to try to graduate in 5 years as opposed to just working and working until the research seems full fleshed out in every possible direction. Further, they drag their feet on editing my documents and will at first approve something and then later decide it needs to be held back for longer just in case more changes occur to them. I do feel that my research is about 80-90% complete in terms of the original expectations for the project, but my advisers are very fickle with what they want from the project and so according to their new desires for the project I'm only about 60-70% finished. A few people have suggested that I need to stick up for myself more and create structure that will get my advisers to adhere to a set of expectations so I know what I need to do. This would possibly involve a checklist of very specific goals and times for things to be completed by which we would all have to adhere to, meaning I put in the work and they agree to do whatever editing they want and sign off on it within the time-frame, as long as my work is good enough. But I am not sure if this is normal or reasonable for someone in my position. I heard that some students have a contract or timeline like this with their advisers, but I haven't met any who have told me that they have one. I wanted to see if anyone has been in a similar situation and created such a document or used different techniques to bring advisers around to their side in terms of graduating and being allowed to finish pieces of writing. Any stories or advice?

Hello! I am a first year entering a PhD program in Learning Sciences and Human Development. I am supposed to register for classes on the 5th, and I don't know what to take. Is this something I should discuss with my adviser? Thanks!