Switching Fields, is it worth it?

[Mneme]

So, I'm a first year student in a statistics doctoral program but I plan on pursuing research in bioinformatics which is my actual interest.

I'm trying to figure out whether I should stick it out and look for post-doctoral positions in bioinformatics or whether I should stop at a masters and get some work experience/reapply.

I hate it right now. I'm doing moderately well classes-wise but I don't really care about the material. I enjoy learning and I realize the material I'm learning will be useful eventually and I'm glad I'm back in school but I hate it. I have minimal to no interest in the research being done in the department. On top of that, I'm completely unfunded, which may be influencing the hate right now.

Advice?

[fuzzylogician]

Stay for >5 years in a program you hate, is not within your field of interest and is not even funding you, or leave with a Masters and reapply later for a program that you'll enjoy being in? Seems like an easy choice to me, no? Your post didn't list anything positive about your current program, but there must be something if you are considering suffering for this long. [if your interests are so far removed from the program you are in, why did you apply there in the first place? Did you have a complete change of heart this soon after entering the program? it seems like on the face of it the answer to your question is obvious, but there are some details missing].

[Mneme]

I was only accepted into two schools, neither of them offered funding but I could get in-state tuition at the school I'm at now and there was a new joint biostat program with the medical school (which was the reason I applied in the first place), so I thought that was a strong connection there. Unfortunately, that's not the case. My current program isn't bad, if I wanted to do solely statistics. And there were faculty doing bioinformatics research in relation to statistics but most of them have left and/or switched fields.

[robot_hamster]

Did you apply for any bioinformatics or computer science programs when you were initially applying? I guess I'm not sure why you would go with statistics if you were interested in bioinformatics.

[robot_hamster]

Whoops, looks like we were writing out posts at the same time.

[Genomic Repairman]

You can bug out with a masters and make some money but if you really want to run a bioinformatics core or ever hold your own grants and make serious money, you gotta get those three letters after your name not two. So it really just depends on what you want.

[Mneme]

You can bug out with a masters and make some money but if you really want to run a bioinformatics core or ever hold your own grants and make serious money, you gotta get those three letters after your name not two. So it really just depends on what you want.

The thing is I do want my doctorate. I just don't know for what I want to do if I'm going the right way about it?

Statistical methods are useful in bioinformatics, but my undergrad degree was in mathematics. My computer science background isn't as strong and my department doesn't have a strong/any computational aspect.

[robot_hamster]

Statistics is used for it, but statistics is used for a lot of things. Perhaps that is why you aren't interested in the classes, since they aren't directly related to what you really want to do.

[juilletmercredi]

I would NOT stay in any unfunded PhD program, but especially not a statistics program. Statistics is in such high demand nowadays that you could easily leave with a master's and get a job; I just feel like a PhD in that field should definitely be funded.

Were I you I'd definitely quit and go after a PhD in biostatistics or bioinformatics. Probably easier to get into a biostatistics program and then do some bioinformatics research during the program, and then do a post-doc in bioinformatics.