Unhappy in PhD and considering transfer

[ksiezyc]

Hi everyone! I'd love to get some feedback on my current situation and how to proceed.

 

I'm enrolled in my first year of a science PhD at a great university. On the whole, I like my program (classes suck, but at least they'll be over by this time next year). However, I totally hate the new city I'm living in, and it's making me miserable to the point that I would consider leaving the program. I moved across the country, so all of my family is far away from me now, which has turned out to be much harder than I thought it would be. I'm living in an extremely expensive city on a relatively low budget, and I feel like I just won't be happy here for the next 5-7 years. I'd hate to throw away this year by going to a different school and starting over, but I honestly question whether I'd be happy enough here to stick it out all the way through my PhD. I'm finding it hard to feel motivated about my work when I'm so unhappy with my environment. 

 

My plan right now is to apply to 1-2 programs (schools I did not apply to last year and now regret passing over) while I stick it out in my current school and see if things improve. If I'm still really unhappy in the spring and I get into these other programs, then I would seriously consider leaving. 

 

I guess my question is whether anyone else has been through this and has any advice. Also, I'm particularly concerned about whether I need to tell my program that I'm applying elsewhere and if there's a chance they might find out if I don't tell them. I don't want to burn any bridges, especially since it's totally possible that by spring I'll be fine with where I am now. I just want to give myself the option of moving back to a place I love that's closer to home if I still really hate my life after my first year.

 

Thanks in advance for any input!

[GeoDUDE!]

Well. 

 

Your going to need a letter from your current advisor. Without that, it would be hard to reassure the new programs that you can make it through the program. 

 

Have you talked to your advisor?

 

Perhaps you can switch to a masters track because you are so unhappy.

 

Students who don't communicate their needs to their advisor tend to be unhappy. If you have a good advisor, he/she will think its their job to make sure you get through graduate school with the best way possible. 

 

So talk to your advisor, or professors that you are close to.

[peachypie]

I understand your feelings, and I would like you to consider if there is anything that may allow you to feel happier in your current situation.  I am a first year as well, in the sciences, however I am attending a school that is in the same area I have lived in for about 2 years now.  I would like you to know that if this was my first move to the city (that I know I can be happy in) I would feel miserable on first impression.  Right now, though my family is far away my current friends are here and I rarely get a chance to see them (due to the grinds of what is first year science courses).  If I had just moved here, I probably wouldn't like the city that much anyway since I never have time to do anything or explore and certainly not the funds I once had.  However, I would maybe suggest you try to get a better feel for the city OUTSIDE the university as well as explore with fellow cohortmates.  I think at a minimum it gives you a chance to see if it is just the conditions of school and not getting to see the city outside of your own first year world, or if you truly aren't happy in that locale and/or program.

I would be cautious to proceed with applications for a new program since I think any new program may wonder if you will do the same thing in one year to them. 

Did you initially not like the idea of moving to your current city or was this something that has developed since the semester began? 

 

Graduate school is hard, and you feel lonely and/or not happy sometimes.  That's normal.  I made sure to pick a program where I knew that I was ok with the city so that when I needed to escape from the coursework and university, I could.  It sounds like you are living in a pretty big city based on your "high cost of living" so I'd guess there should be free and/or cheap things to do and organizations and groups outside of your university that you could get involved that may give you an outlet it sounds like you are looking for.

[juilletmercredi]

If this is your first year, that means you’ve lived in New City for maybe 2 months.  Perhaps 3-4 if you moved before the school year started.  Give it some time - it takes time to make friends and feel connected to your city; it doesn’t all happen overnight.  It’s always difficult to be away from your family at first, especially if you were with them before this.

 

I am one of the biggest advocates of making sure that you are happy outside of your grad school life - your personal life matters, too, and I think that you should be content where you are.  With that said, though, given that you’ve only been there for 2 months and given the importance of your program in your future, I think you should consider these things:

 

1) If your program is great, your advisor is wonderful, and this program has a good track record of placing people into fantastic jobs, do you want to give that up for the temporary gain of living somewhere else?  Especially when it’s uncertain whether you can replicate that again?

 

2) Less flexibility now can mean more later.  If you attend a great program in a meh place for 5 years, you might have more choices about where you want to work in the future, because you will be a more competitive applicant.

 

If you are applying out, you will need the support from at least one person in the program - and yes, you need to communicate with your advisor.  You don’t want i to be April, you find out that you got in somewhere, and you blindside your advisor with the news that you are planning to leave.  Not only that, but other PhD programs will want an assurance from your current program that you are not leaving because you are having trouble with the current program - or about to get kicked out.  So you’ll need a recommendation letter from a current professor, ideally your advisor.

 

Also...do you hate the city because you hate the city itself, or do you hate the city because it is far away from your family and you feel miserable without them.  The former is a valid issue, but the latter...do you intend to go into academia?  Because if you do, the chances that you will end up close by your family are pretty slim.

[ksiezyc]

Thanks guys for the great feedback! 

 

I do know that I need to give it more time. I'm just concerned about waiting and waiting for things to get better, and then realizing that I've sunk so much time in that I feel obligated to stay, regardless of how unhappy I am. I'm not sure where to draw the line between giving it time and cutting my losses and moving on, which is why I thought I'd apply to other schools and then see how I feel in the spring.

 

Juilletmercredi, I totally see your point about location. I don't think my situation is so much about missing my family as just disliking the new city. I lived in Big City A for most of my adult life, which was about a 5 hour drive from my family. Now I live about a 6 hour (and very expensive) flight away. So it's not that I used to see them much more often, just that they were much more accessible when I wanted/needed to see them. I really loved Big City A, and now find living in Slightly Smaller City B to be a surprising culture shock. I really hate the transportation situation here, I feel very unsafe in many parts of the city (which I never experienced in city A), and the general culture of the city is just not to my liking. I definitely don't want to throw away the great opportunity I have at the school here and if it were a 1-2 year program, I'd be fine just sucking it up, but I also feel strongly that personal life is extremely important to grad school success and I'm not sure I can live here for 5-7 years without succumbing to my own bitterness about this city

 

I'm also feeling a bit stuck on the advisor front, because I'm still in rotations and therefore don't have a permanent advisor. I could talk to my current rotation mentor, but don't want to burn any bridges in case I decide to stay.

[Vene]

Does your program have any faculty mentors? I'm also in rotations, but we have a first year committee with a faculty member assigned to us. If I were in your situation that would be the first place for me to go for help.

[TakeruK]

A lot of the people above gave good advice. I especially want to echo juilletmercredi's note about giving it more time and GeoDUDE!'s point about talking to your advisor. I was in the same situation with my Masters program, but in Canada, it's perfectly normal and required to do a Masters before a PhD (it's basically expected that the 2 year Masters will determine whether or not the student wants to pursue a 3-4 year PhD in the same field/school, and a large fraction of students choose to go elsewhere for a PhD). 

 

Here are some additional thoughts:

 

1. Have an "exit plan" for your current program. That is, think of the best plan you can for leaving this school on good terms. Sometimes just having a plan helps me feel better and helps me tough some bad times out until they get better. 

 

2. It sounds like a good "exit plan" for your case might be a Masters degree. In my school/field, these usually take two years, so my exit plan would be to tough out the first year and re-evaluate how I feel next fall. If I still want to leave, I would apply to new schools in late 2015 to start a new program in Fall 2016 (with a Masters from current school). You might want to consider this plan or some variant because:

a. it gives you more time to see how you feel about this city a year later (and you don't have to say anything to your current program -- no burnt bridges -- if you do change your mind about leaving later)

b. you need a good letter from your current advisor for new schools -- and at this point, they barely know you

c. waiting another year means your time at current school will help you in the next application cycle; if you reapply this year, your application will not benefit from your time in current school

 

3. Maybe not right now, since you're still relatively new, but in the Spring, when you get to know some of the professors better, you might want to follow GeoDUDE!'s advice and start talking to professors you trust about how you feel. Maybe they will have good advice for you. Academics move around a lot and I'm sure many of them have been in the same situation (or maybe are currently in the same situation). Also, talk to other students. Sometimes sharing experiences with others can help me cope, but be careful of spiraling into a feedback loop of negativity (I know I have to watch out for that, or it can get worse for me).

 

4. I just want to reiterate that I really do think personal happiness is extremely important to grad school success. The way I see it, I am in grad school because the work I do makes me happy -- why would I sacrifice personal happiness in the pursuit of happiness? But to paraphrase juilletmercredi again, sticking with this city for another 2 years might mean more opportunities for better happiness later. Sometimes thinking of it this way also helps me get through the tough times in grad school. So, unless your program does not have a Masters exit option or you are so unhappy that staying for 2 years is not worth future happiness, I would strongly encourage students who are unhappy in their first year to apply in their second year and leave with a Masters, instead of trying to apply to new schools only a few months into their first year (for all the reasons above).

 

5. When you do apply to new schools, whether it's this year or next, you will be asked why you are leaving your current grad program. In my opinion and experience, citing geographical reasons is perfectly fine (at least in my field). At an interview for a school, they asked me what was the number one reason I applied to their school and I was honest: the number one reason was that it was the closest school to my hometown other than my undergrad university. I also gave a number two reason which was research related but I told them that I made my application decisions with equal weight to personal happiness and research. The two professors that were interviewing me seemed to react very positively to this and agreed with me that personal life happiness is crucial to success. They might have just said that for the sake of saying that, but I was accepted in the end, so it's not like that statement put me on an auto-reject list! At another school, I told them a similar thing and asked if my spouse could visit with me for prospective students weekend since we will both be making the final decision (it was within driving distance so they would not have to pay for an extra plane ticket). The school also responded very positively and was very welcoming to my spouse during the visit (provided information about the city, included my spouse in social events, provided my spouse with a space to work while I interviewed with professors, etc.). The way I see it, if a school doesn't want you because you care about personal happiness in your location, then you probably don't want to be there either!

[surefire]

This may not be relevant at all (which would explain why no one has brought it up so far) but, does your program have a residence requirement? That might be worth looking into!

 

The residence requirement of my PhD program is only 2 years. After that time, students can - and frequently do - live in different cities. I know of many students who leave, often to conduct research/fieldwork elsewhere, and work out arrangements with supervisors at the "home" institution. I can see how this might work; once you finish all the coursework/exams and approach ABD status, people sometimes go months without setting foot on campus. I'm in the social sciences, so perhaps this is less feasible in other fields? Just a thought!

 

Lots of great advice above! Good luck OP!