Feeling Desperate

[questionforforums]

Hi,

 

I'm more than a year into the dissertation component of my humanities doctoral program. I was fortunate to be admitted to a prestigious program and have been able to pursue different interests and work with top scholars.  However, after several years, I have little to show for my work.  My experiences with exams, seminars, and grant-writing has been edifying and I've appreciated the help my advisers have provided.  Yet I have not achieved anything tangible, I've become accustomed to working without any positive feedback, and I have no illusions that I will be able to continue in my field after completing the PhD due to my lack of achievement and progress.  In the first years of the program, I committed myself to continuing to work despite my unhappiness and poor performance because I had funding and knew that many students struggle. However, most if not all of my peers have since found their footing, have professional accomplishments and comfortable relationships with their advisers, and I feel if anything less confident and more discouraged than when I entered my program.  I've additionally found socializing to make me feel worse, as my friends and family often express confusion over why the program is taking so long or why I have nothing to show them.   I've made efforts to talk to counselors on campus, get regular exercise, etc. to stave off depressive feelings, but I wonder how much effort should be dedicating to ameliorating what is supposed to be a rewarding, fulfilling experience.  At this point, I face dim career prospects, perform quite poorly, and (partly as a result) find little joy in my work.

 

I'm wondering what others think about how I should move forward - whether I should try to wrap up quickly, or just cut my losses, or pursue an alternative that I'm overlooking.

[fuzzylogician]

Hi questionforforums, 

 

What you are describing is a very unfortunate situation that I'm sorry you're in, but I think that you are also very self-reflective and I think that is a great quality that will allow you come out of this as best as possible. From what you describe, it sounds to me like you've basically already decided not to pursue an academic career. That's a perfectly legitimate choice that you should not feel bad about! However, my guess is that you are still acting as if you *are* pursuing such a career, both in terms of how you present yourself to family, friends, and colleagues, and how you are using your academic training. I think that the first thing to do is to embrace (at least privately, since obviously no one forces you to share your career decisions with anyone) the fact that you are going to have a non-academic career.

 

Once you make this mental switch, then the next goal is to try and decide what kind of career that is, at least in broad terms. Then, you want to seek out opportunities at your program, school, and community, to enhance the skills you'll need to have for this new chosen path. This may take you in several different directions. It may be the case that a purely theoretical dissertation in the humanities is not the best way to spend your time; for example, maybe you should find a more applied topic, or have an experimental or stats component, or find a 'sexier' title, to make your PhD more marketable. Maybe you want to be developing other skills altogether, like computer or design skills, or you want to get into education or editing (throwing out random examples here).

 

Your school may have lots of resources that can help you start on this new career path that you don't even know about, but you could start exploring once you decide on new intermediate and long-term goals. For example, lots of schools have a dedicated office for helping students find jobs, where you could get targeted advice for leaving academia and finding non-academic jobs that you have skills and training for. Once you have decided not to go into academia, the *quality* of your dissertation research matters less; it may be a better investment of your time to do just enough to get out of your program with the degree, and invest the extra time in other things, like training or job-hunting outside academia. Or, it's possible that finishing the degree is not the best use of your time at all and you should instead be pursuing another education, internship, or job opportunity (though it's hard to get past the sunk cost fallacy).

 

I truly believe that each of us have the skills and capacity to be successful at more than one thing. I think that once you identify a new goal that you can be successful at, and start actively pursuing ways of making it happen, you will start to feel much better about your life. You can have new achievements and be more successful that way, and the PhD will end up being just one step along this new path.

[questionforforums]

Thank you, FuzzyLogician, for your thoughtful and kind response.  I think that you're right that I have decided that I won't have an academic career - I don't think that its possible given how consistently I've struggled and how little I've achieved. Periodically, I have sat down and spent a considerable amount of time thinking about leaving my doctoral program, considering alternative careers, researching the requirements, and contacting other grad students who had made similar transitions.  I think that it did suppress some of my anxieties, but only for so long.  I think that you're right that I need to make a cleaner break.  I repeatedly told my advisers how much I was struggling, but they (like my family) usually told me that was normal and part of the process.  I think that putting my head down for so long has just made me lose confidence in myself and the idea that there is anything but more struggle at the end of this.  In any case, thank you again for your time and thoughts.

[TMP]

What is it that is keeping you in the PhD program?  Why did you want to pursue the PhD?

 

If you realize that you're not living the subject you're working with, it may be time to think about leaving.  What I mean is that most graduate students who come to "hate" their dissertation topics (either because the dissertation is not going anywhere OR they just spent so much time with it and are feeling sick and tired) but they do love other aspects of the PhD such as teaching and talking to others about the field so.... they stick it out and finish.

 

But if everything- the department, the dissertation research process, the teaching, etc, etc- is making your miserable, then I'd consider leaving altogether.

 

You'll also want to look ahead to the way funding is structured in your department in terms of research/travel.  Will you be able to get some that will help you finish?

[questionforforums]

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

There are a few things keeping me in the program: first, sunk costs - I'm several years in, post-qualifying exams, post-research, into dissertation writing.  I kept my head down during struggles throughout coursework, master's exams, and qualifying exams.  So, it's not easy to discard the invesment.  Second - it's not easy to transition out of a PhD. I've researched and made contacts in adjacent professional fields into which other graduate students have moved after not finding (or choosing not to pursue) academic jobs. Such a career transition is far from simple or guaranteed.  Third - there are moments of joy, its just rarely in anything I can put my stamp on.  I enjoy the conversations, the teaching, the reading, the thinking - just not the products I create (or fail to create).  Finally - I think there's something inherently difficult about quitting anything, particularly long-term, personal investments.  My life, lifestyle, circle of friends, and aspirations are bound up in this program.

[music]

Can you treat your PhD simply as a job until it's finished? If you feel like quitting is not a viable option, perhaps you can treat this as a less-than-enjoyable job, do it for the paycheck and eventual qualification, and in the mean time explore alternative career options through your university career guidance program. It sounds like you're at the start of your 4th year, in which case perhaps you can work with your advisor to explain that you really want to complete by the end of next academic year. 18 months is not such a long time in the grand scheme of things. Have you expressed your concerns to your advisor or friends? I would think that perhaps a good number of your concerns are actually pretty common, and your advisor may think you're doing better than you give yourself credit for. Some external, objective perspective can be a wonderful thing.

 

That said, sometimes quitting is a good option. Do learn about the sunk cost fallacy that @fuzzylogician mentioned. Have you looked into whether a leave of absence is an option, which might allow you to explore other career options without fully quitting? It might show you whether the depressive feelings you mentioned really are due to the PhD program, or whether they're more general and just playing themselves out in whatever situation you find yourself. Speaking as someone who has suffered from debilitating anxiety issues, the latter was the case for me. I actually quit my previous career because I felt like the anxiety was caused by it (I was a violinist) - to some extent that was true, but I also know that anxiety will follow me whatever my career is.

[questionforforums]

At this point, I am treating it like a job - at least the dissertating part.  I reward myself with other types of work or volunteering, so as not to become completely unfulfilled by anything that could count as productive.  I worry that even with this attitude I won't finish, as my dissertation is such a mess and my morale is so low.  I've spoken to my adviser, who usually does reassure me that I'm doing fine (although little more than that, and I'm well aware that fine hardly cuts it in this field/profession), and just tells me to keep going.  I often feel better for a day or two, at which point I become lost again - with the gaping holes in the research that are relatively unfeasible to fill in, with the chapters, everything.  I've found my friends to more or less echo my family - they just say something like: "can't you speed it up" or express confusion over how I could be at this point.

 

I think I could take a leave of absence, although I'm doubtful that I'd finish if I did.   I also think that my adviser would lose patience, so I'd be unable to get much help from him after that.