Career change desire or post-quals slump

[Meganpsi]

Dear all,

 

I am a Ph.D Candidate on Life Sciences starting my 4th year this August. Although I have made significant progress (good number of publications, good grades).

 

However, I am terrible unhappy with what I am doing: I do not like the research, I do not even want to do research anymore and honestly I do not know what I want to do when I graduate (since I do not want to do research). Everything started after I passed my orals, maybe is this post-quals slump. 

 

I have been seriously thinking about quitting and changing to veterinary schools (I am only happy around dogs and animals), but I am not sure if I have the motivation to put at least more 4 years of studying before I get a real job, plus the potential debt I would have if I do not get a good scholarship (so far no debt for anything yet). 

 

What should I do? Should I just quit with a Masters and jump on something else? 

 

Thanks

[rising_star]

There are ways to work around dogs and other animals without being a veterinarian. You could become a vet tech, volunteer at an animal shelter or with a rescue group, foster dogs for a rescue group, etc. There are also other kinds of jobs in animal shelters, like volunteer coordinator, office manager, etc. Have you considered those options instead of just feeling like you have to do more schooling?

 

Whether or not you should quit with a master's is in some ways a separate decision. Can you envision any future career paths where having completed the PhD would be an asset? If so, you should complete it. But it also depends on how many years you would have left before completing your degree.

 

You might also want to consider talking to a therapist before making any major decision. If you're terribly unhappy, then it can be difficult to see possible paths with clarity. Talking to someone else can help with that.

 

Good luck!

[TakeruK]

I am also starting my 4th year of my PhD this Fall! I think a post-quals slump is fairly normal, especially if there is a big gap between quals and the next "milestone" (and especially if that "milestone" is the thesis defense).

 

I think the question "What do you want to do when you graduate?" is a hard one to answer. I second rising_star's advice: think about future career paths and see if any of them require a PhD. If they do, then maybe staying and finish is a good idea.

 

You can certainly do more than just research with a PhD. However, at many schools, academics are usually unexperienced and unqualified to help you find non-academic jobs or even tell you about non-academic options. At my school, we are pushing hard to get the University to hold more non-academic career fairs, more panels and training and information on non-academic careers. So, maybe looking into alternative resources can help you figure out what you might want to do after grad school and whether or not you need a PhD. If you haven't already looked, some potential resources for this are: your school's career center, your school's Alumni association, and grad students that you know went on to do something else. Sometimes your advisor might be a good resource too--not because they know how to get non-academic careers but they probably have friends or colleagues from grad school that did go this way. My advisor offered to connect me with their friends who left academia if I chose to go that route. However, you might already know that not all professors will like to hear that their student aren't happy with a research career, so be careful!

 

Once you determine what potential options you are interested in, try to shape/direct the remainder of your time in grad school to best achieve these goals. Join groups and clubs on campus that could help you make the right connections or develop the right skills (e.g. outreach clubs, leadership in some organizations etc.) You say you have already done well in research and if your future plans do not include research, then it could be a good time to ease up on research now and spend your time doing things that will advance your goals.

 

If you aren't already doing this, it might help to reframe the way you think about grad school. I know that many people that are/were set on the academia track know that we have to be as productive as possible to get the best shot at an academic position. So this usually means doing extra work well beyond the "minimum". But choosing a different career path that doesn't require this can be very freeing and maybe even improve your own quality of life. So I would take a break maybe, take some time off, and/or treat it more like a "real job" and work regular hours instead of constantly trying to maximize your output. Maybe this will even get you out of a "slump" and you might find other interests (which may or may not be research related).

 

And finally, it might help to keep in mind that "typical time to degree" might not be the same if you are not pursuing an academic job. I find that most grad students will graduate with far more experience and productivity than the "minimum required for a PhD to be granted". If the majority of students in your program/lab/group are aiming for academic career paths, they might have had long PhD lengths. These long degree times might be discouraging so when you weigh whether or not a PhD will help you in an "alternate" career path, I think it might help to remember that you can probably graduate earlier by just meeting either the department/school's minimum requirements or whatever standard you think you need to achieve for your post-grad-school career goals.

[Meganpsi]

Thank you rising_star and TakeruK for your useful feedback and advice.

 

I am already going to therapy but I am still feeling depressed. I will definitely consider other animal related careers if I still want to go that way.

 

I agree with you Takeruk academics do not help you to get non-academic jobs or non-research related jobs. In my school is worse, my advisor would judge if I tell him I want to do other that is non-research related, he will even kick me out of his lab because he will think I'm a waste of his time. For him there is only research in industry or research in academia that is all.

 

I have been treating the Ph.D like a "real job"after I passed my orals, with a few exceptions, but I still do not feel motivated. I also do not feel I have requirements for graduation, in my school is when your advisor and committee members say it (after you pass the orals). Even If I already have a good amount of first author papers and more research to be finished, I do not know when my hungry advisor will stop pushing me for more useless research. 

 

I will follow your advise to just do the minimum amount of work possible and I hope I can graduate in 4.5 years or 5 years at the most, and also hope I figure out what to do afterwards. 

[juilletmercredi]

If you're in your fourth year then you have some time to start investigating other careers.

 

It's quite common for doctoral students to realize several years in that they no longer want to be academics, that they're uninterested in their research, etc. Since you've made that discovery, your next step is to figure out what you DO want to do. What I found is that doctoral programs give you a tremendous about of flexible time to discover other things that you might like to do so that you can make the transition from academia to a non-academic position.

 

I agree with rising_star that the first question is whether or not to finish, and that if you can envision any careers in which a PhD would be helpful for necessary, you should probably stay. I grappled with the same question in my third year, and ultimately decided to stay because I knew I wanted a research-related career, and a PhD would help. I'm tremendously glad I did because I've secured a non-academic position that requires a PhD in my field. However, I also came across lots of research-related jobs that I could've done with an MA in my field, too. So I think the first step is to start poking around - do a job search for positions that sound interesting to you, and see what kinds of degrees they require.

 

-I do agree that if you decide to stay, you can start treating the PhD like a 9-to-5, and make plans to complete the minimum requirements. However, how successful you are at this will really depend on your advisor. Some advisors will not be satisfied with the sort of 'least defensible unit' type of dissertation. So plan accordingly.

 

-Separate interests from things you want to do in your career. You like to spend time around animals; that doesn't mean you should make a job out of it. Think about the skills that you have and what kinds of tasks you actually like to do every day at work.

 

-Ironically, connecting with the reasons you came to graduate school might illuminate some fields for you - but at a higher/more macro level than your research area. For example, in my case I remembered that I loved thinking about the ways in which people behaved and thought and felt, and how those affected their decisions. I'm also highly analytical, and I love research as a practice (although not the way it's done in the academic world). So I knew that I wanted a career that still required insight and some research into people's behaviors, but what the topic of that research was wasn't so important to me. Introspecting into your own motivations and likes and dislikes may uncover some connections like that.

 

-Poke around on career resources and see what PhDs in your area have done, if you want to finish. You can stalk people on LinkedIn. Your university's career services office might be good. You can also join VersatilePhD and read some of the bios. VersatilePhD is probably the best resource out there for non-academic careers for PhD holders.

 

-Once you have some areas picked out that seem interesting, you can do some informational interviews with PhDs (or MAs) who work non-academic jobs. You will quickly become surprised at how many of them are not only willing but overjoyed to spend a little time mentoring and talking with current students to help them out. Many random acquaintances/semi-strangers were willing to chat with me for 15-60 minutes about their careers. It's delightful - you get to meet lots of people and also learn useful information.

 

-If you can, try an internship or a part-time job that's non-academic and allows you to develop skills. I know that my internship and some of my part-time jobs were attractive to the jobs I applied to (and ultimately helped me get the job I got). Employers like to see that any student has some experience, but for academics it's particularly attractive because it shows that you can work in a non-academic setting (and aren't the stereotypical antisocial egghead that people like to paint on us academics) and it shows that you have skills and experience that you can deploy in a non-academic setting. Sometimes it's difficult to get this approved by advisors or work it in, but try anyway.

 

-Think really carefully before you go to school for anything else. Read up on their educational crises, too. For example, I'm not very familiar with the vet field, but I have read some articles that have indicated that vet med is in a little bit of a crisis, too. Vet salaries don't seem to match up with the average debt for vets coming out of vet school, and in desirable areas the field is saturated. Admission to vet school is also really competitive - fewer than half of applicants are admitted. You don't want to fall from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak. Similar problems have abounded when PhDs have left the field and decided to go into law, for example, or into librarianship. I'm not saying don't go into another competitive field if that's your passion - but don't assume that anything is better than academia, because there are a lot of other fields where you might be in the same boat only with more debt.