This is a tricky one. I remember that all the time whilst writing my first year report, 'But, I want to leave...' but I still did it. It was not great but they still allowed me to do another year...

Really at the end of year one it should be:

a) Are you good enough to stay?

b) Do you want to stay?

With no pressure on a 'no' to b).

I was offered (in Jan/Feb work in my previous field which was £45,000 p.a. with benfits for a 37.5 hour working week - but I hate the field).

It is just a matter of saying before you get way into that second year, 'Hey, thanks for the opportunity of the last year, but I am bailing out' - but only if you REALLY do not want to stay.

My supervisor and a post doc have noticed that I am less happy recently. I will speak to him on Friday just before I visit my girlfriend for the weekend for her birthday and my parents for their wedding anniversary.

She does not want to move up here as she now hates the town (We met as under-grads and I see what she means - I dislike my university town). She can NOT find any work at all up here and to top it all off, I live with some Evangelical Christians (instead of in Halls) and they either bring many happy clappy and pushy people around or I am left completely on my own and isolated and this is depressing.


I feel that I am not up to the work and I do not enjoy it that much any more. It is lab based and my supervisor expects a lot of work. He claims he used to put in 12-14 hours a day, 6 or 6 and a half days a week.

I have felt like quitting in February, Easter and August of this year and have pretty much made up my mind to go.

I do not intend to stay in academia or chemistry - so what is the point. I realise that this is not for me and it is beyond my level.

So professionally and personally I want to go.

You are definietly not alone.
I graduated in 2004 in Chemistry, swearing never to go into academia or back to my that university. After just under two years of working, I found that I hated my desk job. I asked an old supervisor at my university to help me out to get a PhD and he offered me one. I snapped it up. I started in October 2006.

The problem is that I have had to put my main relationship on hold. My girl friend lives 280 miles away and works some weekends - I have a car but the Friday night/Sunday afternoon trips really cut into the research life. I rarely get to see her. It will be 4 years together on November the 2nd. We had discussed marriage and a family - but this now seems an age away.