Just another PhD student thinking about quitting
Academic life is full of criticism, and your professors need to prepare you for this by being highly critical but that doesn't mean you should give up. Your research becomes more rigorous by criticism and advice-it is all part of the process.
That being said-it can really hurt at times.And your supervisors can usually only guide you on the process because it is your topic and your research. My supervisors give very generic advice and we have conversations about the work every 2 months (I'm part time-it would be every month otherwise), but the work is pretty much all mine. They are like a critical friend and they don't have much time for supervision as their other duties and students all need the majority of attention-not to mention their own research. I think a large majority of supervisors would be like this.
However, 9-5 jobs also have people who criticise your work who are also called supervisors. Sometimes they can be fantastic mentors and sometimes mediocre ones. There are also horrible work supervisors out there in the 9-5 working world as well. It is a part of life we all have to get used to once we leave undergraduate studies. Good luck and as Treeoflife has suggested, you will feel better about this in a few days.
Yeah. Nothing new nor shocking.
I just finished my second year and I had this PhD evaluation with someone external to my university.
I was really happy I managed to get this super professor to come here to evaluate my work. He's one of the most important researchers in my field.
He was really nice, he gave me some great suggestions to both improve my work and my possibility of getting a good position in the future. He also accepted to come again for my eventual PhD defense.
I really expected some of the toughest things he told me. According to him, I should do some major changes to my approach to make it really valuable.
I'm happy with me, with my work, with my presentation skills so, what's the problem?
I really think my supervisors are crap, totally disconnected from the research reality. I feel they waste my time with outdated and unimportant shit. It's not the first time I think this, but let's say, I kind of confirmed it. I know I could've done a thousand times better.
Conclusion: I just want to quit and find a 9-5 job outside academy.
With a year to go, I would see it through to show you have gained something from your time. To come away with nothing now would be the worst outcome, including from a job hunting point of view.
Take the criticisms from the external to improve and strengthen your work. It appears he knows what he is doing even if your supervisors don't. It may avoid major corrections post-viva as it appears someone has given you some solid advice.
You want a bog-standard 9-5 job? The grass is green on the other side of the fence if things aren't 100% I guess. I'm 9-5 now and can safely say job satisfaction was better back during PhD and (1st) post-doc - it's same old, same old versus past variety put bluntly.
Ian
