Hi all,

I'm newly registered here but have been reading posts from some of you for a while. I'm currently 1.5 years into a 4 year EngD and am starting to wonder if I'm really doing the right thing. During my first year due to the nature of an EngD I had quite a few courses I had to undertake in "key skills for industry" and yet I still got quite a lot of research done.

However, recently I have done next to nothing, I just can't get motivated and to be honest most of the time I'm not even sure what it is I'm meant to be doing. I love my research topic passionately but just seem to have hit a massive hump from where I can't pick myslef up and progress.

I just don't know what to do with myself - I don't have the kind of relationship with either of my supervisors where I feel I can discuss it and my friends and family don't really understand. Sometimes I just feel like waking away from it all but I know I'll be bitterly disappointed in myself later on if I do this (plus on a very selfish note I would have to get a job ASAP to support my son and don't know how easy that'd be currently). I really want this to work and can envisage the end result of my work being positive but just can't see how I'm going to get there.

I just feel totally lost and in need of direction. MAybe I'm just not cut out for self-directed learning? Does anyone have any advice or suggestions please for someone who feels tied in knots??

Thanks

Hi, I've been much where you are the last few months, very demotivated, very down actually and wondering if I'm doing the right thing (I'm in my first year). I got nothing done for ages, but then in a meeting with my supervisor, although I didn't say that I'd not done anything I did admit that I'd hit a wall and he suggested doing something totally different and leaving what I was doing at the time (or supposed to be doing) and do something totally different and come back to it later. It seems to have worked, I feel totally driven again searching for sources and getting lost in the research.
From what I understand the 2nd year blues are hell (and the first, third and fourth year) but its worth just pushing through this. Have you any different type of research you can do, a different area, where you just promise yourself you'll sit down, just for an hour, and work at, and then take it from there? A change is as good as a rest at times and that one hour will develop into two, into three and so on. There is nothing worse than sitting procrastinating for hours and worrying that you're behind.
I hope you feel better soon, just think how good it will feel when this is done and you got through it :-) Wearing the silly hat and the coloured gown is all that gets me through this some days, then others I feel great, am very productive and enjoy myself.