- #1
cosmogirl
- 35
- 0
Hello everybody!
I'm now in the second half of my PhD program, with 2 more years to go, and nothing to show for it. Sure, I've written two papers (which got zero citations), but the only good thing I can say about these papers, is that they are not the worst papers ever written. Unfortunately, my adviser wants me to continue pursuing this line of research, because he just got some research grant for it.
When this first started bothering me, some time ago, I was depressed for a while, and then decided to take some action. So I started 2 other projects, which seemed (at the time) more interesting and more promising. This decision, and a coincidental increase in my teaching load made last semester the most difficult one in my entire life. Then I continued to work very hard all summer, hoping that I would soon begin to see some results.
However, things didn't work out quite as I planned. What I have now on my hands is three projects which are still far from completion, none of which I can dismiss because I'm tied to other people, and zero motivation to continue. As I see it now, these projects will at best produce more uninteresting papers that no one will ever read, and even that will require tremendous effort on my side.
By the time I finish my PhD, not only I won't have any chance of getting a postdoctoral position, but (more importantly) I will have wasted all my time in grad school in vain. I feel that all the work I've done is completely useless, nobody will ever use my results or my code. Not that I hoped to make any groundbreaking discoveries, but the work I've done so far is of no use whatsoever. This situation is very depressing, to the point that I can't make myself do any work at all.
If anybody was in this situation (or their friends, maybe) I would really like to hear how they managed to pull themselves out of it. And general comments and ideas are also highly appreciated!
I'm now in the second half of my PhD program, with 2 more years to go, and nothing to show for it. Sure, I've written two papers (which got zero citations), but the only good thing I can say about these papers, is that they are not the worst papers ever written. Unfortunately, my adviser wants me to continue pursuing this line of research, because he just got some research grant for it.
When this first started bothering me, some time ago, I was depressed for a while, and then decided to take some action. So I started 2 other projects, which seemed (at the time) more interesting and more promising. This decision, and a coincidental increase in my teaching load made last semester the most difficult one in my entire life. Then I continued to work very hard all summer, hoping that I would soon begin to see some results.
However, things didn't work out quite as I planned. What I have now on my hands is three projects which are still far from completion, none of which I can dismiss because I'm tied to other people, and zero motivation to continue. As I see it now, these projects will at best produce more uninteresting papers that no one will ever read, and even that will require tremendous effort on my side.
By the time I finish my PhD, not only I won't have any chance of getting a postdoctoral position, but (more importantly) I will have wasted all my time in grad school in vain. I feel that all the work I've done is completely useless, nobody will ever use my results or my code. Not that I hoped to make any groundbreaking discoveries, but the work I've done so far is of no use whatsoever. This situation is very depressing, to the point that I can't make myself do any work at all.
If anybody was in this situation (or their friends, maybe) I would really like to hear how they managed to pull themselves out of it. And general comments and ideas are also highly appreciated!