- #1
Exabyte
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Hello everyone
I've recently started a PhD program at a pretty respected university even though I wouldn't want to disclose the exact field. My background is in physics and electrical/electronic engineering (BSc in both, MSc in Electronic Engineering).
After I graduated with my MSc I got hired as a systems engineer at a company which closely cooperates with the institute where I just started my PhD. I worked for said company for around half a year but eventually I wanted to leave mostly because the work I had to do didn't really align with my interests very well. My core interests are electronic engineering (power electronics, radio frequency, FPGA, Embedded Systems etc.) as well as numerical simulations so I always tried to find work or a PhD program in that area. When I worked for the company affiliated with the institute I mostly did software engineering of real-time systems and I also got to do a tiny bit of sensor development as well as a bit of numerical simulations (mostly COMSOL and Ansys Electronics) even though most of the work was software engineering. I liked my job at first because I learned quite a lot by working on a larger software project (e.g. proper version control & unit testing, documentation, lots of libraries etc...) but I really missed electronic development and simulations so I decided to quit and after looking for some time I got two good job offers in related fields.
However, before I signed a contract for one of these companies the institute head basically wanted to talk to me and told me he'd be happy if I could stay at the institute and he would give me the opportunity to do a PhD there. Now I always wanted to do a PhD in the areas that interest me but there was the issue that the work that I had been doing so far didn't really cover my core interests. I mentioned this to the institutes head and he said that there were lots of problems to solve in my areas of interest and he even mentioned two projects explicitly which he thought might be interesting PhD projects for me even though we didn't agree on a definite project. A PostDoc with whom I worked with quite a lot basically reiterated the same thing and told me there were lots of interesting projects. So I eventually decided to do a PhD at that institute.
So now I'm around two and a half weeks into my PhD and unfortunately it turned out that the two projects the institutes head mentioned aren't going to be realized and I essentially don't have a PhD project. Many PhD students in my group basically tell me this situation is normal for a new PhD student in the group and I would have to work there for a couple of months, read lots of papers and I would eventually develop a good idea for a PhD project together with my supervisor.
The problem is that I really don't see any interesting projects around. Right now I'm again doing work which has nothing to do with my interests (mostly software engineering as well as system identification/testing) and I'm kind of regretting not taking these industry jobs since I think the work there would've been more interesting. It also feels like I'm loosing valuable time developing skills in the areas that really interest me even though I'm not too old yet (early 20s). I recently talked to the PostDoc again and he basically repeated that he had "lots of ideas regarding interesting projects" but whenever I inquire more detailed information his ideas usually turn out to be not realizable and he typically gives me some new tasks in areas which don't interest me all that much.
So now I basically have the following questions:
I've recently started a PhD program at a pretty respected university even though I wouldn't want to disclose the exact field. My background is in physics and electrical/electronic engineering (BSc in both, MSc in Electronic Engineering).
After I graduated with my MSc I got hired as a systems engineer at a company which closely cooperates with the institute where I just started my PhD. I worked for said company for around half a year but eventually I wanted to leave mostly because the work I had to do didn't really align with my interests very well. My core interests are electronic engineering (power electronics, radio frequency, FPGA, Embedded Systems etc.) as well as numerical simulations so I always tried to find work or a PhD program in that area. When I worked for the company affiliated with the institute I mostly did software engineering of real-time systems and I also got to do a tiny bit of sensor development as well as a bit of numerical simulations (mostly COMSOL and Ansys Electronics) even though most of the work was software engineering. I liked my job at first because I learned quite a lot by working on a larger software project (e.g. proper version control & unit testing, documentation, lots of libraries etc...) but I really missed electronic development and simulations so I decided to quit and after looking for some time I got two good job offers in related fields.
However, before I signed a contract for one of these companies the institute head basically wanted to talk to me and told me he'd be happy if I could stay at the institute and he would give me the opportunity to do a PhD there. Now I always wanted to do a PhD in the areas that interest me but there was the issue that the work that I had been doing so far didn't really cover my core interests. I mentioned this to the institutes head and he said that there were lots of problems to solve in my areas of interest and he even mentioned two projects explicitly which he thought might be interesting PhD projects for me even though we didn't agree on a definite project. A PostDoc with whom I worked with quite a lot basically reiterated the same thing and told me there were lots of interesting projects. So I eventually decided to do a PhD at that institute.
So now I'm around two and a half weeks into my PhD and unfortunately it turned out that the two projects the institutes head mentioned aren't going to be realized and I essentially don't have a PhD project. Many PhD students in my group basically tell me this situation is normal for a new PhD student in the group and I would have to work there for a couple of months, read lots of papers and I would eventually develop a good idea for a PhD project together with my supervisor.
The problem is that I really don't see any interesting projects around. Right now I'm again doing work which has nothing to do with my interests (mostly software engineering as well as system identification/testing) and I'm kind of regretting not taking these industry jobs since I think the work there would've been more interesting. It also feels like I'm loosing valuable time developing skills in the areas that really interest me even though I'm not too old yet (early 20s). I recently talked to the PostDoc again and he basically repeated that he had "lots of ideas regarding interesting projects" but whenever I inquire more detailed information his ideas usually turn out to be not realizable and he typically gives me some new tasks in areas which don't interest me all that much.
So now I basically have the following questions:
- If I decide to quit the program and work for some time in the industry, do you think the fact that I left a previous PhD program would greatly reduce my chances of finding another PhD program in a field that interests me more?
- Do you think it makes sense to just work at the institute for maybe a year and hope that a new project comes up which I would find more interesting?