So I'm in my final year of a STEM PhD and I have nothing worthwhile to write about in my thesis nor have the motivation to continue further.
I've already "soft" dropped out by skipping university for a week by lying about an illness I don't have.
Should I just drop out completely or get down on my knees and beg my supervisor for a masters degree?
Discuss with your supervisor.
Btw don't make stories. Bullshiting on Veeky Forums is not healthy.
Yes. A similar thing happened in my graduate research group. The thing was, our PI/adviser was completely willing to knock them down to Master's Degree's because he was sick as fuck of trying to work with them
you could ask /r9k/ they should know
>because he was sick as fuck of trying to work with them
them?
how many in your research group?
seven total
greentext story pls
Thats sad OP.
Also are you a 1st worlder?
I need to get a paid norm to my thesis work. Can you give?
i hate whiny faggots like you. Just kys already ffs
>phd fag doesn't have the real life experience or even capacity to know what he likes
>wants to self-destruct
kys
>and I have nothing worthwhile to write about in my thesis
A lot of people have been there: in the last year, sitting down at the computer, readying thesis.tex and then.... self doubt.
Truth is you have most likely more than enough material to complete that thesis.
And yes: you must go through this. Otherwise you will hate yourself for the rest of your life. It is gruelling, I am not going to pretend otherwise but the alternative is even worse.
t. Physicist with PhD
But i have literally rubbish research. I only have enough data for 30 pages to write about. Thats about 18 graphs and 3 tables in grand total.
I only survived this long because my supervisor couldn't find new students to replace me.
Seconding the request for story
What the fuck have you been doing all these years?
>But i have literally rubbish research. I only have enough data for 30 pages to write about
That is what I felt too when I stared deeply into the screen, creating the .tex file.
So get Leslie Lamport's book, sit down, open that thesis.tex file you will soon lean to love and outline the document.
Remember: a PhD is not about winning the Nobel prize. It is however all about demonstrating you can undertake research.
Remember your undergrad training.
Bullshit, extrapolate, then bullshit again.
I honestly don't know why you even bothered finishing if you felt like you had rubbish research.
My research and my publications are amazing and my thesis so far great yet I'm still stressing about finding a job or a postdoc after this.
If you have rubbish research you might as well just quit and a entry level job on the spot. Your PhD isn't going to matter, it will be a disadvantage in the job market if anything, especially if your adviser doesn't recommend you for postdocs or to other appropriate research positions.
Why are you stressing, finding a postdoc is as easy as fuck. You can even switch fields into an ivy league tier if you're worth a shit. Demand for slave labor is high right now. The next step, quite a bit harder...
Depends if you enjoy it or not. If you don't, beg for your masters degree and get the hell out.
If you want to do academia, then buckle down, suffer, and continue the good fight.
>a postdoc *AT A GOOD DEPARTMENT FOR MY RESEARCH THAT WILL EVENTUALLY GET ME A FACULTY JOB
>The next step, quite a bit harder...
Yeah exactly, which is why your choice of postdoc servitude becomes all the more important. So many people I know do their postdocs at MIT only to end up at CCs. It's depressing...
The first thing I would do is look up your program's policy on medical leave, go see a therapist and work with her to try to get out of school for a while as soon as you can.
What you do with that time is up to you, but it sounds like you need to do something else for a while.
Some of the chinese profs in MIT take chinese post-docs.They go nowhere.
Non whites in academia are extremely racist. We have a black prof. who studied in the US and he exclusively takes in black students.
He's even open about it. I don't know how the hell this is acceptable.
>in the US
>I don't know how the hell this is acceptable
Everyone is an artist. Some professors destroy the artist within. Too much education can stifle creativity. Maybe you hang around some creative people to try to get it back.
Hello. I am Simon.
I could give you the formula for dimensional travel written as a linear mathematical formula.
If you can prove to me you are human first.
Had some shit professors in the CS department that had me do everything their way, I think I lost some of my math abstraction from it. Now I'm trying to get it back.
>US
there's your problem lad.
>I honestly don't know why you even bothered finishing if you felt like you had rubbish research.
There were three reasons, and I already mentioned them. To recap:
1: first of all there was a feeling of having bad research, a lack of confidence. This is just how it is with a lot of people. That does not mean the results or the work is rubbish in reality.
2: secondly a PhD is not so much about the results as it is about learning how to DO research
3: the alternative, just leaving, would be worse, a WHOLE LOT worse.
How hang on in there user, a lot of us have been there and got through it. Today I have a pretty good job, a nice salary and nobody around me knows anything about how I felt staring into the screen all those years ago.
The trick is to move between institutions. Do not end up as the pet slave to one professor. Never stay on for Post Doc where you did your PhD. That will kill your career.
Expect 2 - 4 post doc positions, each at 2 - 4 years in duration before tenure.
I'm not in the US, he did his PhD there and came back.
>That does not mean the results or the work is rubbish in reality.
If you're not confident about your own work then it might not be complete rubbish, but it certainly isn't good enough to bother gunning for an academic or research career.
>2: secondly a PhD is not so much about the results as it is about learning how to DO research
This is just naive. It's a competition to become a researcher, nothing less. Everyone wants to be a researcher, doing a PhD just so you can say "oh look I can do trivial research" isn't going to get you a job as a researcher.
>3: the alternative, just leaving, would be worse, a WHOLE LOT worse.
I sincerely disagree. I've known a lot of people who've been in this position, the ones who finished ended up unemployed and had to find low paying jobs completely unrelated to what they studied. The only guy with a happy ending found a mediocre job at a bank.
On the other hand the ones that settled for a master or outright quit managed to get high paying jobs related to their degree.
A PhD over qualifies you. It's career death if you don't do well at it.
I'm not trying to scare anyone, this is just the sad reality, you have no idea how many people get fucked every year because they graduated with PhDs.
>2 - 4 post doc positions
So getting tenure means having no money for most of your adult life, not being able to settle down with a family and likely not get married at all?
No thanks desu. I don't know why anyone would want to do this.