Depressed af about math phd

hi Veeky Forums

i got my masters and i was accepted to a phd program in yurop. I got here 2 months ago, signed a 3 year contract, and they gave me a book to read about my field (analysis for optimization). I can't fucking progress in the book though. It's been 2 months and I've barely made it through 2 chapters. When I read the papers of my advisor's previous student, it's all greek to me. What the fuck should I do? I have impostor syndrome bad and my advisor is always busy and can't hold my hand through this "trivial" stuff. I know in USA the phd students get like 2 years of just taking graduate level classes and taking quals. I feel like I fucked up by coming to yurop. Should I an hero?

wat you stuggle wif boyo?

ekelands variational principle, topological nets in functional analysis.

>it's all greek to me
well what do you expect getting your phd in greece faggot?

i was crushing it in analysis during my masters degree, wrote my thesis on an analysis heavy subject, but I didnt study for like 3 months between my msc and phd and now I cant even remember the reverse triangle inequality or how to prove it.

if you have mathematical maturity then you don't need to actually remember maths.

just derive it all an quickly look things up if you have to.

if you need to have things in your head to be good at maths then you were a brainlet all along.

t. sophomore
why do you think professors have libraries in their offices ? at some point, you definitely are going to forget stuff if you don't use it everyday and, more importantly, you'll be using a great deal of things you won't have time to understand in depth because you need to work on your own stuff.

you just proved my point.
They have it for a reference in the off chance they need it.

but it's not like they're unable to do their jobs unless they have little things like the cauchy-schwarz inequality or inverse triangle inequality off by heart.

if you have mathematical maturity then that becomes really unimportant.

i had mathematical maturity at one point but it feels like I've lost it and I don't have time to go back to basic real analysis and regain it because I am on this 3 year contract and I already 'wasted' 2 months. I'm scared I am not going to finish my phd and I'm only 2 months in :( before I could always see the next step in the proof or at least the bottleneck and with a hint I could get it, now I'm pure brainlet. I guess an hero is the only solution.

You're at a plateau, don't lose faith in yourself. It's going to take effort but that's what it means to be challenged. Take it back to basics, work your way up to where you should be and you will still stand a chance.

I'm sorry. Were you under the impression a PhD was meant to be busy? Stop bitching, get of Veeky Forums, and get to work.

Thread complete

What the fuck are you even paying for? Are you fucking retarded? You realize that by paying for that education, you are entitled to more than just a fucking book. Your "advisor" is fucking trash, their job is to serve you. Switch schools, switch advisors, just fucking do something about it.

Relax. Pick up Rudin and work through that exclusively for a few days, even a week. You're not wasting time since you won't make progress without it.

usually phd students are the ones getting paid, so yeah they're expected to be able to digest what is thrown at them

I don't pay to go here user, that's not how graduate school works. They pay ME 1600 euros a month to do research 40 hours a week with no teaching obligations. It actually adds to the guilt/pressure because I am taking all this grant money from them and I suck.

What is the phd program about, why did they hire you for a field that you have no undergrad experience in and why did you accept a position that you have no idea about? You're expected to have some undergrad research/master thesis to show that you can produce results without handholding

The phd program in general is about signal processing but I am working strictly in optimization.

>why did they hire you for a field that you have no undergrad experience in and why did you accept a position that you have no idea about?

I have no idea why they accepted me, sometimes I think back to the interview process and wonder if I misled them about something but I was completely honest. I have no optimization classes in my transcript, just 2 semesters of real analysis and 2 semesters of complex analysis from my masters studies.

>You're expected to have some undergrad research/master thesis to show that you can produce results without handholding

I did research for my msc and it was definitely no hand holding (my advisor hardly helped me at all besides an initial idea of what to explore which was really useful). But that was a subject I actually understood, fourier analysis. Now I am thrown to the wolves with nets, weak convergence, a bunch of very specialized linear algebra. i try to take it one day at a time but its depressing seeing the time go by and my progress trickle in. When I did my msc it was nothing like this, i didnt have to read the basics because I already understood and had a great intuition for it. I just started reading and understanding papers in the field. quite the opposite from my experience now.

This is sound advice, I will do this user.

>know in USA the phd students get like 2 years of just taking graduate level classes and taking quals.

>i got my masters

That first two years is basically what you do instead of a masters lol.

Well I met with my advisor today. I didn't tell him directly about my struggles with trivial shit, just that I haven't been making good progress. He assured me everything is okay and directed me to read some chapters further in the book even if I didn't understand everything before and that I can always come to him with questions (except like 3/5 days of the week he's not even here but I digress). I guess I will keep chugging along. Thanks for the replies Veeky Forums, positive and negative they're all useful.

I mean, they gotta teach the Masters students what you forgot. Get a tutor man. No shame.

I would but I only speak english, there is virtually no one I can turn to. I really fucked myself in that regard.

Skype?

I would also say pick up Folland

It's clear you don't know anything about PhD programs. You probably shouldn't be giving advice.

But why didn't you try working on a subject closer to your field of expertise ? Didn't you discuss that with your would-be advisor at the time ?

This is the whole point of PhD programs. Everyone goes through the stage where they feel hopeless and get imposter syndrome. You've got through those chapters, so the subsequent ones will get easier as your knowledge and intuition of the field increases. Ask your advisor shit too. Unless they're an asshole, they won't mind. I've asked brainlet tier questions to mine and he answered them.

because at least my advisor is an expert in this field? when I did my masters thesis my advisor wasn't a total expert on the material, he was familiar but not an expert, and it showed. I had a lot of very theoretical questions that you really need expertise to answer precisely, like can such and such pathology exist in our case or whatever. I would rather study something I'm not as comfortable with but my advisor is truly an expert on, then vice versa. It's easier to learn from an expert, is my thinking.

Woah user you sound just like me when I started the PhD. It's not often people dare openly discuss this like you do.

So yeah it's gonna be tough as fuck. The good news is it's supposed to be. Keep it up, there's light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm gonna give you advice I wished somebody had given me when I started: the solution is not to isolate yourself with math books and study until your eyes drop off. You NEED to keep social interactions. Meet your advisor, meet other profs (most of them like helping), meet other students, both at your level and also master students (if there are some in your lab). You need to talk with people, it will help you organize your own ideas, and most importantly not go crazy. You should have at least 8 persons you meet with on a regular basis, even if it's on Skype. I'm not saying the 8 need to be math related, that includes friends and family.