Had a prof tell horror stories about this kind of thing happening. Peers who started at a similar time were already postdocs or in industry, meanwhile their colleague had yet to defend cause their PI just would not let them go.
It benefits them to keep students. The system’s incentives need to be reformed.
In the UK the regulation is very strict, especially for foreign students. Need to submit by the end of 4th year and finish viva within five. years. If not, end up with complimentary MPhil or nothing.
Got a fellow candidate who submit against his supervisor's advice. Thesis end up below par, given another year to submit (first draft) but still not satisfactory. Five years wasted.
Heard quite a lot of story like that. My office mate was even stuck during proposal session at the end of the first year. The school changed their course offer to MPhil instead. So they quit rather than doing MPhil.
Another story I heard, a student failed their viva, twice. Luckily given a third chsnce and passed at the end.
being 3 years in his phd
The entire post-PhD phase put me off getting a PhD. I'd rather work an office job than trying to constantly scramble for Grant funding literally all the time on top of the demands of teaching, research, and the constant pressure to write papers.
Same for me, failed to get a PhD scholarship, was not going to look for another one, switched to IT, have good life.
I did one year of a postdoc in the neuroscience/endocrinology of stress and trauma. I dragged my wife and daughter from Ohio to NY, not quite NYC but close enough to feel the pain of its cost of living, and nearly ruined my marriage trying to support the three of us on the stipend. I wrote a grant proposal about nine months in, but I was so stressed out over everything (fitting for the research, no?) that I already decided I was done with the whole thing before I even submitted it. We moved back to Ohio, and I did a couple of semesters as an adjunct prof, after which I swore never to do it again.
I interviewed for other fellowships prior to that one; one lab, a very well-regarded lab at Michigan focusing on functional MRI and affective neurophysiology, stood out to me because none of the seven postdocs the lab already had had authored a single paper even after having been there for years. The two PIs running the lab, a husband and wife team, collaborated so much with other labs that they never gave their postdocs any opportunities to work on their most pivotal, high-profile projects. After I interviewed, one of them took me aside and said that it would not be a good opportunity for that reason, and that his experience in academia was not an isolated one. The others ranged from being similarly jaded to… idk, having some kind of Stockholm syndrome.
Between these experiences and the long chats I’d have with my similarly disenchanted labmate from grad school, I gave up on all of it and looked for alternatives. I’ve been working as a sci-comms writer in the pharma industry, in the agency setting, for almost five years now and I’m way better off. Being in academia for a year after defending just straight-up murdered my idealistic outlook on research. I’m not in love with the job I have now, but I’m in a mindset anyway where I don’t want to be defined by my career, it’s just something that pays the bills, but it does it very well.
I hear ya. Grad school did a number on my mental health. The fear of failure is embedded in just about everything, from the high GPA expectations (even from your first semester), to the quals, to the thesis. The pressure on yourself can be too much to bear.
I find myself less stressed in industry having worked in various positions over the years, and despite all the college I have yet to use calculus at all (it's spreadsheets as far as the eye can see) and rarely have to use any of the other number of subjects I took in college. The one school course that had helped me the most in my actual work career has been my middle school typing course, I can type super fast as a result lol. Maximum productivity with my mechanical keyboard at work, keycaps go brrrrrrr.
I used to feel ashamed at myself for not going all the way, for withdrawing soon after I got my masters. I felt like a complete failure. This has lessened over time as I realize that the entire rest of everyone's working life is a grind regardless of how far up in academia you go, and that I would be in a very similar position otherwise.
Grad school pro tip: Do not become the “computer person.”
It's like that everywhere lol. Once you're the "computer person" expect to be the resident IT person for the rest of your time there, whether it be academia, industry, or family.
I once had to coach a coworker on how to attach a PDF to an email...
and the other 5 will be the worst
So true...
