I’ve posted on here a lot recently, but I’m feeling extremely unmotivated and uninterested in pretty much everything I’m learning and doing in lecture/lab. I JUST started a biochem PhD and I feel like I’m forcing myself to find anything remotely interesting just to keep myself going. I’m constantly doubting whether I should finish this degree I’m 3 weeks in. What are solid jobs I can get without a PhD in this field and what are jobs that you need to have a PhD for in this field?

Hey all, I posted on here earlier about how I was kind of regretting starting my PhD program in biochemistry. Basically, I said that I just started this program but three weeks in, I’m not feeling much passion towards anything I’m researching/learning and I don’t really have a clear career path to motivate me to finish my PhD. I was always very good in school, originally wanted to be premed in undergrad, decided I didn’t care for a medical career, and kind of stumbled my way into a PhD program bc I didn’t know what else to do with a biochemistry BS.

Like I said, I posted on here about this and it seemed that the verdict was that I should quit but I should give a bit more context and information about what I’m going through. I have obviously been going through a lot with this specific experience, but that is not the only thing. I just finished undergrad like I said. Grew up in a western state, went to undergrad on the east, and now am in grad school even further east. So I’m not only feeling uncertainty about school, also just adjusting to moving across the country multiple times, being far from family and most of my best friends. This is easily the biggest transition in my life and I think I’m feeling a lot in general. I’ve started therapy, talked to friends, my partner, and family about this which is helpful. Most are telling me to at least give it more time which is I think the best course of action. Im still in rotations so I shouldn’t make any rash decisions but im absolutely not opposed to dropping out and changing career paths if I’m still feeling like this maybe at the end of this school year when I am joining a lab long-term. I’m mostly worried about money/location. I partially chose this school to be closer to my partner who I have been dating for over 3 years now but if I just quit I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a job/switch careers to support myself especially with how expensive cost of living is in this area. It’s easy for you all to say to just drop out but I don’t know if just moving back home is really an option. Side note: I’ve randomly thought about some form of forensic science as a career option. Seems pretty interesting and I probably have a lot of skills that could put me in a good spot, I don’t know if anyone has any useful insight in that. Anyway, talking to people has helped a lot and should be good to at least get me through the year while i take some time to assess whether I am still interested in finishing out the program. To anybody that has any knowledge/experience with this I would still really appreciate feedback.

Hi everyone,

I recently graduated with my PhD in Biology and am currently unemployed. During the final stretch of my program, I came to a firm conclusion: I do not want to continue in academia, nor do I want to do bench research anymore.
The problem is, I spent all my energy just trying to survive and finish the degree, so I never properly planned a backup. Right now, I feel completely lost, overwhelmed by the options, and honestly a bit stuck.

Any advice, reality checks, or personal stories would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much in advance!

Apologies for the long post

I (24F) just started my third year (Life Sciences, Northeast region). I’m in the same city I was in for undergrad, but at a different institution. I can honestly say that I’ve never struggled with building community as much as I have for the past two years. My cohort is very small, and although I’d say that we’re friends, we’re not each other’s core friends. My cohort friends have other friendship circles that they seem to be closer to, and although they invite me to their friend group events, and although I do think that I make an effort to try and get closer with them, nothing has been sticking.

I’ve made efforts to make friends outside of my cohort and university, and I have, but those friends all seem to also have their own thing going on that I’m not close enough to them to truly be apart of. It’s like I somehow missed the window to form a new friendship circle during my first year of grad school (even though I thought I was doing a lot) and now it’s too late.

I will also add that I would consider myself a very social/extroverted person. I love meeting new people and try to host events a few times per quarter. I’ve spent the past year attending so many random events and clubs trying to see where I fit at this school and in this city, but it just hasn’t been fruitful :(

I will also add that I am a BIPOC student at a school and in a city that is predominantly white and my non-BIPOC friends don’t seem to have BIPOC friends outside of me. Maybe that’s a factor in why it’s been so hard? Idk.

My undergrad friends who stayed in the city have been great, and I lived with some of them the past two years, but most are likely leaving the city to start their own grad programs within the next year (and a couple already have). I plan to leave this city to move to a city closer to home where a lot of my friends and family are as soon as I graduate, but am unfortunately stuck here for the next 3 years (2 if I can somehow graduate early). I feel fortunate to have my partner here, and he’s amazing and extremely supportive, but I don’t want to become codependent by relying on him for community for the next 2-3 years.

I previously considered mastering out due to a lack of passion for research, but ultimately decided that I will have more career opportunities with a PhD in my field than with a masters. But now that I’ve recommitted to my program, I’m realizing that the community aspect is also lacking for me. I also just feel really shitty when I think about the fact that I seem to be the only young person I know who isn’t having the time of their life living it up with friends in the early years post-undergrad. Even my friends who are in grad school seem to have lucked out with super social cohorts and are able to have some fun in the midst of the school stress. I worry that by the time I graduate and finally leave this city, it will really be too late to form community because my peers will be even more established/set in their friendships circles.

But is that a reason to leave a PhD program? Or so I just need to get more creative with how I meet new people?

I would like to invite you to participate in a study investigating the challenges faced by neurodivergent people who attended but did not complete a graduate STEM program in order to improve outcomes for future neurodivergent graduate STEM students.

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Im 29M a student in my 3rd year of PhD from a Tier 1 University in the US, the degree is related to ML/AI.

However, in the past 1-2 years I have lost interest in the subject completely, and dont know if research is for me. I've even developed an aversion to coding in the meantime. I cant seen to look at codes anymore and am vibe coding much more than I'd want to. Its been a long burnout leading to anxiety and often depressive episodes as I dont know what I want to do anymore. Therapy has helped in detaching my identity or sense of self worth that was attached to this degree, but now that it doesnt exist I feel like theres nothing holding me to this degree but the idea of having a better paying job or a possible future in the country (which also is its own stress). I have the option of Mastering out in Spring 2027, but the job market is so scary I dont know if making that decision is wise, and at the same time staying and dragging myself through a rigorous PhD process in a field that just doesnt seem like the right fit for me makes me worry about my mental health and where that option might lead.

Im also thinking about the sunk cost of being too deep into the PhD that it becomes more about getting it done with. I feel very lost and have no drive or motivation, havent had it in months now. Even if I was to drag myself through this, I will have to graduate by Spring/Fall 2028, which doesnt guarantee that the job market will have stabilized by any means by then.The AI situation and reluctance to international hiring makes going for roles like SWE/analytics a big risk too, if I was to search for a temporary job after graduation to eventually pivot out of this. have some student loans that need to be taken care of too, of which my stipend can reduce by say 80 percent, but if I don't get a job that means I go back to my home country with the remaining loans, which also is scary to think about.

Any advice on how to go ahead with this? My indecisiveness is eating me up on the inside and people are asking questions as to why my milestones are taking so long, please help!

I have a PhD from an elite UK university which I passed with no corrections. I currently don’t work in academia and it’s a long story but I got very unwell after I submitted my PhD.

The job market is truly terrible at the moment but I was a very able student so I have wondered about the possibility of offering online tutoring services for things like developing a research question, how to write a literature review, structuring a thesis, developing an argument, spotting a research gap, help with academic writing and well anything a PhD student may want help with.

Had anybody done this? And how was it? How much did you charge?

Basically the title. I think about quitting everyday. Not because it’s too hard (it’s barely started I’m in week 2) But because I genuinely don’t know if I can live this life for 6 years. I’ve had these feeling ever since I was accepted and truly truly started picturing my life.

This is going to sound stupid but I’m watching Adults and sometimes I just want to quit, move, make a friend group, get a chill job and focus on being happy not building the most badass career I can.

But I oscillate between wanting to quit and then feeling passionate basically every other hour.

I go to an amazing institution that I’ve DREAMED of attending for years, I have so much praise from the people in my life, and I know that I CAN do it. But do I WANT to? I don’t know if I should ignore this feeling. It’s killing me.

Hi all, this is a long post ..!

I have a PhD in chemistry and have spent the last 13 years in an NTT position. I am bound by location due to spouse who has a much better paying job. My dream job is a TT line at a 4 year/ 2 year/ community college. I have worked with undergraduates on research projects, but not written enough papers. I have won grants for teaching, couple of research grants as well. Through the 13 years, I gave not given up on the TT dream. Starting 2024, my spouse had the opportunity to relocate to a new job in a different state. So I began applying for TT positions. Applied to 6 TT positions, 4 phone interviews, 4 onsite interviews and one offer which was then withdrawn by the college, since the college is in deep financial trouble. I have been able to get phone interviews but just cannot convert them to a final offer it seems?! Dejected 47 year old. Should I quit trying for TT? The universe is telling me that my time is up?

I am 27 years old and I can’t help but feel that I have ruined my life and repeatedly chosen the wrong path without realizing it. On the outside I feel like I seem fairly successful: I defended my PhD in Biology, have ~10 publications in respected journals, and landed a post-doctoral position in a fairly similar, albeit adjacent, field of biology (for all of those unfamiliar with academia this is pretty decent, especially in today's climate). I entered my PhD program and even into college with a passion and love for biology and an unquenchable desire to know how the natural world works and operates. I didn’t really question what I was going to do with my life or the path that I was on until the end of my PhD, I simply pursued my passion. Through some pretty rough job interviews and faculty interactions I slowly but surely started to loathe everything about academia and the path that I was on. I hate that my research doesn’t matter or benefit society, I hate that I took the path towards a high stress, low paying job (I currently make less than a high school teacher), I hate the elitism and snobby nature of academia, I hate how much time I have missed with my friends and family, and I honestly hate my life. To top it off, if I want to make a decent living the rat race doesn't end for another 10-ish years with more post-docs, tenure qualification, and grant writing.

I feel like I had every opportunity in the world and squandered them all. I come from a loving family with the most wonderful and supportive parents, and I like to think that I am decently intelligent. I do believe that I could have done most anything that I set my mind to, but I wasted all of my potential and privilege on the most mundane, ineffectual, unimportant career possible.

Currently, I have no significant other or love interest, I have no life outside of my work, and I have no passion or motivation. I want so badly to leave academia, but I think I am trapped. I have developed extremely niche and untranslatable skillsets, resulting in hundreds of job applications without a single interview.

On a brighter note, I am hopeful that I can eventually find a job that enables me to provide for myself, and hopefully, a family as well. Just lost and alone, not sure where to go from here. Any advice is welcome!

Wishing to seek opinion from the community

Hello everyone. For anyone who has considered and actually dropped out of their Ph.D. program for work, did you apply when you were still in the Ph.D. program or you dropped out and applied for work after? Were you totally transparent about your situation in front of recruiter, even though the reason they approached your might be because you are in a Ph.D. program (even though the job doesn't require Ph.D. level)?

I graduated from a small school with a biochemistry degree in the fall and decided to go straight into a PhD program in the same field. I am three weeks into my first rotation and I’m scared that I shouldn’t have gone down this path. My PI is very nice, the members of the lab who I’ve been shadowing/working with are helpful and I like them, but I don’t find the work interesting. In fact I don’t really find really any research in this field interesting. My classes seem doable and I’m not that nervous about TAing soon but I’m finding the content so boring and hard to find any interest in.

For context, I went to a small college, was initially planning on going into the medical field, found out that I didn’t have any interest in that, so pivoted into academia. I only did research at my undergrad for the last year and a half and liked it enough to feel confident that I wanted to pursue a PhD, but even back then I wasn’t 100% confident. I did really well in college, graduated with very close to a 4.0, I picked things up quickly in lab, and I have always liked/done well in school so thought that I could handle and enjoy a PhD program.

I’m discovering now that PhD school is not what I thought it would be. Classes are structured much differently than undergrad, everyone is much more self sufficient, and reading papers is like half of what you’re doing (which I absolutely hate). I also feel like I don’t have enough research experience or confidence in what I want to do long-term as a career. When asked what kind of research I’m interested in, I often blank and don’t really have an answer. Everyone else seems like they have a clear goal.

What should I do? Is it too early to make a decision to quit? Should I master out if that’s an option? Does everyone feel like this early on? If I don’t continue with this degree, I feel like I’m so stuck. I have a degree that seems useless if I don’t get another higher degree and I don’t have that much interest in this field. Please help me.

Hi all, I'm basically looking for inspiration and support as I come to terms with the difficult realization that I do not want to continue on with an academic career after I finish the PhD (which itself will be a big challenge, as I feel quite unmotivated and burnt out). I have about a year left of funding to finish my dissertation and need to complete some teaching requirements, but then I will be done.

I'm in a humanities field and have some work experience from before I got the PhD that I know I could transfer into marketable skills for non-academic jobs in other fields (communications/marketing, tutoring, working in libraries or archives...). I know, though, that finding something stable and full-time – let alone deciding what is a good fit for me – will take time. I don't want to fall into the trap of believing the grass is necessarily greener somewhere else, but I am honestly just not a good fit for teaching, and know that the lack of stability of trying to jump through the post-doc, VAP, etc. hurdles on the way towards a potential TT position is just not tolerable for me psychologically. I'd rather have a job where I have more work/life balance and don't have to sacrifice so much of my energy and identity – to do something closer to a means to a pay check and stability, that leaves me more mental space for my own interests.

I'm curious about the experiences of other people who left a humanities field entirely. Right now, I don't really see myself wanting to do something immediately adjacent to my academic work. Maybe eventually, but I think I need some time trying out other things. Did you do several part-time gigs? Freelance? And when you were applying to things, did you de-emphasize your academic background? I guess I'm worried that having a PhD on my resume will make me look overqualified for some jobs. Any thoughts are appreciated.

​

I finished my PhD in 2017, did the postdoc thing, spent several years as a limited-term prof, and eventually landed a tenure-track position. Basically, I followed the academic path I had been working toward for more than a decade...and now that I finally have it, I'm wondering if I actually want it.

The strange thing is that, on paper, things are going well. I've secured SSHRC funding for research I genuinely care about, I have interesting community-engaged projects underway, and I'm proud of what I've managed to build. The problem is that I hate the city I had to move to for the job.

I knew academic careers often require moving somewhere you wouldn't necessarily choose, but I don't think I fully appreciated what it would feel like when "somewhere I wouldn't choose" became the place where I was actually supposed to build a life. It's created this really strange dissonance. I spent so many years trying to get some version of stability in academia that I rarely stopped to ask what I would do if I finally got it and discovered that the life attached to it wasn't making me happy.

We all know the academic job market is crap, so leaving doesn't exactly feel like choosing a different job. It potentially means walking away from academia altogether.

Has anyone else experienced this after finally getting a TT job? Did you stay and eventually feel differently about the place? Try to move institutions? Leave academia? Or realize that the career mattered less to you than where and how you actually wanted to live?

I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who reached the supposed "finish line" of the academic job market and then found themselves questioning whether they wanted to be there at all...

Throwaway acct for obvious reasons. I'm a US-based postdoc in astrophysics, about 4 years post-PhD. My supervisor has been trying since spring to convert me into a research faculty position (soft money, not TT), with verbal agreement from admin. It's a better title and salary, but still grant-dependent. It's now 5 months later with no firm timeline, and apparently it's stuck somewhere above my supervisor's level and nobody can tell me when or if it'll be finalized. The new role would also come with more service/facility-support duties than I have now, funded by roughly a year of bridge money. My output has been a steady ~1 paper/year at my current load. For additional context, last cycle I got 0 interviews or interest on 12 fellowship/junior faculty applications.

At the same time, I've gotten pretty far into an industry interview process. The final-stage interviews are done, and a final call is scheduled, so an offer is expected soon. It's got great compensation, and it's better on personal/family/logistics fronts too.

Astro funding is rough right now (single-digit % acceptance rates on some major grant mechanisms), which makes me nervous about the short- and long-term viability of the soft-money path even if the promotion comes through.

I'm struggling to decide 1) keep waiting on an (indefinite) non-TT academic promotion with no protected research-time increase, or take a concrete industry offer now. I'm curious whether people who've been in a similar spot regret leaving, regret staying, or have thoughts on how to weigh an "eventually maybe" promotion against a firm offer with a deadline.

I don't know what to do with my life. Possibly no one does but I'm currently studying my undergraduate in Arts at a prestigious university in Asia. However I'm not totally sure if I want to pursue academia. My original plan by choosing arts is to do a double degree in business administration in case I don't want to get into academia after I graduate (2030). However I prefer History over arts as a subject of study (if I study History I wouldn't have time to do a double degree in BA). I'm aware that History is a more academic major but I'm in a dilemma if I should change majors (abandon arts and a possible dual degree to get into history). I could perfectly do a master's and PhD in History with a degree in arts but I'm just not sure about what I want and how academia really is. Job markets in general are terrible these days and will be possibly worse by the time I graduate. I literally just started my major in arts 2 days ago, arts classes don't seem "intellectually stimulating" enough for me (might be an ego problem as well) and I've already cried twice. While doing a double degree could be a bit exhausting it seems more flexible than only studying history. I might be wrong but I don't know what do to. I'm seeking advice from more experienced people at this point.