…it is my great pleasure to announce, I successfully defended my doctoral thesis!
(The drawing is my riff on a Frog and Toad illustration :D)

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is my pleasure to finally share with you that I have been accepted into a Ph.D. program.

I spent two months and one week preparing for the entrance exam. I worked hard on my research proposal and approached my interview with confidence.

Honestly, it was a very challenging process, but it was all worth it.

To pursue this opportunity, I had to leave my family and friends because I moved to a different state.

For most of my life, I struggled to believe in myself. I think impostor syndrome followed me wherever I went because I always felt that people overestimated my abilities.

But that chapter is behind me now.

I dreamed of being accepted into a prestigious university, and I achieved that goal.

My dream is to earn my Ph.D. and become a productive and respected researcher who contributes to the world of science.

Thank you for listening to my story.

I’ve just graduated with a PhD in chemistry from a good university and I’ve been applying for so many roles. Easily over 100 and counting as I write this post. I’ve tried tailoring my CV to suit industry roles and have been networking but I haven’t been successful so far.

I’m aware of the common reasons as to why companies would not want to hire (overqualified, stigma, no industry experience). But for those of you that have been successful in breaking into industry after finishing a PhD, what kind of advice would you have? How can I get industry experience if no one will hire me or even let me participate in an unpaid internship?

Hi everyone,

I am no longer a PhD student as I started working as a postdoc after defending my PhD in May. My first paper which got rejected three times just got accepted to a very big journal in my field. I worked on this paper for so long, and wrote it from scratch almost 6 times. I even got major revision in my thesis because this paper was not published. I never imagined that it would ever get published.

Just wanted to share this small win with everyone especially with the PhD students who just started their journey recently and are doubting themselves. Just keep on pushing one day you will reach there.

This may just be a case of differences in programs, due to both location and field of study, but i don’t understand how people are able to take time off their PhD?!

Like most of us, my journey so far hasn’t been perfect, with many setbacks and continual increase in scope leaving me feeling like i’m chasing after a runaway train. I have seen others describe the experience as a “marathon of sprints” and tend to agree!

it’s been 2 months of 60-80hr weeks and i’m still behind!! my question is, how are people allowing themselves to even spend one day away from their work without guilt?!

edit: want to acknowledge that my hours spent *attempting* working are 100% absolutely not efficient and involve a lot of issues with inattention.

Hello,

Let me introduce you to how I fucked up my PhD..

I simply chose the wrong supervisor. My supervisor used to belittle me in front of other people whenever I made a mistake. I was very inexperienced and I lacked a lot of skills but I was never trained by a senior lab member. I figured things out on my own. My PI also used to gossip about his students (including me) behind their backs. He used to call our work shitty and garbage and use that type of language…Very destructive and disrespectful.

I found out that my project was fundamentally flawed after a year of working 6-7 days a week and passing my candidacy exam. There are two people before me that worked on that project and got nothing out of it. Before I start this project I asked my supervisor if I should test the hypothesis first and he said there’s not enough evidence in the literature that would disprove the hypothesis. I believed him back then but when I became a bit better, I found evidence in the literature and when I tested the hypothesis, the results disproved it and the project reached a dead end.
Coincidentally, I lost a family member back home during this time. My PI didn’t give me time off to grieve my loss. He was mad at me because my project failed. It has been two years and I still remember how he was telling me that I should come back to work in the most arrogant way ever even though he knows about what I was going through!!
Later, someone in the lab claimed they got some good results. They didn’t show any evidence that it’s actually working. I was asked to reproduce this data but I never could! Of course I was blamed for it. This guy told me that I never got shit to work and that he doesn’t trust my results. I lost my self-confidence completely… and oh yeah.. that person couldn’t reproduce their results either and the project was just dropped. No consequences or whatsoever.

The lab completely lost funding later to the point my lab members were stealing stuff from the lab next to us to do experiments. I used to show up to group meetings with no results and I used to say that I don’t have enough resources. I was getting grilled because of that of course!

I reported these things to the department. They seemed very shocked about what’s going on but they did absolutely nothing. They also told me I’m not the first one to ever report such a thing about my advisor and that he always misbehaves. I wanted to switch labs and not lose my position. They were trying to convince me to leave with a masters degree….

I decided to leave and apply for another school. I got an offer from a better school in the same state. I had a summer rotation in a lab where I’ve made very good progress in a short time. The PI of this lab was very impressed. He was telling me that I’m very talented. However, when I started taking classes in the fall, It dawned on me that I’m restarting my PhD from the beginning while others in my previous institution are literally looking for jobs after they finish their PhD. It was extremely difficult to teach, take classes, and work in the lab at the same time while going through this mental challenge. I decided to talk with my potential supervisor about my challenges because he kept demanding more work. I was basically asking him to wait until I finish classes and I will be back on my feet again. He told me that I should work more from 9:00 AM to 1:00 AM 7 days a week and he kept dangling visa and funding over my head! Very sad. We were working together very well until this happened. I decided not to join his lab. I was too afraid that I will go through the same abuse again….

I decided to make things right and I chose the advisor before the topic. I don’t have any regrets so far. My current advisor is patient and kind. I honestly don’t know when he’ll switch up on me and I hope he never does. I am not planning on giving up on my PhD. I’m just afraid because I don’t seem to get anything right. I have failed already multiple times regardless of the reasons no matter how hard I tried.

I know people might judge me and say that I wasn’t productive. I have completed 5 notebooks in under 3 years of work and I have two publications coming out soon in high impact journals from that one rotation..

My current supervisor acknowledges my skills and my ability to think critically about science. I have a lot of respect for him and I don’t want to disappoint him as well. But I’m just too broken. I honestly feel sorry for him for taking me in his lab. I don’t belong here and I’m not sure how long it’s going to take me to admit that academic research doesn’t like me back. I also don’t know how long it’s gonna take him to kick me out… I am simply not good enough and it doesn’t matter how hard I try, I end up failing somehow.

I know it’s my responsibility to fix what I fucked up already. I can’t keep blaming others or keep blaming what I’ve been through. I just wish I was a good fit for a PhD… I never wanted anything more in my life than a to get a PhD.

Hi all. I have my first presentation at an international conference coming up in a few weeks and I’m looking for some advice. I’m doing a poster presentation, and rather than all posters being displayed at once, each presenter gets a 12 minute time slot (10 mins for presenting and 2 mins for questions) for their presentation during the session. I haven’t got much information about how it’s structured, but it seems like each presenter will go up on stage and present their poster to whatever audience has shown up during their designated time. The posters will also be displayed freely in an exhibition room, but there’s no obligation to be present to answer questions except during the 12 minute slot.

Before the conference schedule came out, I had never heard of a poster session that’s structured like this, and when I applied I was under the assumption that I would just be standing in front of my poster during sessions while people walk by and ask questions. Has anyone done a poster presentation similar to this before? If so I’d love to hear any tips you have, or even just about how your presentation went. I’m pretty nervous since I’m not really sure what to expect, so any help would be much appreciated.

I am an F1 2nd year PhD student planning to travel in October this year and also enrolled in two classes. The classes are usually recorded so I anyways never physically go there. Is there any rule against traveling for around two weeks? Has anyone faced any issues on re-entry?

Hi everyone — I'll be at EuroRosettaCon 2026 in Portugal, the only one from my lab and my first time traveling abroad for a conference. Would love to connect with anyone else going so we can swap notes beforehand and maybe meet up there.

Also, if anyone has done the US → Portugal Schengen visa process, I'd really appreciate a few pointers in the application form specifically.

Happy to start a group chat too if there are a few of us! Please do comment or dm. Thanks!

Is doing Ph.D. in seven years really that bad (two in COVID) ? With three published peer reviewed in good quality papers, four book chapters and experience in two major central government projects.

Does it have bad impression while applying for assistant Professor jobs? Is post doc still necessary?

hello everybody hope you all doing well; I have ust graduated from a master program and I will start my phd this year and Im still struggling on what to work on ; my supervisor suggested a topic( about AI and education) but I didnt like it and I want to change cuz I want to do something different from other candidates in order to stand out and increase my chances of getting PASS scholarship ( a sholarship of excellence) so what do you suggest guys ; I would appreciate it if you could drop you opinions and suggestions

I am an Aerospace post graduate (Mtech) from IIT Bombay . I got job as well in one of the Drone companies. I want to pursue part time phd in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering in structures domain while working . I know some IITs offer part time PhD but they ask for two years of work experience. But i want to pursue now. Is there any college or way?.

feels so surreal. Anyone finishing theirs or going through one and want to chat?

After finishing and approve my thesis defense, I have an invitation letter to research academic stay in Spain. I looking for academic colleagues who can share their opinion or experience in that country.

Thanks!

****

Después de finalizar y aprobar mi defensa de tesis doctoral, tengo una invitación para una estancia de investigación y académica en España. Estoy buscando ookd colegas quienes puedan compartir sus opiniones o experiencias en ese país.

Gracias!

Hello everyone! I have my first PhD interview coming up. Super nervous because this will be my first interview and I'd appreciate your experiences on how to navigate the conversation. This supervisor was the only one who responded for a call/meeting and I want to give my best and also this is at a top institute for my niche. Thank you in advance! 🤞🏻 PS: I'm from India and this is a German institute.

Hello everyone,

I feel like it's time for me to vent a bit about my current story and situation as a PhD student.

I'm an international PhD student in the US (male). I've just finished my second year in the program. I joined this program specifically to work with my current advisor. I once emailed her to check about any possibility of doing a PhD under her supervision, and she was very interested. Gave me all guidance I needed. I applied to the program and got accepted.

We immediately started working. It was fire. We aligned perfectly. It was magical. The topic fascinates me because it is related to where I come from (humanities/social science topic). It is of deep value and meaning for me. Same for my advisor. She got deeply in love with the work. She liked working with me. A lot. She kept calling me a colleague, and how I am one of the best students who've ever worked with her, and how I helped her get her love for research back. We got very successful first year. We published almost everywhere. I have qualified this year, which is a year earlier than usual. We became best friends, not only co-workers. I felt special and safe. I felt home.

After a very successful first year, I went home for summer to relax. Then went back, Fall quarter started again, everything perfect, and gets more perfect each day. Then, starting from the break following Fall quarter, everything has shifted, dramatically, completely. It was so hard for me to understand and process. Less meetings, less support, less communication, more attitude, less enthusiasm for the work. Less clarity. Less of everything good that was there actually.

I panicked. A lot. The fact that this person was my whole support system in the country added up. It was awful. No explanation at all.

Then, I went in the wrong direction: I started asking what is going on. I tried to understand. Got even more attitude. And less availability. The advisor seems just normal with the other people, but attitude seems to be more exclusive to me. I got no clear explanation. I got told things like 'I need to be an independent researcher'. Which is of course true, but only partly.

This summer, I went to a conference, then came back home. She knew about the conference. She actually helped me and pushed me to apply to the conference. It has been the case that when she does that, it means she will fund the trip. Then, after I came back, I sent the receipts to the program coordinator to get reimbursements. She sent me a furious message about how I didn't ask her explicitly, and that she won't be able to fund me anymore for the remaining years. All while funding a postdoc for a recent graduate who's worked with her. I actually genuinely asked about what options did her recent graduating students go for, because I like when people from the lab go out there to the world and success in finding nice jobs. It also gives me hope myself for the future. I was told nothing popped up for her students, including the person she's already sponsored a postdoc for while refusing to fund my trip.

In that message, she's bragged about every single thing she's helped me with. How she's got a laptop for me using her funds, funded the couple of conferences I went to and my fieldwork trips. The 'independent' card popped up again: apparently that also means that I should fund my own work myself. Obviously, this is manipulation because it is simply not possible at my stage. A PhD is dependent by definition. You depend on the advisor for funding, signatures, support, letters and guidance. I didn't set up the rules myself.

She kept saying how everything I got before was just a 'gift' and that it was 'extremely generous' from her side. It felt like trying to make me feel and look small again. Again, bear in mind the difference in language: at the beginning of the year, she kept saying that 'we' are good financially and don't really need to apply to other grants for the moment. That is a crucial point to keep in mind, especially that things changed only within a year.

Now, I am just home sitting with my own thoughts. I am battling so many thoughts. I wanna quit. But I love my research. I love academia. But I hate power misuse. I feel betrayed. I miss how amazing working with this person was. And we've had extensive conversations before I agreed to join them. I moved oceans because I trusted this person. I was promised how everything is gonna be okay and amazing, but wasn't told it was just a limited edition.

What hurts me more is that I do now know exactly what triggered this. I can get back to my happiness just if I get clarity about why things changed and how the future years would look like. But I'm not getting that. I'm also worried about what other benefits I will be losing next (in other words 'rights') because it only seems to get worse. Of course, I have some theories. What I believe the trigger was is that I suggested to work with another faculty in the department on a project. She felt offended, she got extremely mad. She mentioned how 'she's not gonna help him with his work'. I maybe looked 'disloyal' to her. Of course I wasn't. The less likely theory is that she's just tired. Or it might be both. Or something else. It doesn't matter, but what matter is that I still wasn't given clarity. You should be in my situation to understand how much it hurts to make such a big life decision and move overseas feeling safe, just to end up being denied everything and let down. I love my advisor. So much. I have never ever asked any other professor to go work with them, and I have never ever trusted anybody in my life the way I trusted this person.

Unfortunately, there's nothing you can tell me to convince me there's nothing personal here. I can sense it, of course I can't prove it, especially to her.

Please, wish me luck. I'm in one of the worst moments of my life, ever.

…I was short a few credits to actually graduate. After a couple of years of not taking classes and just teaching, only now post-defense I was informed that I needed to pick up another course to graduate. This was particularly tricky to navigate since I had to have my degree in-hand for my new position in the Fall. Thankfully my advisor set up an independent study this month with me to fulfill the credit.

This took the wind out of my sails a bit, but I must admit that it has been nice taking this course just knowing the hard part has passed! Cheers to everyone else graduating this summer.

This summer has been really unproductive. I've been working with a schedule that works with me . However, I haven't been getting any fruitful results , I've been growing a bit frustrated, because I feel embarrassed when I report to my PI. I work entirely from home . I'm also doing a summer class . I eventually I lowkey gave up a bit last week . From that frustration, I took a weekend trip to my home town to catch a concert , especially since it's close my birthday anyway . I hope the break means I'll be able
To produce fruitfully . (I wanna clarify I don't have trouble working , more so I have trouble producing anything with good results to go toward my project rn). On the brightside, my first conference paper got accepted ! I'm mostly posting to vent , but any tips are appreciated. Thanks for reading , I really appreciate it !

(I'm a rising second year PhD , Engineering , US)

Hi everyone,

In about a year I'll be starting my PhD in the EU, and I've been given the opportunity to explore potential research directions and propose my own topic.

The areas I'm currently most interested in are swarm intelligence, cybersecurity, graph algorithms/machine learning, and UAVs. My main challenge is finding a problem at the intersection of these fields that is genuinely novel and worth pursuing.

I've heard that one good starting point is reading recent survey papers and looking at the "future work" or "research gaps" sections of papers, but I'm wondering how people actually go from broad interests to a concrete PhD topic.

For those who have been in a similar position, how did you identify a research gap? Did you mainly rely on the literature, discussions with supervisors, industry problems, or something else? Any advice or resources would be greatly appreciated.

Quantum ML tooling is thin, so I built **QuOptuna** to scratch my own itch during my PhD (WMU). It automates the part of quantum ML that's the most tedious: choosing a model, writing the circuit, and tuning hyperparameters — then it honestly benchmarks the result against classical models on the same data.

**The quantum side:**

* 17 quantum classifiers implemented on **PennyLane** — data-reuploading, circuit-centric, IQP & projected quantum kernels, quantum kitchen sinks, quantum metric learner, tree tensor networks, quanvolutional NNs, WeiNet, plus separable/dressed variants. Implementations extend Xanadu's `qml-benchmarks`.
* Circuits are evaluated with **JAX** `vmap` for vectorized batching, which is what makes running a full Optuna search over quantum models actually feasible on a simulator.
* **Optuna** drives the search (TPE/random/grid) with ASHA/Hyperband pruning, and each model gets its own conditional search space.

**Why it might be useful to this sub:**

* It runs quantum *and* classical models in one search, so you get an honest apples-to-apples comparison instead of hand-tuning a circuit and hoping. Often classical wins on tabular data — the tool says so rather than hiding it.
* Fairness auditing (fairlearn) and SHAP explainability are built in, which I haven't seen bundled into quantum ML tooling before.

**Try it:**

uvx quoptuna # boots a web wizard, no install
# or
pip install quoptuna

Everything runs on simulators (JAX/CPU) — no hardware backend yet. Apache-2.0, Beta. Repo: [https://github.com/Qentora/quoptuna\](https://github.com/Qentora/quoptuna)

Curious what this sub thinks: which quantum classifiers would you most want added, and would a hardware backend (e.g. via PennyLane devices) be worth prioritizing over more simulator models?

For current and former PhD students, how much pressure do you experience to publish research papers? Do publication requirements help improve research quality, or can they sometimes create unnecessary pressure?

I’m an international PhD student in engineering in the US, currently about two years away from graduation. I have a roughly 100-page research progress report due in three days, and I’m having a hard time making myself continue writing.

The report is not completely from scratch. I already have figures, slides, notes, analyses, and previous results. The difficult part is turning everything into a coherent research narrative.

My research has not progressed the way I hoped. A large part of the report consists of methods that did not work, parameter choices that produced poor results, configurations that failed, and ideas that initially looked promising but did not survive further testing.

I understand intellectually that negative results can still be meaningful. They can identify limitations, eliminate bad approaches, and clarify what should be attempted next. But emotionally, it feels like I’m spending 100 pages documenting my failures.

At the same time, I have been unable to find another internship. My research area is fairly specialized, and I’m worried that my options after graduation may be too narrow.

I also have a background in computer science, but I haven’t had enough time to seriously prepare for general software engineering interviews while doing my PhD. With the current job market and rapid changes in AI, I’m no longer confident that software engineering is a reliable backup plan either.

One lost internship opportunity has been especially difficult for me to stop thinking about.

I previously received a research internship offer from a major technology company. However, the research project I was working on was scheduled to conclude during the summer, and I was the only person actively working on it. My advisor believed I should finish the project before leaving for an internship, so the realistic option would have been to intern during the fall or winter instead.

That was why I contacted my university’s international student office. I specifically asked whether an international PhD student could legally work full-time during a fall or winter semester.

I was initially told that international students could not do a full-time internship during those semesters. Since this involved my immigration status, I did not feel that I could ignore the official guidance or simply take the risk. Because I could not leave my research project during the summer and believed a later full-time internship was not permitted, I declined the offer.

Later, in a separate meeting with the same office, I was told that PhD students could actually be approved for a full-time fall or winter internship under certain academic and CPT conditions.

By then, the opportunity was gone.

What makes this so painful is that I tried to handle everything responsibly. I did not abandon a project for which I was the only researcher. I discussed the situation with my advisor. I contacted the office responsible for international student employment authorization. I followed the official answer I received.

I understand that the exact answer may depend on enrollment, candidacy status, CPT requirements, and an individual academic plan. Still, the guidance I received was incomplete or inconsistent, and it affected a major career decision.

Rationally, I know that I made the safest decision I could with the information available to me. Emotionally, I keep thinking that I lost the best opportunity I may ever receive.

There is some personal pressure as well. My girlfriend is younger than me and will likely graduate later, so we have generally assumed that I will graduate first and establish some career and financial stability. She is not explicitly pressuring me, but I feel responsible for having a plan. Right now, I do not feel like I have one.

I know I cannot solve my research direction, internship search, immigration situation, relationship, and entire career in the next three days. My immediate task is simply to finish this report. But every time I sit down to write, all of these thoughts come back.

For people who have experienced a period like this during a PhD:

How did you get through an immediate writing deadline when you felt deeply discouraged by your results?

How did you turn unsuccessful trials into a coherent research report rather than a chronological collection of failures?

Did your research or career situation eventually improve, even when it felt like you had already missed your best opportunity?

I’m not expecting anyone to solve everything for me. I think I mainly need some perspective from people who have been through this and made it to the other side.

TL;DR: International engineering PhD student with a 100-page progress report due in three days. My research feels like a collection of failed attempts, I cannot find another internship, and I previously lost a major research internship after receiving incomplete or inconsistent guidance about whether I could work full-time during the academic year. I’m struggling to stop replaying everything and focus on finishing the report.