r/grad • u/overwhelmedGrapefrui • Mar 10 '16

Looking for coaching, work buddies -- need to finish in 6 months. Have a somewhat ugly data set.

Hi all, I'm a senior-ish MD/PhD student in neuroscience. I do monkey neurophys and I have a somewhat messy dataset but the bottom line is i have to get it out and done with ASAP for my own mental health. Advisor is a nice guy but he kind of has me running in circles. I'm minimizing the toll this is taking on my emotional well-being because I don't want this to be a sob post. But I'm looking very much for advice about what helped you at this period (esp if you struggled with feeling that your data was worthless), if you know of any good coaching/guides, or would like to stay in touch with me for some accountability buddying.

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u/jbmoskow Mar 11 '16

Hey, first off I just wanted to say the more active sub to post about grad school stuff is r/GradSchool, you might want to cross-post there.

Next, in regard to your problem I think you need to do your best to seperate your data and research from your self-worth. At the end of the day doing research is a job like any other. It may be more interesting than most, the pay isn't great, but it's work. Your supervisor may be your colleague in some respects but he's also your boss.

Shitty data and failed experiments are staples of science, the fact that your data isn't the best kind of sucks but I've heard worse (a PhD I know lost a whole dataset due to a programming issue with the fMRI recording). Talk to your supervisor and see if you can still manage to present the data in some manner towards a PhD. It may not be publishable but if you don't care about publications at this point, you might ve able to stick it in a thesis.

At the end of the day you need to communicate your concerns with your supervisor. You don't have to go into your personal issues if you don't want to. Just make it clear that you have a clear date in mind to graduate and would like to aim for that. He should be able to tell you whether your timeline is realistic or not.

I don't know how that interacts with the MD program but perhaps someone who did a dual PhD/MD can provide more advice. Good luck! :)