Ask HN: Have you quit your PhD just before the end?

1 points by sdfgdfghj 3 years ago | 3 comments

My girlfriend has ran out of funding for her PhD, she's super miserable and it looks like no-one in her lab gives a sht. From what I hear the environment is super toxic, a lot of backstabbing etc. She's almost at the finish line but there is just one more experiment that needs completed but she's not getting advice on how much more work is needed so she can write the thesis and how to analyse some more specific stuff. The first supervisor is very unhelpful and her "other" supervisors haven't even bothered asking how things are going. It feels like she's been abandoned and now without funding, giving her very little motivation to complete this shtshow.

She's been thinking of quitting for some time, but it sounds like her father may be disappointed.

She's afraid that if she quits later on in life this may bite her or prevent her from having opportunities she may have if she completed it.

On the bright side she managed to secure a place in a big financial institution for a career change.

I'm not sure how to advice her and I'd really love to read any thoughts from people who may have been in this situation personally or know someone.

syzarian 3 years ago |

I quit my math Ph.D. degree program during the dissertation stage. Completed all coursework and realized that I did not care about the problem I was working on.

It’s hard to find decent jobs in academia and if you do find a tenure track job it takes a long time before you are up for tenure. Just wasn’t worth it to me. The sunk cost fallacy is hard to overcome sometimes but one should not worry that quitting means you wasted time. Worry about wasting more time. Don’t do things because dad might otherwise be disappointed.

For me, quitting was the right thing to do.

sdfgdfghj 3 years ago | |

thanks, that's helpful! Did you at any point have any barriers in terms of career development because you didn't have that title?

syzarian 3 years ago | | |

I did not. I teach at a community college. Having a Ph.D. probably would have hurt me had I gone into private industry as a programmer. So I have been told.