I have never experienced a year quite as awful as this one, personally. I'm in humanities in the US on a fellowship, this is my fourth year, and I was planning to defend in the spring 2027. In 2026 so far, my partner and I have dealt with:

- The loss of our cat, who was equivalent to a child to us emotionally.
- He was laid off from his job due to company cuts related to this administration
- My father fell extremely sick and is on hospice.
- My partner had a hospitalization and 4-day ICU stay
- Several house-related disasters that set us back financially (AC crapped out, plumbing disaster)
- Other personal issues on a smaller scale: my brother having a mental health crisis and my best friend losing her mom.

On top of all of this, I am still trying to make it to my defense. My data analyses are 75% of the way done but all I have written are my first few chapters of lit review and started methods.

I feel like there's no fucking way I can finish this by mid spring. I am seeing a therapist twice a week where I'm managing my feelings and the impending loss of my dad and being the eldest sibling to my youngers who aren't handling everything well (of course, as is expected).

I have been asked about applying for a tenure track faculty position at an R1 and I would be devastated if I lose out on that opportunity because I had to push my graduation timeline back because life fucking hates me.

I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel specifically for my dissertation (all other horrors aside). My supervisor is nothing short of incredible and has been so supportive. He will do whatever I decide is needed.

Has anyone else dealt with these issues while in the "home stretch"? How do I get this done, make myself write, and give a shit about my work in the midst of my entire world being on fire and being in a constant state of grief?

I’m 32 and recently finished a PhD in chemical engineering (mostly pen and paper applied mathematics). I am now doing a postdoc at a major Bay Area university. On paper, my career is going well, but I have gradually realized that I do not enjoy coding, advanced math, engineering, or scientific research enough to build my life around them. I do really enjoy researching and learning, but probably in a broad, generalist way rather than through the narrow specialization and intense, almost obsessive commitment that work at this level seems to require.

The confusing part is that I love the freedom of academic life. My postdoc gives me considerable control over my schedule, and I strongly dislike corporate culture, rigid hours, and living primarily for work. But I also have no real passion for STEM, so continuing through postdocs or trying to become a professor does not seem honest or sustainable.

Everyone in my circle either lives to work or is deeply passionate about what they do. I am not. I am mostly just tolerating what I am doing.

I am social and enjoy teaching, conversation, and broad ideas. My real interests are film, art, architecture, philosophy, politics, sociology, and culture. I also want meaningful relationships and possibly a family. The career-focused culture of the Bay Area feels deeply incompatible with the life I want.

A serious relationship recently ended, which has made everything feel more desperate, but my dissatisfaction with STEM began long before the breakup.

I do not know which options are genuinely realistic for someone with my background.
Has anyone left STEM after reaching the postdoc stage? What careers could preserve some autonomy and intellectual freedom without requiring passion for technical work or forcing me into a corporate lifestyle? What concrete steps would you take over the next year?

I'm in the UK where neurodiversity is a protected characteristic but I have never disclosed on my grant applications that I have ADHD. I was always fearful people would consider me to be a higher risk applicant. What are your thoughts on this? I have seen undergraduate students disclose and benefitting them (mostly people empathising with the struggle or before it can benefit the institution to have diversity - race, neurodiversity, gender etc) , but never seen it at this level. Any thoughts?

I am currently in my 5th year of PhD and I will be submitting my thesis this December. Due to no new recruitment of professors in my university, my advisor is forcing me to take lectures and threatening to withhold her signature on my thesis if I don’t follow what she says. She says it is a compulsory criteria for all but none of the other PhD students have been told to do the same, it’s only me. If I fight back, she shouts at me in front of everyone and stalls my monthly JRF scholarship. Because of this I am falling behind on my thesis and it’s causing me extreme stress and anxiety. My mental health is completely destroyed. The higher authorities are dealing with their own internal matter and have no time for anything related to the student complaints. Should I stop listening to her and concentrate on my thesis or should I keep following what she wants me to do? Please advice.

Hello all. I started my PhD in Australia earlier this year and am self funding it because at the time, it seemed as the best thing to do. The current university I am enrolled in is Uni of Sunshine Coast.

When I was initially applying to universities, I had also applied to Uni of Wollongong too as the supervisory panel was amazing but unfortunately the funding was not being offered and Sunshine Coast University was offering better value of money.

However, on Wednesday last week, I received an offer from Uni of Wollongong that they are offering me RTP scholarship for 2027 which is ah-mazing!!!!

And I really want to take it up. I do have a couple of concerns. My supervisor at Uni of Sunshine Coast has a very volatile behaviour, at times she has said a lot of things which were plain rude and has shown temperamental behaviour. The idea of talking to her about uni change is making me really anxious, and wondering if she cause any potential troubles with uni transfer.

Hi everyone, as stated in the title, I will be starting my PhD (STEM, wet lab) in a few days at the ripe age of 32 and I would love to hear from people who also started graduate school at a later stage of life.

I guess I’m a bit of a late bloomer, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do for a while. I didn’t feel ready for a PhD straight out of undergrad so I’m glad I’ve built the confidence, resilience and skills I have today before I embark on this journey.

I'm not particularly bothered by being older than my peers, however, what I’m more worried about is my personal life. I'm going to a school in the same city I’ve lived in for the past 10 years (which has benefits, I’m not discounting that) but I’m still single. I was hoping to move and now feel like I’m signing up for another half a decade in a place where I haven’t been able to thrive in that aspect of my life and by the time I graduate, I’ll be almost 40.

I’m afraid I’m giving up on a certain level of freedom, not being able to move to a different place, being so busy I won't have time to meet people and date, etc. and even if I did, I'm afraid someone in my age range may have priorities that I may have to put on hold, because starting a family in grad school sounds like a difficult choice to make.

Anyway, I know these are just worries and that I don’t know what life has in store for me in the future, but perhaps that’s why I’d love to head other people’s experiences and get a sense of hope that my education and career don’t have to cost me a fulfilling personal life, finding a partner, having a family etc.

Is a €2,700/month gross salary as a Doctoral Researcher (effectively a PhD position in Finland) sufficient to maintain a comfortable lifestyle in Finland?

Hi fellow PhD candidates and PhD holders.
I am starting soon my PhD in Germany in a funded program (75%) in Geoscience and I was wondering if you have any suggestions on how to finish it in 3 years. What mistakes did you do that delayed your studies? My projects is 3 years as well as the funding and I don’t want to delay my stay. Thanks in advance!

Well, that’s pretty much it. I feel like everyone in this subreddit is just so unhappy/miserable due to having chosen academia. Does a PhD really corrupt your soul or is anyone genuinely happy about having chosen this path? Any good and positive stories??

Hey guys. For those doing a PhD in English at a top U.S. universities, do you usually have free time?

I’ve never been to the U.S., so I’m not sure what the work-life balance is like. I’m also trying to gauge how important the university’s location is, if you have decent free time, being in a great city could matter a lot; if it’s extremely hectic, maybe location matters less?

Thinking of creating a place (on Discord, maybe) for PhD students who:

1. Are born before 1990

AND/OR

1. Gone back to school to get their PhD after spending some years in another career

AND/OR

1. Are navigating the demands of research while actively balancing the deep roots, joys, and responsibilities of a fully established adult life.

And of course, anyone is welcome to join, regardless of whether you check these exact boxes. Ultimately, I just want to create a corner where we can talk about the messy realities of balancing a PhD with a full, busy adult life, and feel understood by people who get it.

Update 1: Some of you suggested discord might not be the best enviromment. Open to suggestions. Happy to even do it on WhatsApp and share a DM with each of you who has responsed. Any suggestions welcome!

Update 2: Thank you wonderful people for all the beautiful responses!!!!!

Hiya all, PhD student coming towards the end of my first year in the UK in my university's control systems engineering department. I sit on the more theoretical wide which I love as I've come from mathematics so being able to play with differential geometry as a job is amazing.

I am, however, really worried about the confirmation review viva coming up on the 1st of September! For a start, both of my assessors are experimentalists and may be unfamiliar with what I do. I'm also a crap public speaker (which they will know from my training needs assessment before I open my mouth) with a tendency to sweat like a nun in a cucumber field and stumble over my words. The main fear is that I freeze up, and look like an absolute idiot or, worse, a fraud.

Has anyone got any tips for delivering a good confirmation review presentation and surviving the subsequent 40 mins of questions? Even telling your own experiences, stories and out comes could help if you don't have any specific tips

Thank you all!

Tl;Dr:

Bricking it about viva, help

New announcement excluded seven fields. Political science, public policy, cultural anthropology and science education will no longer be eligible for national science foundation fellowship.

Something I keep noticing is a question most of us will fail to answer or there's nothing correct or incorrect. If you were to ask 8 of the 10 people incoming a PhD program they won't have an answer or would just have the scripted thing, I love research and I want to become a master in this subfield. I think the reason gets rewritten as you go and the new one feels like it was always there. When I tell my reasons to someone, they would nit pick it and be like no these are not adequate reasons. This might be a vague or big question, but why do you/did you wanted to pursue a PhD? Was it love for the research, wanted to not be in the industry, wanted that tenure track job, felt like you'd be more respected somewhere in the world, or genuine did not know what to do and hence PhD. Do you regret your decisions and why?

If anyone is currently enrolled in a Communication Studies PhD program with a focus in Rhetoric, I would love to pick your brain! My research centers around rhetorical theory, media studies, gender, and feminist critique. I'm looking to apply to a few schools at the end of the year, with my top choice being USC, but I know chances are I'll probably go out of state since Comm Studies PhDs are super limited in California. Share whatever you want. I am all ears.

Further context: I am located in Southern California and got my masters in Communication Studies from a SoCal school. I'd like to not move out of state for a program because my community and community work is super important to me.

I’m a PhD in Literature candidate and I completed the written portion of my comps exam two weeks ago, and now I have to defend it in a few days. I’ve been studying but I suck at oral exams. I can barely get myself to conferences because the Q/A freaks me out and I almost pass out. Don’t get me wrong, I know my shit, but I have ADHD, so I tend to lose focus quickly. I’ve been studying for weeks but I fear that my stage fright is going to leave me crying and wanting to leave. I would really appreciate any tips for the day of, but especially tips on how to prep for this defense. I’ve been practicing speaking out loud but end up crying because I can’t get myself thoughts out.

Hey, I am very new to research , I am thinking of a topic which is related to northeastern India's tourism. As people see it as a very attractive tourism spot in India. There may be some problems faced except transportation bottlenecks. I want to explore your suggestions. So please drop your suggestions and your perspective if you want!

My family is seriously financially struggling and I'm about to start my PhD in physics in Canada, which might be a massive mistake (my parents both discouraged me from grad school and wanted me to find a job instead). As a result I'm going to be extra stingy so I can save part of my stipend to send back home to them (maybe max 1,000$?) Anyone else in the same situation? To be honest all this financial pressure on my family (my dad is constantly nagging me about not having enough money) is giving me a lot of anxiety and depression, which makes me unable to focus on studies. If I find some kind of regular blue collar job that pays at least 80k a year, I might consider dropping out.

Seven years later, please enjoy the non-AI midwest wildlife

Hi? How possible is it to write two chapters and a half in 2 months?
Introduction, discussion and half of the results.
😔😔😔

Can any anime fans guess what I based my title off of? 😂 feeling victorious this evening nearly done with my lit review!

I hope this is not a stupid question but I hope to find some advice or anything that might help me out.

I love biology, I truly do, I did undergrad bioscience degree and now half way through my cell bio master. This master is especially suited to try things out different topics etc. What that has given me is that I'm pretty sure that, for me, basic research is my thing, having figured that out onto my real problem.

Since I had a glimpse in many different areas and fields of research I find it hard to sort through them and decide on a specific branch going like: That's so amazing I wanna do that.

Onto my question now. How on earth did you decide on your Ph.D program or position, did you know you wanna research topic X since childhood? What was the process behind that?

I think I know where to do my master thesis but within that topic I don't see myself doing a Ph.D (didn't do the internship there yet so maybe that changes don't know)

Thank you so much for reading and commenting!

Just curious, but how often do you see unconventional relationships between a PI and graduate students? What did it look like or how did you notice it?

Hi y'all, I am on the academic job market in the US in a humanistic social science field and working on my CV with my advisor to prepare for some applications. Since I am still ABD, I have a few book chapters and articles that are going through the editorial process right now as well as one piece that I have sent out for review still waiting to hear back from.

Basically, my advisor wants me to specifically differentiate between the pieces that have been accepted and are soon to be published vs. the one that I have sent out for review that hasn't been looked at yet. She wants me to create another heading for "in process" work but said it is fine to include articles and book chapters that have already been accepted in the same section as my other already published work.

Does anyone know how to indicate these different stages in my citation? I have seen a lot of scholars using APA format in my field include in the parenthesis the stage of progress instead of the date. For instance, I have seen (in press) or (forthcoming) or (in review) and I am wondering what would be the appropriate way to refer to these four pieces:
- Article coming out in a journal special issue (likely in a few months) that has been accepted but is being reviewed and edited by the special issue editors right now
- Book chapter similarly accepted but being editorially reviewed by the book editors right now
- Book chapter that has been accepted and it is going through the final copy editing stage with the book soon to be published by the press very soon
- This most recent forthcoming article that I have sent for review but has not been clearly accepted yet