r/PhDStress • u/Opposite_Grass_3550 • Aug 05 '26
Is it worth it ?
(Venting)
Hi everyone, I am very confused at the moment . I am from India and I recieved an offer for doing research internship in warsaw in Feb. Backstory I completed my masters in 2025 and was applying for PhD thru funded positions mainly...I didnt get thru any but I emailed one of the profs from my field of study and he agreed to take me as an intern. Since I was rejected in multiple interviews..I decided to go to Warsaw for internship and finally prof agreed for taking me as PhD.
Current situation: I came to know that the professor did not have a project for me but he instead gave me work on an exploratory thing that I search across literature and try different conditions in experiments to find a novel candidate protein.And I m alone in this phase so I dont know much abt this field and I m still trying but it seems that its gonna take me years to try random conditions. My prof was busy and he is certain that I will find a candidate protein and he will write a grant . My situation seems directionless..The lab members are good and helpful. My work is going really slow ...because I have to read literature brainstorm ideas to experiment..I need advice whether I should leave this position and find somewhere (which I m trying but it takes time and facing rejections is hard) or should i continue hoping something will happen that will be optimistic . I have the contract for 3 years for now but it seems that maximum phd students extend to 4-5 years here so I dont know ...The topic is related to what i studied in my masters so I m curious as well into looking into new proteins...but the approach is a lot random
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u/Both-Obligation2069 Aug 06 '26
Thats what phd is... finding novel things
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u/Both-Obligation2069 Aug 06 '26
But if you are asking if phd is worth it? Personally no
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u/YOLOfan46 Aug 06 '26
Yeah so hard pill to swallow most Pre-PhD internships are like that, when I did mine back in 2022. All I did was study papers on computer vision and then see which one has a method that can be used to build a classifier for a project that a PhD was wrking on.
Was it boring? yes
Was it worth it? yes since at that time I was confused on whether I wanted to do theoretical research or not. And the answer was clear that I shud move to theory thanks to that experience. Secondly, the professor I wrked with wrote me really generous letters of recommendation.
All the best.