Maybe a major event happened in your life that reshuffled your priorities. Or you’re thinking about switching careers and no longer need an advanced degree. Or maybe you’ve been offered a great job that won’t leave you time to continue your doctoral studies.
In any of these scenarios, answering the question “Should I quit my PhD?” shouldn’t be too hard for you.
But if you’re like many doctoral students, you’re considering quitting your PhD because you no longer love your research, you still haven’t got the data or funding you need, your doctoral advisor ignores you, or you feel your research is going nowhere.
In these other scenarios, “Should I quit my PhD?” is a difficult question. To find the right answer, you first need to examine a lot of things. These include your reasons for choosing to pursue a doctorate in the first place, your reasons for wanting to quit, your alternatives, your economic situation, and much more.
Having been in your shoes, I know how hard it is to make the right decision. The following information is meant to help you decide what you should consider before you make a choice.
A PhD is a journey, not just an objective
When you’re doing a PhD, you usually develop tunnel vision—you see nothing but the coveted “Dr.” on your business card—and forget a PhD is also a journey. But it is. Here are two good reasons why.
The goal of a PhD is not to make scientific discoveries
Even if you don’t make a major scientific discovery, you’ll still qualify for the PhD degree if you do everything right. After all, nobody has done exactly the same thing you’re doing, so you can’t predict the outcome of your project.
In the end, a research doctorate is more about mastering the techniques of academic research, writing, and project management than about producing breakthrough science.
So, if you’re thinking about leaving your PhD because your research seems to be going nowhere, think again. You’re not there to win the Nobel prize, but just to get an academic degree.
Overcoming the impostor syndrome will boost your self-esteem
Feeling like an impostor is almost inevitable when you’re an academic researcher. And women in academia are more likely than their male colleagues to have the impostor syndrome. If you’ve never heard of it, check out this blog post by Hope Jahren.
Feeling like you don’t belong in academia or that you’re not good enough is something you’ll have to fight to overcome. Getting a PhD despite all obstacles you’re facing will help you fight the impostor syndrome.
So, as well as being a journey towards a degree, or academic betterment, a PhD is also a journey towards overcoming the mental roadblocks that hinder your ability to be the person you wish to be.
Should I quit my PhD? What to consider before you decide
Before making a decision you might regret, think about why you enrolled in the doctoral program in the first place. Was it your idea, or were you nudged (by your family, professors, or peers) or pressured to do a PhD?
If you genuinely wanted to do a doctorate, and still want to get a PhD, quitting is probably not the right choice. Trying to solve your problems first and continue your doctorate could be the correct decision.
So, what can you do now to solve the problems you’re facing in your doctoral project?
If your biggest problem is your advisor—who doesn’t care about your research project—ask the advice of other faculty members and try to get another advisor. The wrong advisor could make your PhD a nightmare, whereas the right one could ensure your doctorate teaches you invaluable skills to serve you for the rest of your life.
If changing advisors isn’t the solution and your new advisor is worse than the first, seek other options. Explore whether you can collaborate with other faculty members or with researchers from other laboratories on your PhD project. Convince your advisor to include them as secondary advisors if your university allows it.
In short, look for solutions instead of waiting for things to get better and complaining that they don’t. As Randy Pausch said in The Last Lecture,
“Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won’t make us happier.”
By finding a way to overcome your PhD project obstacles, you’ll prove you’re a problem solver, and this will boost your self-confidence. You’ll also have a great answer when someone asks you during a job interview to give them an example of a problem you solved.
Many PhD students are tempted to quit their PhD
If you’ve talked with other doctoral candidates, or have browsed online PhD forums, you know you’re not the only PhD student who’s having a hard time. There are many practical reasons a PhD is a source of stress and anxiety.
First, doing doctoral research requires hard work, long hours, and an ongoing battle with procrastination.
Second, you probably need to publish at least a paper in a peer-reviewed journal, and that is often a test of your mental health. Writing your first paper can be as frustrating as trying to fill a bucket with a teaspoon.
Third, you need to present and defend your work at conferences and seminars. This means you may need to overcome your social anxiety, fear of public speaking, impostor syndrome, and other psychological issues.
Finally, as a PhD student, you may have to live frugally on a scholarship and see your family once a year.
But you can’t pack up your toys and go home when things get difficult. Even if earning a doctorate won’t help you get tenure or a well-paying job in industry, it will teach you resilience. And resilience is more useful in life than a degree will ever be.
Will you regret quitting your PhD?
If leaving your PhD is the only choice that will restore your mental health or help you pursue a bigger dream, you shouldn’t fear that this decision will make you unhappy forever. It probably won’t.
Psychologists have shown that we can’t accurately predict how we’ll feel in the future about a decision or event. We tend to overestimate the impact (intensity and duration) that negative or positive events will have on our future happiness.
So, if you quit your PhD, chances are you’ll end up being less unhappy about it than you expect. If you get your PhD, you’ll likely be less happy about it than you think, and this happiness will not last forever.
Whether you should quit your PhD is a big decision. It will change your career course.
I didn’t quit my PhD. I’m happy I didn’t, even if I never used my PhD degree in Earth Sciences, because I changed careers.
But I wouldn’t have been able to change careers successfully if I didn’t complete my doctorate. I wouldn’t have become proficient in academic writing and editing, and perhaps I wouldn’t have discovered my love for English editing and proofreading.
So, in the end, getting a PhD helped me get my dream job. I think that’s what any important decision we make in life is all about: we can try to predict how it will change our life, but we cannot know how it will change our life eventually. For a decision to change our life for the better, it must be the right decision for ourselves, not for others.
That’s why you should examine all the consequences of your decision and your alternatives before you find the final answer to the question “Should I quit my PhD?”. You can’t do what others have done, because your circumstances are unlike those of any other PhD student.
This post is meant to give you some food for thought. However, I cannot help you decide whether you should quit your PhD, because I’m not a career coach. What I can help you with—if you decide to finish your PhD—is with proofreading your thesis. So, if you need to hire a freelance proofreader, send me a message at editor@languageediting.com.
Related posts:
- How a PhD student procrastinates
- The art of writing PhD thesis acknowledgments: A guide for economics students
- PhD dissertation to book: Roadmap and advice for authors
