I'm considering doing a PhD program in the future and have seen a lot of negative things about stress and the impact it has on mental health. Has anyone done a PhD in Biblical Studies or PhD in Theological Studies who can share their experience?

For PhDs in general, do people who do part-time programs tend to have more or less stressful experiences?

Any input about experiences in PhD programs would be helpful!

TIA

I expect a senior author to perform

- 0% of the lab or analysis work

- 20% of the writing and editing

- 50% of the conceptual leadership

- 100% political shepherding through review

Just sitting back and barely contributing is unacceptable.

What can you do to establish and enforce standards for authorship?

The irony of the title of this post won't be lost on anyone when I confess to never having had employment as a consideration when deciding what studies to undertake. I am perfectly fine with any criticisms of my judgment or lack thereof. I know that it must appear as almost perverse but I have two Master's, in History of Art (University of London) and philosophy. I will soon have a PhD in Philosophy from the Complutense University of Madrid. I did this as a kind of personal challenge during the COVID years, to do a PhD in a different subject in a second language. But now I need to earn some money to survive.

I do not plan on going into school teaching or into office jobs that will disappear with this so called AI automation wave. I'm happy to go anywhere in the world provided conditions are good. I have no special attachment to Spain or the UK or Europe, although I read that Vienna is a good destination. I would have to improve my German. Friends say that South East Asia is the best for people who do not want to be exploited by Europe anymore.

Allegedly the transferable skills from Philosophy will be needed in a world where technical issues can be solved by computers. I know some philosophers go into NGOs and some into tech. But I am not an ethicist and I think that's what tech wants. I am a bit reluctant to go into the art world as that market is carved up between London and New York and these are now unaffordable cities. The industry is also hopelessly woke and subject to a lot of funding cuts. This is happening with Berlin, which some people might recommend. If all else fails maybe I should train as a plumber? I have no snobbish feelings towards manual work. It is easier to continue writing doing a manual job than earning less than a waiter teaching in some school, which is mentally and emotionally draining. Any ideas? I know this a long shot. But keen to hear views.

Hi folks!

I've been lurking this sub for a few months as I start a History PhD next week (ahh!).

Since finishing my honors undergrad, I've had starry-eyed visions of completing a PhD and getting into academia. I know the difficulties, I know many of the drawbacks, and I know its not the most financially smart thing to do. I just cant see myself doing anything else practical as a career.

I worked for several years after my masters and it made me miserable. I hated going to work everyday knowing that I'm going to do meaningless, mind-numbing work, get absolutely no recognition, and have to deal with bosses and companies that care more about profits than history.

All that to say, I've seen so many posts on here recently being outright hostile to the idea of a PhD. From what I've seen, this sub has basically become very negative and I hardly ever see someone talk about the positives of doing a PhD.

Like, I get the drawbacks. But so much of the discourse on here makes it seem like a PhD is just a terrible decision and you should just get a job. And then they dont reckon with the negatives about working for a boss, with a wage, in the free market.

Idk, maybe ill find out that doing a PhD is just as bad as a job but I'm sure there has to be others like me out there who feel this is one of the only pathways to do actual, passionate, meaningful stuff.

I recently started my PhD in Germany, and I’ve been struggling with something that I didn’t expect would affect me this much.
My colleagues are nice to me, and I know they probably don’t intentionally exclude me, but they often speak German with each other during experiments, incubation breaks, lunch, coffee breaks, and just generally in the lab.
I try to make an effort. I greet everyone, try to start conversations, ask questions, and join in when I can. But when the conversation switches to German, I obviously can’t follow it. After a while, I just end up standing/sitting there quietly, and it feels awkward trying to insert myself into a conversation when I don’t understand what’s being said.
What makes it harder is that I sometimes feel like my supervisor is more relaxed, warm, or friendly with the German-speaking colleagues. I don’t know if this is actually the case or if I’m just interpreting things that way because I already feel insecure and left out, but it has started affecting my motivation.
I’m trying to learn German, but obviously I’m not going to become conversational overnight. I also don’t want to constantly ask people to switch to English because I don’t want to be “that person” who makes everyone change the way they normally communicate.
At the same time, I wonder how I’m supposed to integrate into the group if most of the informal social interaction happens in a language I don’t understand.
Has anyone else experienced this during a PhD in Germany (or another country where you don’t speak the local language)?
How did you deal with it? Did things naturally get better once you became more comfortable with the language, or did you have to actively address it with your colleagues/supervisor?
I’d especially appreciate advice from international PhD students who have been through something similar. I’m not looking for people to tell me that I simply need to “learn German I already know that and I’m working on it. I’m more interested in how you handled the social isolation in the meantime.

Hey guys, I have a question.

So, in early Aug, I emailed a professor at a research institute in Sweden to ask about PhD opportunities. He replied positively and invited me to have an online meeting and sent me the link.

But when the meeting time came, he didn’t show up.
I waited for almost 1 hr and then left. I also sent him a follow-up email afterward, but still haven’t heard back.

So now I’m wondering… does this mean I’m basically out? Or could it just be that something came up and he forgot about the meeting?

Is that happens sometimes with professors? I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has had a similar experience, especially if you’ve inquired about PhD opportunities in Sweden or Europe.

Hey guys, I’m currently in my masters 2nd year and planning to do a PhD in Europe after submitting my masters thesis.

I’m looking to do a research internship before that, mainly to get some research exposure and understand PhD/research work.

Any tips on how to find research internships? Also, if anyone here knows a professor/researcher/lab who might be looking for interns, pls let me know.

Would really appreciate it if someone can guide me or help me get in touch with someone.

I’m still kinda new to this whole process so any advice is welcome

I am a current PhD student but in a complicated situation where I had to switch advisors and my current advisor working is in a completely different area and I am continuing for the sake of funding and maintaining my status.

I am continuing this until December 2026 and finding things meanwhile. I have started applications for next fall 27 after receiving positive reviews from professors I want to work with. But I don’t want to take that steep drop from December 2026 to July 2027 and want to work meanwhile but as an international student do I have any chances of getting something meanwhile in the US.

I have worked with a space telescope directly monitoring data , analyzing and preparing report, have a cgpa of 3.91 from MS, have two professional certifications from my MS in advanced computational physics and Big Data Statistics and ML in Astrophysics, proficient in teaching (recently awarded Outstanding Graduation Student Teaching Award) served as a secretary in one of NASA’s proposal review process. Have one peer reviewed paper with collaboration and 10 first author short articles with a NASA’s space telescope.

What potential opportunities can I find by or before December that also keeps me in good status and pays too.

So I’m doing MS in an R2 university, and I wanted to reach out to other people for a PhD offer. Just trying my luck and seeing what I might in reply if I reached out. I actually used a small python script to do this, but that’s another can of worms. Anyway, the scraper scraped 25 email addresses of Professors in my field and I sent them all a generic email with my CV, and I got reply from one professor! I was happy, until I searched for him and realized that this was my current supervisor’s professor. He reached out and wanted to know why I wanted to switch schools, to which I said just “checking my capability” anyway I will meet my supervisor in an hour, haha. How f**ed am I?

I'm in the final year of my MSc (Software Engineering) and have no solid research experience. However, I really want to take my first steps into research through an internship.

1- Is it really possible to get an internship without prior research experience?

2- Should I cold-email PIs?

3- What should I prepare or learn so I'm not completely lost?

4- Is a single internship enough to apply for a PhD afterwards?

5- if my target labs are europeans does it imply anything different ?

Hi all, I've got an opportunity to use grant money to buy a pretty fancy work laptop. I do mostly computational work, and I have consistent access to a huge GPU cluster. I know people like Macbooks but I really don't like the interface or keyboard. Does anyone have any other recs? I've used Lenovo Thinkpads my whole life but now I'm second guessing myself

Please could I get some honest opinions on if my lack of data is insufficient to pass.

My project aim was:

create an armoured car T therapy for a specific disease: subcloning to create constructs, transducing T cells, testing expression then testing the effect of the activated T cell that also expresses this extra protein on the target cell line in vitro model to see any changes in the ‘disease’ markers.

My progress:
subcloning of constructs completed, sequenced and transduced into HEK cells to check basic expression.
Struggling with transduction of T cells, never made it to activation experiments and only an n=1 to show surface marker expression post transduction
Switched to Jurkat cells (immortalized cell line) successful transduction and proof of CAR- dependent activation.
In vitro models of ‘disease’ state did not work at an experimental level when adding Jurkats, no results here

Haven’t proven activation in T cells, no data of combining in a target in vitro model. Only 5 months left- in the case nothing else works how bad would this be data wise, would this be insufficient to pass? Supervisors much more busy and making no real comment on my sufficiency to pass, of course I will speak to them more on this.

Hi everyone. I’m supposed to start a PhD program this fall, and I’m having some serious doubts about whether going through with it is the right decision. I’d really appreciate advice, especially from people who have been in a similar position.

I was admitted to a very competitive program in my field. It was my top choice and the only PhD program I was accepted to, and I’m supposed to be going straight from undergrad. At the time I applied and accepted the offer, I was genuinely excited about it. But lately, I’ve been wondering whether I should have taken a gap year instead.

Having some time away from school recently has made me question why I wanted to do a PhD in the first place. I’m starting to worry that I pursued it because it felt like the natural “next step” after undergrad rather than because I actually wanted the lifestyle and career that come with doing a PhD.

Now that the start date is getting close and everything is becoming real… I’m moving across the country, leaving my childhood home for the first time, and committing the next several years of my life to this… and now I feel that I’m not sure I want it badly enough to make those sacrifices.

I do like my field, and I’ve enjoyed research, which is part of why this is such a difficult decision. But I’m questioning whether liking the subject and being good at it is enough. I don’t know if I feel passionate enough about it to structure so much of my life around an academic career.

Part of me is also terrified that I’m realizing all of this too late. I have an opportunity that I worked really hard for, and walking away feels incredibly difficult. At the same time, I don’t want to start a PhD simply because I’m afraid of giving up the opportunity.

For anyone who had serious doubts before starting: how did you distinguish normal fear about a huge life change from genuinely not wanting to do a PhD? Did anyone decide not to go, or leave and apply again later? Do you regret it?

See question title.

I struggle with chronic insomnia despite being medicated for it, and I consistently experience a slump in awareness between 12 PM - 2 PM. Obviously I can’t nap that entire time due to my workload, so by the term “nap” I am referring to short power naps of ~30-45 mins.

EDIT: Goddamn a lot of you nap in your offices. I appreciate the reassurance!

Finally after 4.5y I’m defending my phd in chemistry. But I know shit. Literally! I have done a huge amount of work but while I’m studying sometimes I’m stuck with a stupid concept from a first year undergrad (like today I was stuck with resonance structures of a compound). I feel I’m going to fail and I hate myself doing the whole thing from the beginning. I don’t think i was smart enough and I was just making things in the lab. Plus, because of the lack of small part of the work which is in vivo testing we had to postpone publishing and I literally have no peer-reviewed papers from my PhD research which is itself adding a lot of stress.
Also, my second chapter which is the first project I did is like garbage, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know half of the equipments working and it’s just a lot of questions around every experiment. I’m fricking scared. Anybody been there?

I’m at the end of my first year but it’s been an excruciating year. Everything I have gone through is basically textbook reasons for why people leave - isolation, toxic supervisors, lack of support and mental health issues. It’s made me hate academia and everything associated with it. I’m so happy to have had the courage to walk away but I’m also sad about what could have been.

I'm a 31/F PhD student (Anthropology), and I'm having a really hard time figuring out what to do with myself after a pretty devastating breakup. My ex and I had been friends for 10 years and together for 6 years. We were engaged, and had planned to get married after I returned from an extended fieldwork trip that ended last month. I came home (USA) expecting to start planning our wedding.

Instead, he broke up with me almost immediately after I got home. He had cheated on me while I was away, which I only found out because I specifically asked him. And when I found out, he showed very little remorse.

And now I have to figure out what to do with myself, as I can't stay where I am (read: won't). Fieldwork calls for 3 months in France, it's important and it is funded but is not completely essential and can be postponed or changed to a different methodology. But I would be going alone. I don't have friends there, and I'm suddenly terrified of spending three months in another country while I'm already feeling extremely lonely and heartbroken. My 8 month period of fieldwork in Asia was so isolating and I'm afraid of having the same experience. And now I'm tired of traveling, too.

Option 1) Go to France

Option 2) Go to France earlier (idk what I would do if I got there early, but it's been suggested to get me as a way of getting me out of the house)

Option 3) Not go (or postpone). Still don't know where I'd go/what I'd do instead, and I have no job except dissertation writing, so I guess I could go stay near a friend or something.

Everywhere I look, I'm reminded of the life I thought I was going to have. At the same time, I'm scared that I'll go to France, have no friends, feel completely disconnected, and spend three months being miserable and lonely in a foreign country (for what it's worth, I do speak some of the language). So I honestly don't know whether going to France would be a healthy change of environment or just running away while I'm in shock.

Thoughts?

This is exactly what I was hoping to get into so I'm really excited to get started!

The interviewer from the company told me that the project I had built for my MSc was exactly what they were looking for in a brand new branch of research they are starting, meaning I'll get to continue the work I'm most passionate about!

Hey everyone! I'm a late-20s (F) PhD student in Ireland, trying to figure out media x farmers x behaviour. The question about the ideal routine is pretty common I know, and at some point in our phd, we all have resorted to adopting phd-influencers' routines showcased on the gram/YouTube. But let's be honest, we don't have that flair? I have 40 minute commute to my office - and there isn't any specific log in/out time because it's not a lab that I work in. I have a daunting methodology chapter and data collection due until December and I want to sprint without compromising my health and sanity.

So what is your routine like? What time do you wake up/sleep, meal prep etc. Even though basic questions but I'm sure there is a plethora of people looking out for these posts. I'm really inclined towards the 5-5:30am routine but would love to know if anyone follows a similar one (esp in fall).

Hey everyone. So as the title suggests I have an interview with a panel coming Friday and i am in the dark on how to prepare for it. I did my masters in materials science and have a published peer reviewed paper in which I am the co-author. The panel wants me to do a 10 min presentation explaining my background and my interest and how I am fit for the role . I wanted to know what I should focus more on. Whether I should include the results of the paper/my thesis on the presentation?

I'm in second year of a course-intensive PhD programme at UIUC. And I'm TAing for a lab course for the first time. And I find that there is very little time left for research, learning or social life. I have estimated my weekly time blocks for the semester - this is assuming 95-100 percent efficiency. If there are hiccups or bad days, my time availability further reduces. mu autism and adhd makes it even harder. How do you all manage time for research - advisor's expectation, learning from coursework and social life while TAing?

If so, what should I be doing during my last years of my PhDer to move towards that goal?

Soo this going to be a little rant of mine and any advice is greatly appreciated!

It has been 2 years since I graduated from my study. I have never been a great student, but I guess I got the right questions on my exams since I managed to graduate with highest distinction and 3rd of my class. This was the first time I actually excelled in anything.

My supervisor was then quite quick with suggesting aiming for a PhD (field of political sciences, Europe), and since the only thing I had was this degree, I needed some “cv building” (I did not visit any other uni than my own, did nothing relevant extracurricular). So, the next year I combined a new study with doing some assistant work at the faculty to pursue exactly that, this resulted in a peer reviewed article.

So this year I finally applied for PhD funding. And I got through. In about a week, I will defend this application to let them decide if I get the funding or not. 15 professors flown in from over the whole world will ask me questions on why my proposal, and why me.

Now comes the tricky part. I actually don’t know why me. It’s not a lack of self confidence, but just the feeling that I am not capable of doing something like this. Not in the way of finishing a PhD, but in a way of not being your typical “scholar”: I dont behave like them and am a very laid back and messy person. Moreover, as an assistant of the faculty, my commisarry for my masters thesis told me he had to give my thesis an 18, since my supervisor pushed upon it. This is a bit a story in the last years, I love my supervisor and he is doing a lot of work to give me my PhD funding, but in the whole past anything I have done, seems to be done by him. The PhD proposal is written by him, the article is written by him.

Now I have to face 15 professors alone to tell them why I need to do it, and I genuinely dont know. I would love to do a PhD, my proposal is very interesting, and I know I could do it. But this whole ordeal is frying me. I also applied for a PhD/teaching assistant at the faculty, and I would actually rather get that. It feels much more down to earth, much more natural. It feels right to me. But in a world where funding is very scarce, it cannot just throw another chance of funding away just because of my doubts and because I’m scared.

I love my supervisor, I genuinely do, he is fantastic. But for now, I just fear that he made something of me that I am just simply not: an academic monster. Im just someone that can work hard, can work good and is very motivated. But given the difficulty in how to get funding, it just feels like its not enough.

Dear subreddit, I wouldnt know what you would answer to this, but please do so, I need some advice in how to manage this situation. Moreover, talking to 15 professors is in a week. If you have any tips on how to deal with that, please do so!!

Thank you all!

I have a Master’s in Data Science with a previous background in wet-lab biology. My programming experience mainly came through my MSc, so I don’t have a traditional CS background.
At this point, I can usually **understand Python code when I see it**, explain what it is doing, and modify parts of it. But if you give me a problem and ask me to write the solution from scratch, I struggle — and I often rely on ChatGPT to get started.
I’m trying to figure out what the right way to overcome this is.
Should I:
go back and systematically learn Python/CS fundamentals through tutorials first, then start projects?
or keep building bioinformatics projects and use ChatGPT as a tutor/coding assistant while gradually becoming more independent?
I find learning programming purely through tutorials quite difficult and passive, especially because I’ve never studied CS formally.
**For people who came into bioinformatics from biology rather than CS: how did you actually learn to code independently? What should I be able to do before I consider myself “good enough” at Python for a junior bioinformatics role?**

Hello everyone, I haven't seen anyone who is in social psychology phds here so I wanted to ask with a post.

I am currently doing my masters in social psy and planning to apply for phds for fall 2027, I wanted to hear people's experiences with everything so if you would like to talk please comment!

I especially would love to talk if you are an international student! I am from Turkey and will be doing my PhD abroad hopefully