I'm 4 years into a Physics/Astronomy PhD and have 1-1.5 years left (hopefully). I had a rough experience with my starting adviser, which lasted for 3 years before I realized that I couldn't/wasn't willing to continue constantly being demoralized by my work environment. Luckily my current adviser reached a hand into the darkness to pull me out, and I'm now working on very similar stuff in a much happier environment where I feel useful and appreciated.
I'm also thinking of leaving academia when I finish, although I am becoming more open to the idea of taking a post-doc if I fell into one I really felt good about. My husband is also a physics PhD student, so we are preparing for the prospect of hunting down two jobs in a single geographic location in related fields. I just want to have a lab to work in with good employers/coworkers and a decent salary doing something that doesn't make me claw my eyes out from boredom.
I'm pretty close to being in the same boat as you. Both my SO and I are physics PhDs and we'll eventually have to try to relocate to jobs that are somewhat close to each other. I am not looking forward to that mess haha.
Glad you've got a better adviser now. I wish I had quit or changed my supervisors when I first had the feeling that things are not going to be great in my lab. It's sort of sad to hear that so many students struggle with demoralizing work environment.. But, on the bright side, maybe once we leave academia we will be even more compassionate and supportive and better human beings overall because of our PhD experiences..
Moving can be tough, so it's good to have someone who's in the same position. Who know, you might end up in the same lab! I've been quite lucky as well, my partner is also doing a PhD and finishing up a bit before me and we're also planning on moving somewhere together.
What's the coolest thing you've ever done/observed during your PhD? I've heard that physicists get to play with lasers ;)
It's such an interesting thing in academia that these brilliant researchers get thrust into advising positions which they may really have zero experience in or training for. There seems to be a huge variation in grad school experience based on who a student ends up with and how well their mentor picks up the advising role. At least the end of the tunnel is in sight!
My SO does all the cool laser stuff. He's more in the condense matter field and works on designing and testing IR detectors. My research is focused around designing and building instrumentation to observe X-ray sources in outer-space. Really cool things like the explosions of stars and the environments around black holes emit X-rays, so we work on ways to study the emissions from those kind of sources. X-rays don't make it through the atmosphere very well, so we have to put our detectors out on satellites or strap them onto sounding rockets to take observations. It's a fun challenge to design equipment that works well but is low mass/low power/happy in vacuum/can survive launch.
How about your research? Do you at least like your project if not really the environment?
I'm 4 years into a Physics/Astronomy PhD and have 1-1.5 years left (hopefully). I had a rough experience with my starting adviser, which lasted for 3 years before I realized that I couldn't/wasn't willing to continue constantly being demoralized by my work environment. Luckily my current adviser reached a hand into the darkness to pull me out, and I'm now working on very similar stuff in a much happier environment where I feel useful and appreciated.
I'm also thinking of leaving academia when I finish, although I am becoming more open to the idea of taking a post-doc if I fell into one I really felt good about. My husband is also a physics PhD student, so we are preparing for the prospect of hunting down two jobs in a single geographic location in related fields. I just want to have a lab to work in with good employers/coworkers and a decent salary doing something that doesn't make me claw my eyes out from boredom.
I'm pretty close to being in the same boat as you. Both my SO and I are physics PhDs and we'll eventually have to try to relocate to jobs that are somewhat close to each other. I am not looking forward to that mess haha.
The two-body problem :)
Hey StarFarts (love your username!)
Glad you've got a better adviser now. I wish I had quit or changed my supervisors when I first had the feeling that things are not going to be great in my lab. It's sort of sad to hear that so many students struggle with demoralizing work environment.. But, on the bright side, maybe once we leave academia we will be even more compassionate and supportive and better human beings overall because of our PhD experiences..
Moving can be tough, so it's good to have someone who's in the same position. Who know, you might end up in the same lab! I've been quite lucky as well, my partner is also doing a PhD and finishing up a bit before me and we're also planning on moving somewhere together.
What's the coolest thing you've ever done/observed during your PhD? I've heard that physicists get to play with lasers ;)
Hi Muffintop! I love your username, too :)
It's such an interesting thing in academia that these brilliant researchers get thrust into advising positions which they may really have zero experience in or training for. There seems to be a huge variation in grad school experience based on who a student ends up with and how well their mentor picks up the advising role. At least the end of the tunnel is in sight!
My SO does all the cool laser stuff. He's more in the condense matter field and works on designing and testing IR detectors. My research is focused around designing and building instrumentation to observe X-ray sources in outer-space. Really cool things like the explosions of stars and the environments around black holes emit X-rays, so we work on ways to study the emissions from those kind of sources. X-rays don't make it through the atmosphere very well, so we have to put our detectors out on satellites or strap them onto sounding rockets to take observations. It's a fun challenge to design equipment that works well but is low mass/low power/happy in vacuum/can survive launch.
How about your research? Do you at least like your project if not really the environment?