6 ms·

What should someone do if they are a PhD student who believes their funded project is a waste of resources and their advisor agrees, but their advisor refuses t

by _krfc 5y ago

What should someone do if they are a PhD student who believes their funded project is a waste of resources and their advisor agrees, but their advisor refuses to contact the funder about that?

LanceH 5y ago
You continue to perpetrate the academic fraud in exchange for your PhD.
- dr_dshiv 5y ago
  Meaning, do the bare minimum for the project and spend your glorious time getting distracted by what matters. Seriously, a lot more phd students just need to embrace their ADHD. Even if you are given a path, there is no path.
  - mrtranscendence 5y ago
    Yeah, so, I ended up believing that my academic research was completely useless, but tried to continue with the PhD anyway. Not only was it demoralizing, but my anxiety and ADHD just came pouring out and I hated even thinking about my research. It grew worse and worse. Eventually, my advisor left, I had no funding, and I withdrew with nothing to show for the past 3.5 years except student loans. Fun times. (What was the research? Basically taking Heckman's 70s-era selection correction and applying it to nonlinear models. Big fuckin' whoop. My advisor had already written multiple useless papers riffing on the idea anyway. He's probably still doing it to this day.)
    - tasogare 5y ago
      That's hitting close to home. I'm near end my funding and visa time, with not enough publications. The three years have been mostly being told no to whatever I proposed and not given worthwhile stuff to do instead. And when it did it was things already done 3-4 decades ago. My advisor even told me the other day things that made it clear he was aware of the kind of stuffs I want to incorporate in my work, yet didn't seek any middle ground. On the other side I have multiple projects, the biggest one already presented in a conference. I meet multiple people my university and other big ones that are very enthusiastic about either that project or the official one (which got none in my own lab) so it's not like what I'm doing was totally dumb. I'm not sure what to do now. I have 3 more years to write the thesis, but would need to find a job to stay in the country. Hopefully I used web technologies I can market on my CV but I'm bit sour about the whole thing (and life in general).
  - jkhdigital 5y ago
    > Seriously, a lot more phd students just need to embrace their ADHD. This hits so close to home that I think I just heard a knock on my front door. I was diagnosed with ADHD about a month before I started a PhD (in my mid 30s). In my 3rd year, I finally took the required course on theory of computation and almost failed it because I spent all my time reading SEP entries about the foundations of mathematics and the origins of computing. I even started reading the Homotopy Type Theory book, despite a woefully inadequate formal mathematics background. Meanwhile, I’ve got two papers in submission on a topic that I think is a dead end and a waste of time, and I’m hoping that my advisor won’t be too upset if I just refuse to work on any of the follow-up papers that he is considering. I prefer to hang out with math PhDs rather than my lab coworkers, so I can pester them with questions about category theory. And I’m supposed to scrape together a dissertation in, like, 18 months.
- eecc 5y ago
  But it’s your career and future against what, integrity?
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Yeah, kind of crazy that we’ll put that kind of pressure on students when this is in many ways out of their control. If someone happened to pick or be given a path that’s a dead end…
spfzero 5y ago
Wouldn't doing that just prompt the funder to stop/reduce funding? They might have a great project they want to fund for someone else, but not enough funds available for it. You're contacting them about the research being a waste of resources would be very welcome, no doubt!

by _krfc 5y ago

What should someone do if they are a PhD student who believes their funded project is a waste of resources and their advisor agrees, but their advisor refuses to contact the funder about that?

LanceH 5y ago

You continue to perpetrate the academic fraud in exchange for your PhD.

dr_dshiv 5y ago
Meaning, do the bare minimum for the project and spend your glorious time getting distracted by what matters. Seriously, a lot more phd students just need to embrace their ADHD. Even if you are given a path, there is no path.
- mrtranscendence 5y ago
  Yeah, so, I ended up believing that my academic research was completely useless, but tried to continue with the PhD anyway. Not only was it demoralizing, but my anxiety and ADHD just came pouring out and I hated even thinking about my research. It grew worse and worse. Eventually, my advisor left, I had no funding, and I withdrew with nothing to show for the past 3.5 years except student loans. Fun times. (What was the research? Basically taking Heckman's 70s-era selection correction and applying it to nonlinear models. Big fuckin' whoop. My advisor had already written multiple useless papers riffing on the idea anyway. He's probably still doing it to this day.)
  - tasogare 5y ago
    That's hitting close to home. I'm near end my funding and visa time, with not enough publications. The three years have been mostly being told no to whatever I proposed and not given worthwhile stuff to do instead. And when it did it was things already done 3-4 decades ago. My advisor even told me the other day things that made it clear he was aware of the kind of stuffs I want to incorporate in my work, yet didn't seek any middle ground. On the other side I have multiple projects, the biggest one already presented in a conference. I meet multiple people my university and other big ones that are very enthusiastic about either that project or the official one (which got none in my own lab) so it's not like what I'm doing was totally dumb. I'm not sure what to do now. I have 3 more years to write the thesis, but would need to find a job to stay in the country. Hopefully I used web technologies I can market on my CV but I'm bit sour about the whole thing (and life in general).
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  > Seriously, a lot more phd students just need to embrace their ADHD. This hits so close to home that I think I just heard a knock on my front door. I was diagnosed with ADHD about a month before I started a PhD (in my mid 30s). In my 3rd year, I finally took the required course on theory of computation and almost failed it because I spent all my time reading SEP entries about the foundations of mathematics and the origins of computing. I even started reading the Homotopy Type Theory book, despite a woefully inadequate formal mathematics background. Meanwhile, I’ve got two papers in submission on a topic that I think is a dead end and a waste of time, and I’m hoping that my advisor won’t be too upset if I just refuse to work on any of the follow-up papers that he is considering. I prefer to hang out with math PhDs rather than my lab coworkers, so I can pester them with questions about category theory. And I’m supposed to scrape together a dissertation in, like, 18 months.
eecc 5y ago
But it’s your career and future against what, integrity?
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Yeah, kind of crazy that we’ll put that kind of pressure on students when this is in many ways out of their control. If someone happened to pick or be given a path that’s a dead end…

spfzero 5y ago

Wouldn't doing that just prompt the funder to stop/reduce funding? They might have a great project they want to fund for someone else, but not enough funds available for it. You're contacting them about the research being a waste of resources would be very welcome, no doubt!