3 ms·

Basically I started a PhD, and told myself if I don't submit anything to publish anything in a year, I'm gonna quit. I found I just don't have the discipline an

Basically I started a PhD, and told myself if I don't submit anything to publish anything in a year, I'm gonna quit. I found I just don't have the discipline and self-motivation for a PhD. I had already taken a year of classes so I qualified for the MS. I was only joking about the "dishonorably discharged" - that's just how I felt not being able to cut it.

dotnet00 4y ago
As someone doing a PhD right now, I think not having something to publish within a year isn't all too unreasonable. After transferring from masters to PhD, it has still taken a little over a year for my collaboration with my advisors and other PhDs to mature enough to result in several publications happening roughly around the same time. I did initially have someone scare me into thinking that if I didn't publish even something like a literature review within my first year, I wouldn't be taken seriously. But that turned out to not really apply.
- throwaway4220 4y ago
  No absolutely, it really was a challenge I gave myself and I failed. Several of my classmates didn't publish until their fourth year or so. But I saw how much work they put in, how organized and passionate they were, and felt like i was just a moth in the lighting section of a hardware store just going towards the next brightest thing. I finally picked a lab and project under a postdoc (who took 6 years to finish his PhD, and was coming upon his tenth year of being a postdoc which should have been a huge red flag). I did about 6 months of reading, some microscope work (was a dev biology lab, another huge red flag given I was basically under the engineering dept). I would come in late night when the lab was free, and felt like I was working hard, but really I had no direction. When I realized 6 months out that I basically knew nothing, had no goals/interesting ideas, I panicked a bit. I went home for a week to ruminate. My dad actually told me something (I thought at the time) prophetic: I should be giving my school/academic institution a good name, not the other way around. I realized there's no way I could live up to that standard, but I could see people in my class definitely do that (Impostor syndrome? probably, but I'd add laziness to it). I basically then told myself: publish something in one year, or apply to medical school which I was slowly starting to get interested in. PhDs (esp in biology/chem/physics) are a different breed in my eyes, and get lots of respect. I wish you the very best!

dotnet00 4y ago

As someone doing a PhD right now, I think not having something to publish within a year isn't all too unreasonable. After transferring from masters to PhD, it has still taken a little over a year for my collaboration with my advisors and other PhDs to mature enough to result in several publications happening roughly around the same time. I did initially have someone scare me into thinking that if I didn't publish even something like a literature review within my first year, I wouldn't be taken seriously. But that turned out to not really apply.

throwaway4220 4y ago
No absolutely, it really was a challenge I gave myself and I failed. Several of my classmates didn't publish until their fourth year or so. But I saw how much work they put in, how organized and passionate they were, and felt like i was just a moth in the lighting section of a hardware store just going towards the next brightest thing. I finally picked a lab and project under a postdoc (who took 6 years to finish his PhD, and was coming upon his tenth year of being a postdoc which should have been a huge red flag). I did about 6 months of reading, some microscope work (was a dev biology lab, another huge red flag given I was basically under the engineering dept). I would come in late night when the lab was free, and felt like I was working hard, but really I had no direction. When I realized 6 months out that I basically knew nothing, had no goals/interesting ideas, I panicked a bit. I went home for a week to ruminate. My dad actually told me something (I thought at the time) prophetic: I should be giving my school/academic institution a good name, not the other way around. I realized there's no way I could live up to that standard, but I could see people in my class definitely do that (Impostor syndrome? probably, but I'd add laziness to it). I basically then told myself: publish something in one year, or apply to medical school which I was slowly starting to get interested in. PhDs (esp in biology/chem/physics) are a different breed in my eyes, and get lots of respect. I wish you the very best!