Should you quit your PhD?

Should you quit your PhD?

If you talk to people or if you look online, the most common response will probably be something like;

“Don’t worry, everybody goes through this. Just keep going, don’t give up and it will be OK.”

And perhaps they’ll share their own story and say, “if I can do it you can do it too”. This is well-meaning advice, and for some of you it might be exactly what you need to hear.

But the inconvenient truth is that, unfortunately, for some people it isn’t OK. Some people keep going and fail, or they keep going for years but never submit, or they pass but it costs them so much that it isn’t worth it.

So there isn’t one answer that will be right for everybody. For some, it really is best to just keep going, and for others it may be better to walk away. So what I’d like to do in this video is to share some ways of thinking about it and some questions to ask yourself to help you make the best decision for yourself.

Why I almost quit my PhD (and why I didn’t)

In the summer of 2006, nearly 3 years into my PhD, I almost quit. I was so tired, so stressed, so sick of experiments not working and so demoralised and weighed down by thoughts that I wasn’t good enough, that I just didn’t think I could take it anymore.

When I spoke to people about it, they all gave me the typical answer; don’t worry, it’s normal, just keep going and it will be OK. And even though this was well-intentioned, to me it just felt a bit dismissive. It wasn’t OK. I wasn’t OK.

The stress had been building slowly, and by the time I started telling people I was struggling it had already started to negatively affect other areas of my life… my mood, my sleep, my health and my relationship. But I just kept going, until one day I was working in the lab and I dropped something I’d been preparing for days. This wasn’t the first time this kind of thing had happened, but something inside me snapped.

I swore loudly and stormed out of the lab and out of the building, and started walking across campus. I didn’t know where I was going, I just wanted to get as far away from the lab as I could. I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t take the constant failure and lack of progress. I was going to fail anyway, I thought, so I might as well quit.

After walking for 10 minutes or so, I found a bench and sat down to think through what I was going to do. If I quit, I’d have to face telling my supervisor, and my family and friends, but I figured they’d understand (and if they didn’t I didn’t care). I’d also have to find a job… I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I figured I would find something… and whatever it was it couldn’t possibly be as bad as this. Basically I realised that if I walked away then I’d be OK, and that even though I didn’t know what would happen, I trusted in my ability to cope.

I felt such a relief, such a weight lifted from my shoulders… but then I figured there were still a few things I could try to get the experiments working.

So I decided I’d go back to the lab and try these things, that i’d give it one last shot, but then if they didn’t work then I’d quit.

But, if the decision to walk away or not depended on these experiments, then I wanted to make sure that I gave them my best effort. So I would slow down and do things as carefully as I could, giving myself the greatest possible chance of success, but without the pressure of success.

So I went back to the lab, tidied up and started again, taking my time and doing things carefully… and the experiments worked.

And so I thought, “ah, shit, now I can’t quit.”

So I stayed, I kept going and I got through, getting enough data for a couple of publications, writing my thesis in just 3 months, and ultimately passing my defence with no corrections.

Now you can take this story as inspiration if that’s what you need, but there are some important nuances here.

The first is that I didn’t just keep going doing things the same way and expecting it to somehow just turn out OK. I made changes to the way I worked, and just as importantly I changed the way I thought about the work.

Realising that I’d be OK if I quit, it was only a small logical step from there to realise that I’d be OK if I failed. It would be unpleasant, but I trusted in my ability to cope.

This freed me up to do the work without spending so much background mental energy worrying about the end result, worrying whether I was good enough or worrying what the examiners or anyone else would think.

This is one of those things that’s easy to say, but much harder to adopt. For me, for whatever reason, it just seemed to click at the right time.

And this brings me to the next important point; I was lucky. Lucky in that I made changes while I still had time, lucky in that in that I had great support from my supervisor and others in the research group and lucky because one of my papers came from an accidental result.

So the changes I made to my approach made success possible, because everything else was in place and I just had to get out of my own way. But had the circumstances been even slightly different I still easily could have failed.

And here’s the thing; A lot of students have much more difficult circumstances than I had, whether that’s personal, financial or health circumstances, or a lack of support or even obstruction from their supervisor.

So what worked for me won’t work for everyone else, and I won’t say if I can do it you can do it too, because I don’t know what you’re going through.

So let’s break it down into smaller chunks.

Basic self care

The first question I’d ask is whether or not you’re looking after your basic needs.

There’s a common assumption among PhD students that you have to suffer in order to succeed, so they’ll work harder and longer hours, cutting back on sleep and social contact while also neglecting exercise and diet.

But sacrificing more doesn’t necessarily increase your chances of success. As an academic, you need your brain to function at its best if you want to solve difficult cognitive problems.

So before quitting, try prioritising the basics of self care;

1. Take the time to make real food. When you’re tired and stressed it’s easy to fall back on the most convenient option, but the food you eat can have a big impact on your mood and mental performance.
2. At least once per week, try to do something social, in person.

There are, of course, a lot of other things you can do, but if the thought of doing either of these two seems impossible it’s probably a sign that things have gotten a little out of control, and I’d take care of these before trying to make any major decisions about your PhD.

Taking time to prioritise basic self care can help in 2 major ways. First, it can help your mood and mental performance, but more importantly it sends the signal to yourself that you’re worth taking care of.

This brings us to the next question…

Are you putting too much weight on the PhD?

When you’re immersed in PhD research, sometimes it can be difficult to see anything else. It takes on this all-consuming importance, where your entire life prospects and sense of self-worth are tied up in it.

This is more common than you might think. All of us are conditioned from a very young age with certain beliefs around education and what it means to get certain qualifications. And these beliefs, even if they’re subconscious, can be powerful drivers of our behaviour.

For some people, this might be a motivator, but others experience it as the crushing weight of expectation; “I should be able to do this, so if I can’t then I’m a failure, or I’m letting my family down…”

This can leave you unable to make decisions or take necessary risks, (or unable to finish anything), but also unable to walk away even if you’re utterly miserable.

But the truth is that a PhD does not define your worth.

And if you think it does, if you believe, deep down, that you’re somehow not enough if you don’t have a PhD, getting one won’t fix the problem. It’ll feel good for a few days, but the underlying insecurity won’t go away just because you get to put Dr in front of your name.

So instead of investing your entire sense of self worth in the PhD, try to work with the assumptions that you are already enough, that you don’t need to prove your worth to anybody, and that you have the ability to cope with whatever happens.

And if this is something you struggle with, it may be worth speaking to a therapist and getting some help.

Now, for me, realising that I’d be OK if I walked away or if I failed took the pressure off and freed me up to not only do the work but enjoy the work without worrying about the end result. But as I mentioned earlier, I was also lucky in that I had great support from my supervisor and others, and this brings us to the next question…

Do you have the right support?

When you first applied for PhD programmes, your main thought was probably about whether or not you would be accepted.

But it’s not just about you meeting the university’s standards, they also have an obligation to give you appropriate support and guidance.

Unfortunately, a lot of PhD supervisors completely lack the skills or empathy required to do this, acting as a barrier to their students’ progress and development instead of a facilitator and mentor, often just saying, “come back when you’ve got a complete draft”

Sometimes this is just because that’s what their supervisor did. They stumbled through without any support, so they think this is what everyone should have to do.

But sometimes, if you’re really unlucky, you’ll end up with a supervisor who’s deeply insecure about their own position so they maintain it by keeping others down.

And then there are some supervisors or institutions who will actively exploit their students, using them basically as indentured labour while giving zero support to their research.

And they get away with this because nobody wants to complain. After being accepted into a PhD programme, nobody wants to risk upsetting their supervisor and being cut adrift, especially if your sense of self-worth is tied up in it.

But if you aren’t getting the right support, if you aren’t learning anything from your supervisor other than how to suffer, why are you there? Why try to prove yourself to someone who doesn’t care about you or who is exploiting you? And if you’re afraid of what they might do, why would you stay?

If you aren’t getting the support you need, or if you are being actively mistreated, you should speak up. The willingness to walk away removes any power they might have over you.

The sunk cost fallacy

One reason why some people stay in situations they shouldn’t is simply because of the amount of time and effort and money they’ve already invested.

If there’s a good chance of success then it might make sense to invest a little more. But if the only reason you’re staying is the sunk cost, then investing more might just dig yourself into a deeper hole.

So I think it’s important to pause and think about what the costs are, in terms of time, energy and money, as well as the potential impact on your health and relationships, and make a conscious decision as to how much more you are willing to invest.

For example, you could decide that you’ll spend another year, and that if you don’t finish in that time then you’ll walk away. But then you also want to give yourself the best possible chance of success in that extra year.

Is there anything you could change?

This brings us to the final question, which is whether there’s anything you can do differently.

As Einstein (maybe) said, madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So if things haven’t been working up to now, what might you be able to change?

Most often, what I’ll recommend is to simplify and prioritise, because one of the most common problems is simply trying to do too much.

And typically what I’ll advise is to prioritise data collection and analysis over writing, because without the data and analysis you don’t have anything to write about.

But then there may be other issues you need to address. For example, a lot of the students I’ve worked with have been struggling with undiagnosed ADHD. They’ll be frustrated that they can sometimes hyper-focus and work for 16 hours straight, but then be unable to do anything productive for 2 weeks. In that case getting a diagnosis and finding effective coping strategies might be the answer.

Or maybe you’ll need to change supervisor, or get some other help if they can’t give you the support you need.

Summing up

So to sum up, I’m not saying that you should quit your PhD, but that it’s OK to quit if it’s really not right for you or if it’s costing you too much. You have the choice, so stay if you really want to stay, but don’t stay just because you feel you can’t quit.

Some people might judge you for it, but they don’t deserve your consideration. Personally, I think walking away is a sign of courage and I have a lot of respect for people who make that decision.

Above all, whether you stay or go, remember that you are enough. You don’t need a PhD to prove your value, and you have the ability to cope with whatever happens.

And finally, if someone else comes to you saying they’re struggling with their PhD, don’t just say, it’s OK, everyone goes through this, because you might not know what they’re going through. Let them talk rather than trying to reassure them that it’s OK, because sometimes all they need is to be heard.

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