What did you do (or would you do) in the first days, weeks, etc. after defending? I need some epic ideas!!! 😎

I never thought this day would actually come. I was terrified throughout the entire program - too much uncertainty. Yayayayayay!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🎊

I defended my PhD and passed about two weeks ago!

I move for my job next week but my start date isn't until the 24th. What should I do with my free time? ​

My baby has been gestating for 5 years and she's finally here. She's frying an egg because she got fried in the defense real good but also low-key she probably cooked (so say my labmates...).

Thanks to this community for your support:)

Hello everyone. I just started my PhD in Germany, to work on a government-funded project. It was extremely difficult for me to find a group that would take me on as a candidate, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity.

Before accepting the offer, I of course spoke with my P.I. and the PhD students of my group, and they told me everything was good in the faculty.
However, once I arrived i got to know that there are only 4 active groups, a total of 7 PhD students (3 of which in my lab, myself included - one is almost finished). There is maybe one postdoc in the whole faculty, none in my group. We are so few that problems are starting to come up, like lack of support for the supervision of the practical courses.
I am the only one working on my project. I feel like that the previous students who worked on this left at a critcal point, that could make or break the whole premise of the project. My P.I. seems supportive, but she doesn't seem to want to give me any directions for advancing with the research. My opnion on her might change once I get to know her better.

From what I read here, it seems like wanting to continue to work in academia after the PhD is a terrible idea, but it has always been my dream, so please allow me to be naive.
Right now I am having serious doubts if I made the right choice accepting this position, as I am afraid to find myself being left almost alone in the faculty, and wasting my potential due to lack of support, while working on a failing project. I even fear that the faculty may shut down overall, with very few students doing their bachelor/masters here.

So if you were in my shoes, what would you do immediately to feel better about your choices? I'm not even sure what my options are at the moment. I really feel lost, and have no idea where to go from here. Any advice/anecdote is appreciated.

This is half vent and half advice-seeking, but as the title suggests, I’m finishing (or trying to finish) writing my first manuscript. I’m a STEM PhD student and this isn’t my entire thesis project, but it has eaten up my last two years. As we inch closer to wrapping it up, I have this sense of something like, “who allowed a kid like me to do this?” My advisor is pretty involved which I do appreciate, but it’s a collaboration using a system he doesn’t know well so he generally shrugs and agrees with whatever I say. On the other hand, the collaborators will answer the questions I can come up with but haven’t been at all helpful in terms of the science and direction. In short, I feel pretty alone in the process, which maybe is good for my development as an independent researcher but bad for my sense of security haha.

When I look at my twenty-odd main and supplementary figures, the main text where every sentence represents weeks of scientific work, all the methods and code, etc… my heart starts pounding and I get overwhelmed quickly. I find myself redoing and cross-checking everything to the point of inefficiency. I’ve developed a sense of constant anxiety that everything I’ve done is wrong, and I’m about to discover one mistake that collapses the work like a house of cards. My advisor says to write down tasks and do them one by one (thanks, man), but that only works as long as I know exactly which tasks still remain, whereas I find myself discovering new tiny holes every day. All this to say -

Is there a way to keep it together in this last stretch, where it’s all about attention to detail? Any tips for how to manage would be helpful…

I never imagined I'd end up doing a PhD. When I was a kid (around 2006), my dad came to the U.S. to do his master's degree, and our family lived here for two years. I loved it, when we moved back to my home country, I always dreamed of returning one day, but I thought it would be impossible because of how expensive it would be.

Fast forward to 2020, I graduated with a bachelor's degree in Geology. Finding a job back home was very difficult. I eventually found one, but I wasn't happy there. Then, in 2022, I was offered a fully funded graduate opportunity in the U.S. It was originally supposed to be a master's, but my current advisor told me she only had funding for PhD students.

My first thought wasn't, "I want a PhD." It was, "This is five years in the U.S., the country I've always wanted to live in." So I accepted without knowing what I was getting myself into.

Now I'm in my fourth year of a PhD in Energy Engineering. I don't hate research, but I've realized that I don't enjoy my specific research topic as much as I thought I would. Some people seem genuinely passionate about their work, while mine often feels like just something I have to finish.

To graduate, I'm expected to publish 4 first author papers. One is under review, the second is with my advisor, and I'm currently working on the third. Over the past year, my mindset has changed. My goal is not and has never been academia, I want to stay in the U.S. and build a career in industry. Because of that, I don't care about publishing in the highest impact journals, chasing citations, or building an academic reputation. I just want to finish my PhD, graduate, and move on with my life.

Sometimes I wonder if that's the wrong way to think. I'm still working hard, I'm writing the papers, doing the research, and putting in the hours and effort. But my advisor is extremely busy, doesn't seem very invested in my project, and my research is not in her area of expertise.

When I compare my experience with other engineering PhD students, I notice that many of them have advisors who say, "Here's your project, here are the goals, now go do the work." My experience has been way less structured, and I've had to figure everything out on my own.

Eventually I stopped comparing myself to other students. Instead of thinking about whether my research will have a huge academic impact, I started looking at each paper as a project that demonstrates technical skills I can talk about during industry interviews. That mindset has helped me keep going.

This year, my advisor also allowed me to claim my master's degree while continuing toward the PhD. I considered leaving after the master's, but because I'm on an F1 visa, it wasn't a practical option given the current visa situation. There are nights when I go to bed crying and wishing my advisor would just fire me.

The best part of this journey has been meeting my fiancé. He's also a PhD student in the same field, but he has a different advisor. He's doing really well and will graduate next year. We're planning to apply for the green card soon (under his profile bc it is waay better than mine), and hopefully everything works out. If I become a permanent resident while still in my PhD, I might just quit and go work in industry.

Has anyone else started a PhD just leave their country and for better opportunities? Did you lose interest in academia but decide to finish anyway? Or did you leave before finishing?

I'd like to hear from people who've been through something similar.

I finished my PhD in November but unfortunately it was very difficult to finish it because of my supervisor. During my PhD I got very sick and I needed to get surgery and this coincided with the most heavy part of my PhD. In this period my supervisor convinced me to be part of a paper she did most of the work with, it was an old research she just left off the desk for years. I didn't agree but she insisted and I accepted at the end to do some new analysis and write the paper. I've been completely burnout during this period too, because of my health and because of the amount of work and at the end this paper we finished to have a really bad relationships. She was mad at me for not working as we wanted to and she never took responsibility for ANYTHING she has done wrong. She also left academia while I was writing my thesis and she hasn't replied to me for months, so I contacted the Union and she got even more mad.

During my PhD I had a main project which I follow but now since she doesn't speak to me and I'm terrified about the fact she will not include me in the paper I wrote. This will means I need more fights in the future with her, which I'm very tired of. The other paper was finally published and it opened a lot of wounds and I don't know exactly what to do.

Do you have any suggestions about this situation?

EDIT: Thank you for all the replies, and in case anyone reads this and wants to know - the consensus is that while the advice is bad, it is up to me to decide whether to take my PIs advice, leave it, and/or push back when necessary, as part of a PhD is learning how to advocate for yourself.

I've posted here before but I'm looking for advice once again 😅. For context I am a North American student doing a PhD in Europe, and my PI is European. Overall my PI is very sweet and nice, and I really love my work, lab and personal life. However I've noticed a few things that concern me, and I dont know if my PI has my best interest or wellbeing in mind at times. A few things:

1. We were discussing moving samples from one city to another (2hr train ride). There were almost 100 falcon tubes that needed to be transported in dry ice; think 2 10kg boxes. Her solution was to have me transport them on train since I dont have a drivers license. I asked about someone driving but apparently no one could. I didnt think this was feasible or safe for either me or the samples, and I tried to negotiate down to taking 10-20 tubes over a period of days. Two other people (my co supervisor and a senior lab tech) were in the room and looked a bit uncomfortable but didn't say anything. In the end a lab tech offered to drive me when I told them about the situation thank God.

2. I am scheduled for an internship in Germany from November to January. My current apartment lease ends in January so I'm starting to look for housing, but it can be really hard in this city at times. Just in case the worst happens, I asked to come back in the middle of January so I would have time to house hunt again. She instead suggested I store my items while I was in Germany instead of finding a place, but that would leave me homeless if I came back with no lease lined up.

I think both of these could be chalked up to not thinking things through, but considering shes a physician clinician I doubt it? She also has a few other habits I dislike (like asking me simple questions such as "Do you know what a control group is?" in front of others, but I try not to mind). However the 2 issues I pointed out above have got me wondering if I should trust her in the future with information about myself. Everyone here is insisting that I should trust my supervisors but I've been burned by that before (my last PI kept asking about my financial situation and tried to convince me not to work as a TA and just try for scholarships I wasnt even eligible for).

Any advice is appreciated!

I’m 1 year into my 5-year PhD program and I feel like I’m making a mistake. It’s a dual master’s / PhD program (100% funded) and in the first year I’ve completed nearly all the coursework for the masters (I have one term of classes left) and am very close to proposing my master’s thesis. I also helped another faculty member with a paper and did all of the analysis and wrote the method/results section (which she has promised me authorship for).

I feel like I’m moving in the right direction, but the problem is that I have really no passion for my thesis topic and can’t seem to narrow my research focus at all. I’m in a fairly broad social sciences program (Human Development) so I can study almost anything with human behavior, but can’t seem to find my niche. My thesis topic was chosen entirely by my advisor (I’m a very agreeable person so I just went along with it).

I’ve learned a lot in the first year, but have found myself drawn almost exclusively to quantitative methodology and complex modeling. My thesis currently is a dyadic, longitudinal MLM (which is really the only thing keeping me interested in it). I feel like I should’ve done a statistics program, but am in too deep now. My undergraduate degree is pretty much useless without higher education.

I enjoy statistics, research methods, data analysis, and human behavior broadly. I mainly struggle with determining what question should be asked and why. I don’t particularly enjoy the process of developing a highly specialized research agenda, which seems vital in academia. I also don’t currently see myself wanting a traditional tenure-track career, although I could imagine working in applied research, data analysis, program evaluation, or industry.

For people who have completed or left PhD programs: How long did it take you to find your research niche? Is enjoying methods and analysis, but not feeling strongly attached to a particular topic, enough reason to continue? At what point should I seriously consider mastering out?

EDIT: the program is located in the US

Longtime lurker here, finishing a PhD in a social science field (in the USA). I defended my dissertation last month (requisite celebratory frog:  🐸), but I don't feel very celebratory because I am still jobless after 8 months of job market grind. There have been a lot of postdocs that I am a good fit for, (in my opinion), but no luck. Everyone reassures me "the job market is terrible right now", which is true, but all of my friends in my program still got decent jobs or postdocs. I feel like the department's failure story, and apparently there is already gossip about my lack of success

My research output isn't great, but I do some innovative methods stuff in my dissertation and I had kind of hoped that would be enough for a postdoc. My cover letters and materials have all been checked over by both humans and Claude, so it's not like I'm making some huge blatant mistake. I have been mentioning that I am looking for jobs at conferences and in meetings with colleagues at other universities, but no leads from that.

I'm not against going into industry. However, my sub-sub-field of interest and the methods I use don't have an obvious line into industry, especially after federal funding cuts in the past year. My advisors don't have any ideas, the university career center is useless ("Have you ever heard of consulting?"). Part of the issue is that my advisors, while they might be "rising stars", aren't very powerful yet and so aren't able to pull strings to get me a job. None of the department's senior faculty seem to care. I have asked close friends what to do and they all tell me to try to stay in academia if possible.

My mood is poor and getting worse. I no-life focused on work in the past year and so there isn't much in my life but work. Even being single and not being geographically restricted by a partner, no one wants to hire me. Not sure what I am looking for from this post (advice, yes, but I don't know what kind of advice)

I'm a PhD student and sometimes catch myself overthinking my decision about which school to attend. I applied a year and a half ago and initially had three choices: a flagship state school, a top 20 UC school, and an Ivy league. All are top 50 in my field, but obviously differ greatly in overall prestige. Unfortunately, my acceptance to the Ivy league was rescinded because of federal cuts from the new administration (bummer). I ultimately decided to attend the flagship state school, even though it has a lower ranking than the UC school. It's a fine program, but smaller and not nearly as prestigious as the others. I chose it because the city has a much much lower cost of living, and I personally liked my advisor here more, but sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to choose the UC school for prestige. I think it also bothers me because I went from a very highly ranked undergrad to a mid-tier grad school. Anyone in a similar position? Any tips for moving on? It's a waste of time to dwell on this and I need some help getting over it.

I am in a wet lab, and we have several undergrads, all with varying levels of ability and independence. One is very involved and interested, but extremely slow with experimental stuff. A single reaction start to finish can take a week. I want to help them succeed, but something that takes me 3-4 hours taking them 20 hours is not a recipe for success. My method for mentoring has always been first time hands on, guided assistance/demo, second time hands on but the student does it, and after that they work alone. This student needs their hand held to an extreme amount, and even if I step away to force them to work more alone they will just piddle around, then ask me for help.

I do believe they are capable, and they could really succeed, but I think that it may be my mentorship style or that this student isn't confident. Any tips on how to guide them to more success? And force them to speed up a little? My mentor tossed me in the deep end a little, and often gave "higher stakes" stuff to do that meant messing up actually mattered, but I'm not sure how successful that would be to help.

I don’t even know where to start, but I’m at my absolute breaking point. I’m currently doing my PhD in Journalism, and I’ve hit a total wall. I reached the point where I genuinely need some dissertation help just to make sense of what I'm supposed to be doing.

For context, my research focuses on digital media ethics, but right now, I can’t even focus on the actual writing. My main issue is my advisor. Every time I submit a draft or ask for direction, I either get vague, one-line replies two weeks later or complete radio silence. Because of this total lack of feedback, I literally don't know what concrete steps to take next. Do I rework the methodology? Redo the literature review? I’m just staring at a blank screen.

Because I’ve been floating in this limbo, I’ve missed several internal deadlines, and now the panic is setting in. The constant anxiety has turned into full-blown burnout. I wake up, stare at my draft, feel overwhelmed, and accomplish nothing. It’s a vicious cycle.

I’m so behind that I’ve even caught myself desperately googling if hiring a dissertation writer or an outside consultant is a normal thing people do just to get an outline or structure back on track, because I feel completely abandoned by my department.

I really just wanted to share my story and see how others survived this. Has anyone else gone through extreme burnout caused by bad supervision? How did you break out of the paralysis and actually figure out your next steps when you were months behind schedule?

Hello everyone! I’d really appreciate if anyone with experience in fellowship in Danish university could clarify me how does it work the 4+4 scheme.

Some background info: I’m applying for a PhD fellowships at the department of Law of the university of Southern Denmark. The position will start in January 2027 and I’ll graduate from a double master degree in March. In case I’ll be selected in the 4+4 will I be transfered to employment as an employed PhD student as soon I graduate?

Last but not least, could you disclose how much do you earn generally as part of this programme?

Thanks a bunch in advance!

I started PhD in fall of 2019. And I am about to defend on 30th. Also, I skipped masters thinking I would gain some years. I am 31 btw...

The COVID happened, bla, bla, we all know that.

I was without a lab for close to 2 years, so, if one wants to get technical, it is more 5 years than 7 years.

I am dealing with this GPCR deorphanization resrarch, of a freaking receptor that has no experimental or computational structure, no jnow G-protein coupling, no known similar receptro other than itself in other species, no known ligand of any kind. At the time I started researching it, there were only 5 papers available, and they all mentioned it in passing. Alone, so, if there will ever be a paper in the next decade, it will be me an my PI, and we all know if there are two names in a paper, the last name rarely does any sh*t.

The back story is, I got handed this research idea over from a supposedly senior PhD. Not really senior but it was his second PhD. And sadly, my advisor show serious partialities - it suffices to say I am at the bottom of the food chain in the lab. So, for about three years, everything I said was vetoed by the guy I got handed over from, and she juat agreed with him. That is where I will leave this.

I applied for a national grant with this research, according to my PI's. Donxt get me wrong, I wrote a currently 4 million something budget project myself, but her input consistently jeapordizing what is doable. And yet, I manage to write plausible enough application to get accepted. And I have recebtly completed the final report, and she became the poster girl, sending me this file about 'success storyx of her details and my project, but wanting me to adjuat the info and the data figures... And she did not even bother to tell me that the results were accepted. My analyeses at the time was not as rigorous as my thesis, but the numbers were the same back then as well, so for the curious ones, I did not coesmetically change my data. The ambiguity and the ridiculous standard deviations are visible from the results. Oh, did I mention she also did not spend much money from my grant to my project, I even recently had to pay 30,000 something from my pocket to progress... The only thing I managed to make it work arrived at my hand exatly 16 months ago as well.

My current, more rigorous results just gave me additional statistics on just how ambiguous my output is. There is a reproducible -barely- trend, that is for sure. But bc my dose response curve calculations in GraphPad does not automatically generate the parameter values at 95% CI, I should not be reporting any IC50 values.

Honestly, it is not even the failure of the project bc hey, sometimes a science does not science. I have ideas on how to support my current results for a paper.

My problem is, I spent 7 years, on something that could have finished in 5 at max. Luckily, moslty bc she did not pay attention, my thesis is to my liking in theory. Oh, did I mention I atopped trying to do some of the things she asked me and took a shorcut to make some things work? Anyways, moving on. I actually delived most of my specific aims. The only three paper relevant to the function of this particular receptor - one fully bioinformatics and two in vivo - have been available since late 2023, and only one can partially serve half of one of my aims, if I had reliable IC50.

I got distracted too much, apologies. The problem is I spent 7 years, with no other papers. Well, that is reaching. So, the summary is, there was another PhD graduated right around the time I started, she webt abroad for a deorphanization, in a pest - not a mammalian receptor, and there was a masters at the time in the lab, she continued her work, and she published in Nat. Comm. as first name - which is good for her, she is a hardworker. She then receive this colab offer from the researcher she collaborated with for her master's research, again another pest. And seeing my research is not taking me anywhere, I suspect she pitied my situation, to include me in the paper, and that has been submitted to a Q1. So, the only paper is that, and that is if it gets accepted.

I suppose another huge problem in freaking academia is, why on earth we can not publosh negative results? Like, I did something and it did not work, so, do not wats etime doing this bc it does not work.

I refuse to remove outliers or apply lenient constraints to my data. Bc if I manage to stay in academia, I do not want my qualifications to be questioned in the future.

But that leaves me, basically with nothing to be questioned for.

Apologies for the rant that is all over the place, my mother has health issues so I can not fully vent to her. The peraon in the lab I can vent to whereas can listen, does not understand bc of her publication - we also suspect some of the paper's success is bc it is a collaboration - it has in silico, in vitro, and in vivo. And she did work with a natural ligand and G-protein coupling established receptor. She actually can publish another paper from that research, but her hands are full so she does not want that at the moment. My closest friend has not stayed in academia, so, whereas he can listen to, he does not relate.

The difficulty of the OhD did not break me, really. A researcher's job is to research. But the stubbornness and stupudity I faced did. Bc I wasted 7 years, and have nothing to show to anyone. The more fruestrating part is, if she asks me to puclish it half assed, like, the in silico part only, I had that data completed for 2 years now. I could have finished this a lot earlier. And would have faced less chances to get scooped. Though, no sane person would study this receptor. Let me tell you this, when I began modeling this protein, AlphaFold was not a thing. AI did not exist.

Thank you, if you have read thua far.

I realize some will think I am exaggerating. It is alright, novody can be fully unbiases. There probably are some aspects I am. And it probably does not help my psyche that I am a week away from my defense. Oh, did I me tion that pest paper suvmitted to a journal, I was dealing with it's revisions and additional analyses until like 2 days ago, so, I am just now writing my thesis. Luckily my progress report were extensuve, and having written the grant final report gave me an outline overall, and outline for in vitro. My lovely asvisor even asked me if the revision will fonish by its due date. And I said, I quit my thesis, solely focusing on the revision...

My point of dramatizing was, I donxt think it is safe for me to give any firther details, as this is a niche are of research, and too much info can give away too much. On that note, I do still think my advisor is the only workable one in my university. So, the sad reality is, I do not regret choosing her per se. I probably would atill chose her, bc I think she is the best z of the worst. I do not regret my work as well, I am doing something I love. Now, choosing this uni, I might mildly regret that.

I also aplogize for the typos. I have been typing a lot these days.

I’m graduating with a physics degree and have two opportunities:

A Quality Engineer position starting around $70k salary with opportunities for promotion.
Or
A fully funded condensed matter physics PhD ($22k stipend) researching solid-state batteries and quantum materials. The advisor expects students to graduate in 4–5 years, and many graduates go into industry.

If you were in my position, which path would you choose, and why? If you’ve made a similar decision, what happened?

I moved to industry after my PhD. Recently I prepared the final paper to submit. However started to miss the research life. Immediately I have a thought: maybe I should go back academia starting from postdoc? Then my brain kept replaying the miserable moments during PhD like modifying and rewriting the paper again and again.

Is this sort of Stockholm syndrome? Do you have the same experience? Should I seriously consider to find an academic position?

Hello! I am curious if any other PhD's have included a chapter or section in their dissertation on work outside of their core experiments. I've come across two examples of this - one where someone discussed the importance of open science and how they incorporated that into their thesis work, another where someone discussed how their trans identity affected their experience as a PhD student and some personal writing they published on the subject.

My defense date is coming soon (September!) and I'm just considering whether this is something I want to do on science outreach/policy efforts. Also, they're just so interesting to read, so I would love to see more examples!

I submitted my PhD thesis today. I do feel relieved, but my brain is still having racing thoughts which just don’t seem to stop. It’s 3 am and I can’t sleep (Even though I only got 3 hour sleep day before.. I thought I’d be tired and sleep early tonight but that didn’t happen). And my brain is just overthinking and overanalysing everything. I agree that post-PhD feelings are quite difficult as it’s so much change to process, and it kinda makes sense why that’s triggering my anxiety. But yeah, I was hoping to relax at least after submitting, it’s just annoying how I’m not able to even sleep. Is it just me, or has anyone else experienced something similar? Anyway, just putting all of this out here has already helped me feel a little lighter.

Hi everyone! I am wondering if any of you have advice for how to deal with not receiving other outside fellowships or money, besides the base stipend (which is already on the lower side of phd stipends😕)? Everyone in my cohort is making at least $15,000 more than me from internal and external fellowships. I have applied to all that I can, however unfortunately did not receive any, and am now aging out of the ability to apply for funding as I progress through the program. I find this really, mentally and physically, hard to manage. I would love any advice from those who experience/experienced this same situation and how you overcame the self-doubt and physical financial hardships.

Hi so I'm a entering my second year and I kinda have an idea of my project and I have to finish core class work this year. My dad passed my first semester and I feel bad but I have been really taking it easy and not pressuring my self too much after that. Idk I feel like I'm not doing enough and I'm scared I'm just not a good enough PhD student. I'm kinda coasting this summer reading and helping Masters students. Should I be worried about my lack of progress?

I just turned 30 this year. And I've had the goal of getting my PhD since I was 16 in highschool. But... I had some stuff get in the way. You see, when I was 16 I got encephalitis. It caused minor brain damage and retrograde amnesia. I retained and regained at of knowledge afterwards, but there was (is) still a lot I hadn't. But, with the support I had, I still ended up graduating highschool top of my class, straight A student. Even had an opportunity to graduate early but wanted to graduate with my friends.

And then college started...

I started at my community college right after highschool. I loved it. But I didn't have the support I had in highschool and also lacked a decided path (also my jackass teen mind was more so focused on dating than school at the time too). It literally took me about 5 years going back and forth in my community college to figure out what I wanted to do. But finally I did and I got accepted to a university (barely met their requirements, but got in).

And then...

I almost flunked out on my first term.

I then looked into my mental health. I had suspected myself to have ADHD for a while - It runs in my family and I literally every sign of it - but finally decided to have my mental health checked after my trouble at my university. And turns out... Yup, ADHD. As well as Social Anxiety Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Depression, and OCD (I'm also likely autistic, but that topic came up relatively recently and I have yet to be diagnosed).

Now, this was great. Turns out my university has a program for coaching students specifically with mental health disorders such as ADHD. I was accepted to the program and my coach helped me excel for the next two years. But... For those two years I didn't take any courses in my major. I tool minor courses and other electives that interested me. I was terrified of my major because I had started to realize how behind I was in my knowledge of the subject. Very much thanks to the memory loss from my brain damage when I was 16. There were (are) literally elementary level, common knowledge facts and vocab in my major I have yet to relearn. Not because I can't, but because I'm embarrassed to admit what I forgot and don't know where to look to regain this basic knowledge (side clarification - I'm a biology major and I have a hard time identifying local common species in my area. Or my lack of knowledgeof the human body even. I couldn't tell you what a majority of our organs are, where they are, or what they do. These are just a few example of my lack of knowledge in my subject).

Then... almost four years ago now, I decided to take a break from school because of my mental health. It was only going to be one year, but financial issues got in the way and now it's been about four years.

Luckily though, over the past few years, I have got the mental health help I need. And found healthy solutions to my financial trouble. And now have the opportunity to start back at my university.

My one issue still is though, my social anxiety atop my memory loss.

I'll still be starting back towards my bachelors when I get back, but it is still my goal, FAR down the line to pursue my masters and eventually PhD.

And I think my biggest block currently is lack of reassurance from others who understand. Not necessarily someone with the same story of course, but someone who succeeded despite equivalent draw backs.

I need to know my goal is possible. I don't care how hard or long it is to obtain. I just need reassurance that it is obtainable despite my challenges.

So, as my title asks, is there anyone with equivalent stories who succeeded? And are there any suggestions to help me succeed?

Thank you so much for enduring through my short novel of a post and thank you for any relatable stories of your own and suggestions. I wish the best to all!

Edit: I will note, I have seen a few similar posts in my search, but I still felt I needed to share my personal story for a more definite sence of relatability.

Edit 2: After reading just the first comment, I realized my angst for this goal is far ahead of where I am now and my focus should be on my current academic standing (weather or not I can get even a bachelors). So I think I'll repost to a more appropriate sub. But I will keep this post here incase there are any suggestive or relating words for me here from other intelligent people. Again. Thank you all.

Long story not so short: I have all my subjects in, all my years in, published part of my thesis and then... life happened. I became a double care taker and since my scholarship ended I had to take a full time job outside academia (so I could actually pay for stuff).

This was end of 2022, I hear the university could potentially "take me back" so I can just present the thesis and defend it, but I'm stuck with the dumbest paperwork there is. Of note, I was made for bureaucracy, but I'm too scared to open the damn document. I'm advancing at snail speed, with bursts of motivation at the time.

My thesis is almost complete: I have to review one pending question with my PI to debate in the discussion and then do the figures. After that, the review from my PI who is awesome and we have a nice relationship. And then the powerpoint and I'm done. How can it possibly be so hard?

I will now correct the paperwork and send it again, thank you venting. But then, it's going to be the next thing and the next... I'm AuDHD in case you haven't noticed, so some silly things may look like a big monster sometimes.

I hope to vent next time with a frog, thanks for reading!

Hi everyone! I was accepted into a few PhD programs, two in history, one in Scandinavian studies. The history program I would most be interested in would be an advisor looking at the history of newspapers across northern Europe. The Scandinavian studies advisor has written extensively on Sweden during WWII.

My research looks at attitudes towards Swedish neutrality and how it became part of the Swedish identity. Overall, the transition from a top-down government decision, to being a public desire. My overall goals are to work as a professor of history, or to conduct research in the nordics, working at museums.

My question is, would a Scandinavian studies program limit me if I want to work in the US or Sweden? Would I be able to work in a history department? Should I reach out to the Scandinavian studies program about doing a joint dissertation with the history department?

The history PhD is cheaper, both similarly ranked. I am applying for funding, but have to decide which program to list for the application.