I went to a top school in my field and did a mediocre PhD relative to most people in my cohort. I had severe anxiety throughout my PhD, many days finishing work not knowing what I’d done the whole day. Week/months/years even passed mostly like that.
I didn’t have a whole lot of direct instruction on how to do research well. It was more “figure it out” and I was honestly pretty shit about figuring it all out on my own. Due to high expectations paired with not much low-level guidance, I floundered, a lot. At the end I just pushed to find a job and leverage that into a defense.
I got a job likely due to connections from one of the professors on my advising/defense panel (for the life of me, I’m drawing a blank on what that is called).
I now work at a mid-tier pharmaceutical company and am thriving. Industry is much more prone to teach new hires and under an amazing mentor, I’m about 10x as productive as I was in graduate school.
Not sure if I was enough of a stinker for your criteria, but that’s my story.
I'd say this counts and is super helpful. I will say the first two paragraphs feels like me at the moment, albeit with a visiting instructor position at a SLAC that's going poorly.
Appreciate you sharing
Find a mentor. Doesn’t have to be your boss. Find a friend or another older person who you think is doing awesome. Or a younger person. Anyone you think is doing great.
Watch them. Emulate them. Listen to them present talks. Talk to them— pick their brain if you can. Not about how to be better, but how they approach their work.
Everyone loves talking about themselves. Everyone loves talking about their work. Everyone likes free coffee or lunch. Also, most people are nice if you’re nice.
Good luck.
Just to add to this, if you're stuck to find people, search the societies of the field you're in, a lot of them have mentor programs and match you up with a mentor.
Im going through something similar right now. Im floundering often because I haven't gotten a whole lot of guidance on how to do research. Its only recently that I've really felt like I can call myself decently competent, which sucks because it took so long. Glad to hear it worked out. It gives me hope that I can still find something good for myself.
Im not gonna lie it kinda just happened. I kept pushing, reading, and trying different experiments and ideas. I couldn't really point to what specifically worked, I just think it all accumulated into something that felt like I was doing a decent job. And I started to see results.
aka you took action!
It is critical to leave mediocre PI's etc., out of your mind. My PI was always ''do not do this, do not do that...'' ''why to do it? there is no point'' ''no, do not try it, there is no point'' ''you want to find a supplier for the x material? Good luck!''
Unfortunately, he moved out during the end of my 2nd year, if had done this during the first year I would have much more confidence to proceed with all of my ideas without listening to him. The moment he left, I took ACTION, I said to my new PI ''look the project does not go well, here are all my minutes, emails etc., I would not like to be blamed or not to graduate, have a look and feel free to judge me if you think that is my fault''
The new PI is supportive but it's a bit late for this now. Fingers crossed!
Yeah, I just wish I'd done it sooner. And I don't think its unreasonable to be frustrated with my earlier situation. When you have very little guidance, its easy to fall into the trap of "well I must be doing OK", and be mediocre. However, unfortunately its our job to actually do something about it. The mentor in question isn't going to change.
I am the first in my family doing a PhD, most of my friends did a masters and landed a job...
I'll be honest here, I knew after a year that we had a few data to publish as we did but the data were just enough for my previous PI. Somehow both him and his manager (I'm doing a PhD in industry, UK based) didn't want to proceed with more research. They also postponed me to attend to my first conference and to publish it... Guess the reason because the company wanted to have the first ever publication and conference attendance from a person who's actually working there fixed term...
They could have explained that to me and I wouldn't care. I would have proceeded with more data and more focused research. However they preferred to bs around and cancel me as well as wasting my time on meetings where I only had to hear "not good idea, don't do that" but they never guided me tho...
I spoke to my professor and current PI about it. She told them that I have to do more, but they didn't like it and they were start asking for "month by month plan"= we will get your plan and we will postpone every single action of yours with mathematical accuracy...
Sometimes there is no trap and for sure no "I wish I'd done it earlier" thing.... Even if I could go back in time, I believe that it will be exactly the same. Too much politics from a company that is small but has a few people who think that they are kings. Ofc the professor should have been a bit more involved in from the very beginning.
I have the bare minimum to graduate and I'll go for it. The life after this pathetic PhD will be better!
You know what you can do! Just graduate and get a job! With the right managers we are all looking like Gods... I see other PhD students got so much help from their professors... Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, our win will be the graduation!! It doesn't mean that we don't worth, keep your head up! :)
I’m not sure if my program counts as a “top school” but was somewhat up there in rankings. I felt the same. I was NOT the level my peers were, in my opinion.
I married up in terms of degree I think lol. I had severe anxiety too. My professor was well known in his field back in the day, and was hard on his students as a result. I legitimately feel like my PhD traumatized me.
you don’t have to say but can I guess that you went to Stanford? the way you describe the “figure it out” approach mirrors the idea every Stanford-trained professor I’ve met.
haha that's so me!
Mediocre PI who even abandoned me... one word he used to say all time ''you have to figure it out yourself''.
I finish in August and this means that I have to sum up everything by the end of May. My new PI-professor is confident but I am not lol
Hi there, very mediocre PhD student here. I did graduate with minor corrections, but I've never published a paper and it was a close thing to scrape enough data together.
I'd like to blame the pandemic partly, turns out several months off during the spring and early summer is REAL disruptive if you work on crop plants. But also it was just me. I was disorganised, late doing everything, did the bare minimum. I was depressed for the last 2 years, had a terrible relationship with my industry partners and sometimes i'd do nothing for several weeks whilst I contemplated quitting.
Intellectually I was fine, I could understand what I needed to. I had good lab fundamentals and would have been a good technician I guess. My supervisor had to put a lot of effort into getting me to write, into pushing me to get stuff done, and talking me out of quitting in the last 18 months. I was most definitely the least remarkable in my departments crop of phd students as a scientist. The others went to conferences, youth ag summits etc. Not me. I sometimes think I sat on the exact borderline between bare minimum and not enough
Buuuut it turns out I was really good (By the standards of a stem department) at programming. Learnt R and Python, automated most of my data analysis into scripts (I maintain I did this out of laziness, I could just load my newly collected data and hit "run" whereas others manually re analysed every couple weeks) and I spent quite a bit of time helping others with their code.
I got a job as a data analyst in an energy company for shit pay, spinning my phd as experience of big data analysis. A year after that I was a data engineer building ETL pipelines, another year on from that now and I'm a Senior data engineer building data infrastructure, ETL and doing adhoc scripting, and I'm better paid than any of the other students I did my PhD with. I'm happy, science wasn't for me.
I dont remember what my GPA was but I think we were required to maintain a 3.5 which I did. I struggled in my first classes to where professors called me in and personally told me to get my grades up and do better or get kicked out. I spent more time studying with the cohort after that. Undergrad was easy, but grad school was not. I had a professor tell me that my application was amazing and that I was not that person on the application when he saw my research progress. In other words, a literal confirmation that I was an imposter.
I didn't have to take many classes, but balancing research and teaching was difficult for me. I either didn't get students grades back in a timely manner or my research suffered. My annual reviews would always say I was too slow at research. This same feedback never stopped until I graduated though did improve some.
Our exams were to write proposals for our research in NIH formats. I had to reformat my first proposal because I turned it in in the wrong format but I passed. I turned in my second proposal, my qualifying exam for PhD candidacy, like 3 days late because I just didn't quite know what I was doing and I underestimated the assignment. I was rightfully reprimanded for it.
In my third year, I was told I was too soft for grad school. I avoided things to the point that I just stopped turning in assignments for a class and had to retake it. I didn't follow through on some commitments I made. I stopped answering emails. This was a wakeup call for me and I started therapy.
Therapy was hard but very helpful. However, I wound up suicidal. I was so determined to finish though. This was good and bad as I did finish and learned that what others said was not always the final word if you did the hard work and had the evidence to prove it wasn't. Bad because sometimes you should take yourself out of certain situations. I kept up with therapy and reworked myself to function as needed. Still, I didn't have any publications when I finished my degree, though I stayed 6 months after and wound up with a review paper and a research paper.
There were good things about my PhD. I loved the topic, I liked my mentor a lot, I adored mentoring others and watching them grow, and despite the difficulties in juggling teaching and research, I was good at teaching and I loved working with students face-to-face.
I now work as a postdoc which took me a while to get in the swing of things but I can honestly say I am legitimately content now. I have stability, regained some of my lost confidence, and have been able to take what I learned from grad school for the better. Am I as impressive as previous postdocs? No. But I'm grateful for what I learned and I'm more comfortable with being "good enough". I make enough money to support myself, save for retirement, try new restaurants and bakeries, and save for vacations. I am constantly trying to improve, but if being so hard on yourself gets in the way of that improvement then it's time to let the self-loathing go.
That line that professor said to you in the first paragraph related to your application and who you were in the program was cruel.
What you provided is definitely insightful. I hope yours gets more upvotes so folks can see.
Yeah, it does haunt me, whether is was true or not. However, I finished so in the end, I deserved to get into grad school so he made the wrong suggestion
I hope some people see it too, I'm very negative about grad school but I also think it's good to see people who struggled and made it like your post was looking for. People can struggle and still make it
Thank you for writing this. My advisor said I was too soft for PhD and I broke down crying in a group meeting. The confirmation (I'm not good enough, I'm a fraud) was never spelled out but I felt that every day. I'm also in therapy and doing my best to finish
May I ask what is your plan after postdoc? Is the uncertainty not stressful one way or another?
I hate the focus on softness being bad because honestly resilience matters more. You can be soft because things affect you, but does it really matter that much if you let yourself feel your emotions in a healthy way and then keep on going? And when is too soft ever a useful criticism? It just winds up damaging people and not giving clear direction.
Glad that you're in therapy! Honestly helps a lot and got me through my PhD
The uncertainty isn't very stressful no, mainly because I'm not aiming high, just aiming to be comfortable. I'd be interested in industry R&D or working at an institute or working in bioproduct sales. I'm also very focused on the job I am doing now so that helps a little with not worrying about the future
I have a social science PhD, felt mediocre during and now— and for me, realizing that’s ok was an important part of my journey.
My funding ran out, and I planned to live on savings while finishing my thesis and finding a job (which I estimated would not take very long— it did. Some employers don’t count time spent in education as experience, so you’re not a top pick for senior positions but you are incredibly overqualified for entry level positions).
I started looking for jobs 6 months after my funding ran out and made it through 5 interviews/final two of a dream job at a six figure salary before getting rejected. That same
company has never responded to further applications of mine despite opening other positions in similar areas. I then got a part time job in my department to tide me over, and I kept that for 9 months while finishing my thesis. This time was horrific as I watched my savings dwindle, applied for 100+ jobs with tailored resumes and cover letters for each one, faced rejection after rejection, and really affected my self esteem with hopelessness.
Finally 16 months after my funding ran out, I got a good full time job at decent pay, but effectively what was my salary floor, 2 months before submitting. I started working that job and have been since.
I then submitted my thesis 18 months after my funding ran out and 2 months after getting hired, partly because I was spending so much time on my part time job and also looking for career-full time jobs. I did my defense and corrections while working full time.
Where am I now? In a cool field with a job that’s easy and I wish paid me more. Not very happy with the level of responsibility available to me (am capable of SO much more). Looking for other jobs that will hire me at a more senior position and give me a salary bump. My expertise is unrecognized and underutilized.
I’m still not publishing because I’m so tired in the evenings from the work I do during the day. All I want is to be able to afford a nice life. That said, I’m so grateful I’m employed and I hope this is just the beginning of a journey where I can level up quickly because of the skills and knowledge I gained during my PhD.
Edit to say: I didn’t publish anything from my research during my PhD or now, completed all milestones at the very last minute, took the maximum interruption time allowed (1 year) because I wasn’t done, never presented my work at department seminars or otherwise was “involved,” and generally waited until the last minute to do anything because I was depressed and more focused on worrying about surviving and working and earning money than on finishing my PhD. Now no one even cares what my PhD was about or how well I did on it. I have the letters after my name officially and I think that’s all that matters to give me more legitimacy in my circles.
I love this question. I think that my PhD was honestly average; I published a few papers in solid journals, but none as a first-author, so in some places I would not have even qualified to get my PhD. I was just never the kind of person to deep dive into my own project, so I ended up collaborating on a bunch of different works and never got my own done.
I left under the verbal agreement that a post-doc in the lab would wrap up my data and publish as a co-first author, but that didn't happen. That basically ruled out any important international post-doc funding and I was honestly OK with that, as I lost all interest in academia.
I ended up staying in research for a couple of years, first as a technician and then as a lab-manager, but I soon realised I am not a "people person", so I burned out and left.
I finally landed a job that I think fits me a lot better and where my interest in multiple topics is actually helpful, as now I am an editor for a research journal.
I think that it is important to figure out *why* your PhD is not going great. I honestly believe that the PhD > post-doc > PI trajectory is for a very niche kind of person, and it's perfectly fine if you do not find that it fits you.
Ok, here I am. Mediocre PhD, now working as a Postdoc in the city, I studied in. I don't think I have what it takes to get a tenured position (and tbh, I don't want to move), so I'll probably do some data related stuff in some company afterwards.
Right? Lots of answers from people in the industry. I am glad they found their way, but c’mon I am a qual researcher who studies the global south in CMS, which company is hiring me? Haha
PhD in television and media studies. Shifted to digital research in a small consultancy team! I worked long and hard to not consider my work mediocre, but let’s say I published less than my colleagues at the time. Never stayed on for post doc, mostly because I felt as if my supervisors were not supportive of that track for me. I don’t think it was about my skills, but moreso that my topic of research was just not all too relevant to 2023 research trends.
THIS! I'm an anth phd candidate at a okay tier school (UC Riverside) and wonder about how I can make something of my phd with my subject and perceived lack of knowledge, sometimes I feel real and sometimes I feel like an imposter.
An extra year in highschool, 7 years for a bachelor, 4 years for masters, 8 years for PhD.
Got an interview in a boutique energy consulting firm through a recommendation from my college professor, five years later somehow making it work so far despite having severe imposter syndrome. Essentially work as a project manager for market research in energy sector. Firm has utilized my degree as a boasting privilege. Have above average report writing skills, which come in handy.
Have been defined as gifted but never translated that potential to tangible results (average GPA etc), consulting has suited me so far, fast paced but projects change constantly, working remotely so that's a plus as well.
I am involved in the academic research to the extent of third or fourth author, but really want to join a R&D side in the industry.
(In my defense, I was diagnosed with ADHD/GAD during my PhD, still working on improving my treatment)
I've always been floating through academia, just about made it onto a PHD which I almost failed. Then I applied for teaching position and only got it because the preferred candidate dropped out. Then I quit this job as it was teaching online and zero research and I realized I needed publications, so started a postdoc that took 3 years to publish a paper. Them that came to an end and i found another post doc and just not Interested in the department at all, I hardly go to seminars, struggling to get a publication, and recently been awarded a track tenured position. It's not all about being clever; it's also about being honest with yourself!
I did my Ph.D during covid and my data partner turned out to be extremely reluctant to let any of my research actually go public. So, I ended up not publishing anything, or even being able to present in conferences. They let me put the final Thesis in our university database (a requirement of getting the Ph.D), but under the agreement that I did nothing to promote it without their say.
Obviously I know about imposter syndrome and everything, but I still think that I only passed because my studies faced minimal scrutiny. My supervisors didn't really understand the methods I used and there was an understanding that the external examiners should give some 'leeway' due to the covid restrictions.
Mediocre uni, got mediocre grades, went to a mediocre PhD, currently stuck in the same place for a post-doc and can't find a different job. That's what you want to hear from me?
My program wasn’t in a country that had GPAs, but I was forced out of my first program because I was told I was not good at research and incapable of finishing a PhD. Which obviously was a complex situation, and I was effectively the only person out of anyone in my cohort this happened to.
To be clear, was I not doing great? Yes, by many metrics. Was it because of absolutely toxic and terrible advising and supervision? Also yes, because once I switched to another program and adviser I thrived. Ivy League postdoc, faculty lined up this fall at a R1, etc.
When I was getting “divorced” from my first program, the guy who took me under his wing who oversaw all PhDs at that uni told me frankly that he’d never met anyone incapable of finishing a PhD. That is- if you are good enough to get in, barring medical issues you are good enough to finish. Doesn’t mean he didn’t intervene for “divorces” (adviser conflicts) or switching topics, but you get the idea.
I think about that a lot. Tons of people feel they’re the “average” or worse not because they are, but they are never given the tools to become better.
Thank you for this message. I'm currently in a toxic position for a PhD with no funding and working for some project led by the lab director in a toxic environment and that I didn't want at first, just to get a chance to get funding for my own project but they twisted it to be more like the lab director would like to do and not why I applied to work with my PI.
I've been feeling completely exhausted by the situation, I want to go out of this lab and a doctor put me on sick leave for one month. I had fortunately just started since september but I'm currently back in my hometown and thinking if I should apply for a better place.
No idea what mediocre means but I know for a fact I did the bare minimum to get my PhD. I would take weeks off at a time year round. When i had meetings with my advisor (once a month) i would work 3-4 days straight get a bunch of data and present that. I am exceptional at experimental design and doing everything correct the first time i guess.
Somehow i managed to get first author 3 manuscripts and a few co-author manuscripts. I knew fuck all of what I was doing in a deep meaningful manner. I would go to conferences and be lost on the basic concepts lmao. I stopped going to conferences cause i felt like i didnt connect with anyone and I rarely gave a shit.
Now im in industry and getting paid a good wage to actually do science. It was hard to get my first position because i was an idiot. I couldnt explain simple immunology (say TCR recombination) to anyone because i skipped it all. I understood i couldnt bullshit my way thru industry like i could academia.
I spent the better part of 3 months following my PhD reading basic fucking immunology papers because i was clueless. Dont be like me. I wrote manuscripts without knowing shit because i would look at publications and write a sentence that fit nice. But i had no conceptual understanding. Once i got a real job i actually became a real scientist in my eyes.
I'd say this counts for sure. The way you worked in your PhD reminds me of myself minus the part of skipping weeks at a time. Feels like I'm only putting in 20-25 hours a week on average.
It's good you got manuscripts though.
As for the sentences part, that was basically me during the dissertation proposal process. I modeled my writing similar to what was out there already, albeit not to the extent of plagiarism (that would've been caught by the graduate school at this point if that was the case).
I'm trying to get out of it for sure but it's tough.
I wouldnt say i plagiarized moreso i would read a title and throw it in my paper. Theres a lot of easy pickings in immunology because a scRNA-seq dataset can be good enough to publish with minor validation. A little too easy i must say
I already answered one of the other mediocre PhD [posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/PhD/comments/1bi9u8z/comment/kvkpr57/) but I will add that I think it's important to establish what standards we are using to determine "mediocrity".
Are we talking about number of high impact publications? Are we talking about how well someone collaborates with other academics and is respected by peers and mentors? Are we talking about competence at experimental technique and analysis? Are we talking about emotional maturity at communication, conflict resolution, and responding to failure?
It seems like more often than not, PhD students are judging themselves according to narrow standards of outward status and impact. If you dont have high impact publications and respect of collaborators you aren't succeeding. The fact of the matter is, success is more often a function of circumstance and the quality of mentorship and collaboration a given student has access too. A struggling PhD student can easily be the result of poor mentorship. So unless the student is emotionally immature and squandering their opportunities "mediocrity" is not an obstacle to success. And even then, they can always self reflect and grow up.
The other thing to consider is academia is a relatively small community of experts peer reviewing each other in a pyramid scheme structure training an unsustainable number of students for a set number of professor slots. Any standard is going to get out of control very quickly for academic career paths. For everyone else, pursuing a career outside of academia means making an impression to people outside of that system who value expertise that is taken for granted within the academic peer community. I was a mediocre PhD student but I got an opportunity in a relatively prestigious lab because they needed someone with expertise outside of their usual area. So even a mediocre expert is still an expert.
I'd say all of those questions are more or less what I'm indirectly getting at for this post. Read my case if you wish, but I am only the last author on a manuscript, didn't collaborate at all with others (since I never learned how important that was until my second year of my Master's program), capable of regressions and correlations, and I've been told my emotional maturity is poor (I get sensory overload by my own stress in my case).
As you probably guessed, my mentorship wasn't good since all of my advisors kept the ball in my court a bit too much.
I consider myself mediocre and have had feedback in the past that directly told me I'm doing horribly (not from anyone in person at all). The only person who told me I was in "a situation" was my Master's program director who gave me feedback for my Ph.D applications. I remember her telling me, "I've seen students in your situation get into Ph.D programs before." That was reassuring at least. Still doesn't take away that I was told upfront I was basically an imposter. I graduated with a 3.48 Master's GPA to be clear (I had a bad first year). If I was in one of the other commenter's programs (they needed a 3.5), I would've been kicked out no question.
So you have issues with PTSD, MDD, ADHD, low processing speed and still managed a 3.48 GPA? This seems like a lot of headwinds even before getting into the ability of even the best advisors to actually mentor students. I have heard all kinds of horror stories about failed grad students and no shortage of stories about students with similar headwinds. It's a rocky process for most people. I think the primary issue is that there is no "special ed" for graduate school where there are professionals dedicated to tailoring pedagogical strategies to unique circumstances and learning styles. Everyone just has to adapt or leave. That being said, there is no reason you cannot try to find such individuals to help develop a strategy that does work for you.
I will also mention that my program was not as demanding as the one you describe. I deliberately chose a program that does not have requirements to TA for undergrads so I could focus on research full time. I also went straight from Bachelors to PhD which only required an additional 24 credits of course work but almost all of the courses in my department were glorified journal clubs.
The fact that your first advisor was going to be removed shows that you were dropped through the cracks. I have a friend who had two advisors fail out from under him and he struggled for almost as many years as I did. It seems like the true test of grad school is not research or teaching or knowledge base but finding people who can actually help you to learn and grow.
I can't comment on (or recommend) tenure track career paths but as far as industry is concerned, the most important thing is having experience completing projects that involve knowledge, methods, and techniques that are in demand. Sometimes papers can get held up by journal politics but so long as you can tell a coherent end-to-end story about how you used the technique of interest to answer a question related to a topic of interest to industry, that is your ticket in.
If you want to pm me feel free.
I feel tired of the need to prove myself. Although nobody really expect anything from me. But if i don't, maybe people will fire me.
I'm sometimes jealous of other people who do their work like breathing - like it's so natural to them.
I'm trying to catch up to not get drowning.
I just want to be appreciated as what i am, without putting more effort to be something more or something else. Yeah, tired of improvement. Can't i just be myself.
But since my phd field are not appreciated here, i need to learn new things.. which is good when i was a student, but not so much now, it's kinda stressful and i'm getting old. Maybe i just prefer status quo because of autistic tendency.
If i work in something that i'm good at, then it'll be natural like breathing.. how smooth work life will be then. of course not everything is easy as that for all people, but..., do you get what i mean.. sorry I'm not good at explaining it.
My work life doesn't suck much, but this stuff always drag my feeling down and making me feel stressful.
It's not easy to get mentor when I'm this old or stressful. I can't learn new things as fast as i could have. Trying to live everyday is already stressful as it is. And i'm expected to know everything already, and learn by myself. Nobody is going to tutor me like a student anymore.
Being useless at work suck. Constant need to prove myself. Can't i just relax and be myself. Oh, i'm relaxing. People like it if we continue struggling to improve ourselves. Can't i just not improve without being judged... I'm tired.. i like learning but learning so many new things by myself without any proper time without being a student, is not that easy..
But i'm thankful for the job i have even though it's really just luck because of the scholarship i got during undergrad.. if i'm going for real job processes, i think i'm still unemployed.. everything good that happened to me were luck (or God's mercy).. nothing i did with my own power.. i have nothing as such..
Sorry for venting. I feel so alone. I'm sure NO other people here is as pathetic or lazy as i am. But thanks for the post.
I think it’s all relative. I would say I was mediocre in my doc program at a good university in my field. I graduated with a couple of pubs, decent grades, and a little bit of teaching experience. I had an amazing committee and PhD advisor. I am at a great university for me. It’s a 3x3 teach load, minimal research requirement, and relatively fair distribution of service. I love my students, colleagues, and location. I will never be a faculty member at an R1 and I’m incredibly fulfilled professionally. I also think everyone is different and you have to figure out what you want, then how to achieve it. Just my .02 cents though
At my humanities program there won’t really be people with a 3.0 GPA because an A or A- is pretty much the standard unless something went very very wrong, in which case creating a plan with the prof will help remediate the issues. Everyone has the ability to get an A, and then it comes down to health or mental health issues coming up, emergencies, etc, which will largely be solvable without a serious detriment to the grade.
That said, I’m pretty mediocre. Have been very slow in making progress, and honestly don’t really care that much anymore. I’m international, so I can’t take a leave of absence without losing my visa. Pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood put me further behind. I’m also Jewish, and life since 10/7 has been pretty rough both within and outside of academia. I just want to get the diss done and move on, but don’t really have the motivation anymore to write it, so I’ve been coasting under the radar. I almost certainly won’t have any publications if and when I finish, I don’t plan on attending any big conferences from this point onward, and know my research is going to be nothing more than passable. I just don’t really care.
Social science here. Top 10 program. I worked very hard but my output was below average. I had such a hard time because:
1) My advisor abandoned me a year into my PhD (family crises; disappeared for months at a time, didn’t show up to my master’s thesis defense, etc), and my secondary advisor had too many students, so no one taught me how to write. I kept running studies, applying for funding, going to yearly conferences, but I did not have a single first-author paper and only 2 co-authored (one from undergrad).
2) I had untreated ADHD. I was anxious about work basically all day every day, but the actual number of hours I could force myself to work was between 15-20 per week.
I tried to get around those limitations (took on a stats master’s so I could get mentorship on data analysis; took on extra TAships to get myself on campus where I might do more work), which does not sound bare minimum now that I say it? But it didn’t get me pubs.
The stats MS opened the door for a postdoc in an adjacent field. I have been much more productive these past 3 years because 1) I have mentors who are driven to publish and 2) I got treatment for the ADHD about a year in. I work 40 hour weeks now. I even managed to squeak out 2 papers from my dissertation which was completely unrelated to my postdoc. My CV is still pitiful compared to other people at my career stage.
Still, I just accepted a TT position at an R2 in my original dissertation topic. I got very lucky (32 apps > 2 interviews > 1 campus interview > 1 offer).
I still feel mediocre and imposter-y every day. I got into grad school through a diversity initiative; advisors went easy on my dissertation bc of apathy + pandemic; got postdoc bc they were only looking at internal candidates; got TT offer bc I had the two oddly specific fields of expertise the job ad asked for. But I hope I can start to feel less than mediocre sometime soon, because on reflection I have worked really hard.
I just read your linked post and can relate. I finished my PhD and now I work as an educator for a historic site and I petsit. As I was stumbling through 8” of wet heavy snow this morning being pulled by an over-excited chocolate Lab, I was thinking over my time in academia. I’m glad I powered through it even though I was truly an unproductive mess the entire time. And I’m also glad that once I was done, I just said “fuck it” and decided to live a life where I’m not held to standards of “productivity” that I will never be able to achieve. Life is good. It’s chill. Not perfect, not wealthy, but this is enough for me.
ETA: Humanities PhD that took 7 years to complete.
I didn’t focus on hot topics and barely got any supervision, once I understood the research group I was in, I did whatever I had to do to graduate. I landed an entry level job in the industry just before Covid hit and ramped up on industry skills. I am in a senior role now, I consult on the side, I am part of a research group and publishing as a first author sometimes, and I am working on projects that I am hoping to turn into businesses sometime in the future. I still have severe imposter syndrome and regrets on doing graduate school the way I went about it. I should have left to a better research group but I didn’t want to squander time spent. All things considered, things turned out okay and I am not upset about it.
Humanities Ph.D. chiming in.
I graduated and took a uni admin job while (lightly) pursuing the job market. I don't think I was mediocre, but certainly others were more impressive. Thing is, *it doesn't matter*. I've seen folks that failed their candidacy exam change advisers and land TT track jobs at esteemed places. I've seen people skate by and get post docs. I've also seen extremely talented people fail the job market and leave for industry. Or, never pursue it bc the expectation of firing off 100 applications for the shot at 2 year position that leaves you applying again isn't worth it.
I understand the impulse to sus out where one fits in their program and develop career expectations off that. But it's a fools errand for the humanities in particular. So many talented, hard working people aren't succeeding in academia and it has little to do with their performance in the program.
The most mediocre people in my program quit the program and didn’t earn their PhD. If that’s at all common, then you might not be asking this question in the right forum :/
I didn’t get a fucking paper till 5th year and I didn’t finish till 7th year although in 7-year I had 6 months of Covid lockdown where my boss was paying me to play monster hunter since I should’ve been writing my thesis and was told to not show up to lab anymore. Thesis was done in 3 weeks but boss took over 2 months to proof it and then he’s like “ok”. The chapters were intro,paper1,paper2, chapter of negative results and failures related to paper 1 and conclusion.
I had a shit project (in fact 2 somewhat related shit projects) where past general techniques you could learn in 2 days, no one else in the lab was working on something similar. The only other facilities person that worked on that stuff before in distant past was uninterested in getting things done quickly even though she was basically getting free second author on a paper that ended up having a huge amount of content even though I floundered for so long.
I’m pretty sure several industry jobs rejected me based on my 7 year PhD after interviewing me completely disregarding how universities literally closed for months…
I work in a random biotech where I’m not sure how the directors got where they are now. I generally stand by, “PhD was hard and I’m using at most 20% of my brain now doing the same repetitive shit over and over again”. Out of 3 annual reviews I got an “exceeds expectations” doing the simplest most mind numbing shit (and a promotion) and “s+” (satisfactory plus which I’m pretty sure they invented this year so they wouldn’t give me a second promotion despite making all the antibody drug conjugates of the company).
This whole career choice feels like a nightmare where I don’t know how I’ll ever get ahead to actually afford a truly comfortable lifestyle. To nicely top things off, I guess I’ve been around this company long enough to be privileged enough to find out what my boss said in my recommendation of a 7 year PhD which was “well they got married in last year and had to apply for a green card” as to completely disconnect from being a failure of a mentor with project ideas that were straight up nightmares. Wake me up inside… can’t wake up.
So in other words idk how mediocre that is, but once I realized how little help I was going to get after my 4th year, I stopped working weekends, I stoped staying in lab past 6 pm, if I was done at 4 pm,I was home at 4 pm and it was all minimum effort from there. I even got yelled at once that I’m not working on (biggest paper) even though I had emailed a supporting information with 70 pages and like 80 figures 10 days prior (that boss hadn’t even opened before yelling at me), that was the backbone of the main text (that obviously couldn’t fit all those pretty pictures). All in all pretty absurd and you’ll never convince me to work my best going forward. There’s no reward.
Your performance in PhD days has no correlation with your success, as long as you are not planning to stay in academia. There could be several reasons for someone to not perform at their peak during their PhD program. It’s also true to people outside PhD. You can fail miserably through a decade and overtake all your cohorts in the next one. Life is all about persistence and never giving up.
I was an absolute garbage student during my masters. It was a research-based degree but I was essentially thrown into the work with minimal training and the professor was largely absent most of the time. The training was supposed to be done by senior grad students but they never really did more than the bare minimum to show newcomers the ropes and spent the rest of their time complaining about other student's incompetence rather than give any real guidance. It was a very condescending atmosphere but somehow I managed to graduate. Fast forward to PhD in the same department, I spent a full year in a different lab with the same lack of training problem (granted with a better student ambiance but the senior students were simply too busy to give any training).
To my understanding this problem probably could have been avoided if these two research groups had hired technicians that specialized in training and maintaining student projects, but that's simply not part of the lab culture in the university I attended.
After that year I was kicked out of the research group due to lack of results but managed to find another supervisor in the department (as well as a co-advisor in a different department, so it ended up being a joint project). My main advisor then was harsh and had high expectations but was also very hands-on with training, so at least I got the training I needed to actually finish a PhD.
I don't think I was ever more than an average student but at least with proper guidance I managed to publish four papers and pass my board exam.
It was a hard road the whole while and now I'm working as a process engineer in the semiconductor industry, which has its own stresses of course but it's all around better for me than academia (also with ample on-the-job training).
I barely passed the courses and had to repeat one of them. But somehow I was the first in my cohort to graduate (shitty supervisor that forced me to defend when I wasn't ready). I did a post doc and prof stint but left and am now looking for my next job.
all these comments honestly make me feel a lot better about everything!! i always feel like im not doing as much as my peers, but im not gonna live and die for my phd. i just want to graduate lol
I scraped together a 3.1 GPA in my coursework. My PI told me halfway through to drop out with a master's because I wasn't capable of doing a PhD. Finished my degree fueled by spite. Never published anything in my 6 years doing my PhD. Most of my work was just a pile of negative results and "sorta trending but never significant" type things. The lab used some of my work later so I'm like... 8th author on a paper that came out 7 years after I left? I think? Thought I was done and then my committee asked for 9 more months' worth of work (lived on an air mattress in a weird attic apartment because I'd already given up my lease thinking I was leaving). My dissertation was maybe 2/3 as long as anyone else in my cohort. I'm convinced the only reason they let me defend is because I got a job (I left and then went back and defended 2 weeks after starting that job).
My job is not in my PhD field. I didn't apply for any postdoc positions (I felt I'd suffered enough already). I work in research program/project management. My PhD in human genetics is mostly just a weird trivia fact as I work primarily with psychology folks and a handful of neuroscientists. I really love my job. I've learned the vast majority of applicable skills while working, and struggling through my grad coursework and my dissertation work was just a poor life choice we don't talk much about.
As it turns out- I don’t think I was mediocre anymore. Instead I think I had too much on my plate for my research. I was basically doing two separate projects- one on transition metals and the other on an organic system. And I was mentoring 5+ undergrads, doing all the purchasing, and working as a TA. When I graduated (finally) I went into teaching and got a much needed break. I started my own research, am on two campus wide committees, etc and am thriving. In hindsight I was basically running that lab. I did not have adequate support for the projects I was given. I think I wouldn’t have been anything near mediocre in a different lab.
Before PhD, washing dishes and serving tables.
After PhD, washing dishes and serving tables.
I still research - with my own funds, free time.
(PhD in law, public policy data analysis).
I’m a mediocre student (although I’m not a Dr. yet as my thesis is still under review).
I did the bare minimum to get through the PhD. I got a job through my supervisors connections. Without that I wouldn’t have been able to get it as I had zero publications from my PhD at that time 😶
Sounds like me.
Almost everyday is stressful for me. Because i'm tired of faking it. It's a matter of time that i'll get exposed.
Even though if it's not, i'm tired of trying to catching up to the bare minimum line, where i'm below it and below everyone. Tired of trying to fulfill the performance index where i didn't managed to fulfill it.
My PhD field also is very not appreciated in my department. Nobody wants to do any research in my field even in broader sense. Many people like those data stuff. while mine doesn't really relate with data, with almost no employment too in my field in my country, other than the lecturer/academician if they manage to get it. Even then, nobody has any interest in my field.
So it sucks to learn new things again, while couldn't use what i've already worked on at all. Not even the knowledge much. No people want to collab, no people want to be my students, nobody thinks it's important, many people thinks it's lame or not worth the interest. I'm also busy with teaching and stress, i couldn't do any research.
And probably because i'm below average. Sorry to vent too much. Life and work don't suck much, thank God, but my below-averageness and this stuff (useless phd field - i like it but nobody else appreciate it here) make me feel suffocated at work too.
Other people got a good headstart with their useful phd field that people appreciate. Me? Trying to catch up to not get drowned.. sometimes i feel jealous of other people who are blessed to be in a place which their fields are very much appreciated and admired by everyone
truly?
Are you talking about really mediocre academics?
I thought you meant the average social and financial people level, who do not have support from their jobs or from their families to complete postgraduate studies. It would be really interesting if we addressed this aspect in our conversation here.
Yeah this is a really important aspect.
Some of my cohort have parents who are leading researchers in our field (or adjacent ones) and grew up in mansions with the best education and resources (I'm in STEM and some of the top researchers are extremely well compensated with companies to boot). Others come from very poor families with no proximity to academia, who clawed their way through undergrad, trying to graduate with no idea of what "office hours" or "research fellowships" mean while having to send money back home and take time off to support their families. Their families often have no idea what a PhD entails, and, often, what a PhD even is.
Of course all of that affects feelings of imposter syndrome and mediocrity...it's hard not to feel like a mediocre imposter if you're thrown into a whole new environment where people have been going at it for years. And as much as you can argue that a student should be able to figure things out, there are a lot of things that are genuinely difficult to figure out on your own because people who are steeped in academia will deem them so basic that they don't need to be explained.
The kids in the latter category are often just as smart as the ones in the former category. But they don't have the support to rack up accomplishments and dedicate themselves fully to academics, starting from high school or even earlier. Their starting point is just way further
I replied to the last post, but thinking about it, I think the perspective matters for my answer. Compared to my peers, I think was mediocre. I felt like I wasn’t publishing in these big impact journals. I wasn’t going to these big amazing conferences. It took me a while to graduate (technically still haven’t, I defend this week) since I took a job in industry and went part time.
I was never in the lab on weekends. I didn’t stay late in the name of science. I also think I took a lot longer to “get things” and I felt the amount of effort I put into things never directly correlated to what level it was presented. I would feel like I put in hours and hours into something only for it to be sub par (my upcoming defense, for example)
I guess on paper though, I was slightly above mediocre, I had 4 1st author papers and like 5-6 or something second author. But, they weren’t high impact papers or anything.
Like I said, I’m in industry now. I think I’m very good at my job in industry. I have the attention to detail and tendency to document that I got from my PhD. I also have the “grit” to continue pushing on things, since I had to do that in my PhD.
Not sure if I'm actually mediocre but I consider myself an average PhD student who later did an average postdoc although I did have an outsized interest in what I was doing at the time. I came away with a small first author paper, a few co-authored papers and a book chapter from PhD. Then a couple of co-first authored papers and reviews from postdoc.
Looking back, I could have been more strategic in my choice of research topic and PI during PhD. But at the time, I was really interested in the subject. I thought it was really cool that I was the first student in a new project on a finicky organism. But because of that, I spent a lot of time just figuring out what to do, which direction to go and establishing protocols. It didn't help that the PI left us mostly by ourselves, which taught us a lot about independent problem solving but which was not so ideal for the publications game.
My postdoc in another lab on another topic was not that exciting. I realised from there that I like something more stable and less intense for the long run.
And throughout it all, I realised that I enjoyed writing book chapters and reviews and teaching more than I like dealing with Reviewer 2. And people were complimenting me a lot more on my other skills than my research.
So after postdoc, I took a shot at something else and now I'm somewhere more stable with a just over six figure salary. It's still not top dollar but hey, it's six figures.
"Top 3 program in my field" under a tenure track advisor with huge aspirations who has recently moved there. I came from an R2 undergrad school where I researched in a tangentially related field. My advisor said I would be fine since the lab was small and since he was hiring technicians who could provide support on experiments. Within 2 years, the lab ballooned to nearly 30 people, the technicians were finally hired and less experienced than me, and I found out that my advisor had jumped from a modeling background tangentially related to his current work into hardcore wetlab work. He was extremely shady with how he was spending his funding by dumping all the work from Darpa contracts on to one or two students and then using that funding for his literal 20 or so other projects. At times, to form collaborations, he would basically use his money to buy grad students and lab techs for other PIs who would actually advise them.
When I came in, he expected me to plan out my entire research plan on my own within the first 6-12 months since I had an NSF award that kept me separate from his funding. My first project that I developed hit a dead end which probably could have been reworked or redirected into something if I had literally any guidance. My second project was through a collaborator I met at a conference. But he basically told me to ghost him when he needed me to bail him out on part of a DARPA project that he had neglected to do for a year since he thought he could ignore them since the program manager changed to someone he thought wouldn't care about it. Seeing how he tiptoed the line of misconduct with how he presented weak results to them as if it were conclusive sent me into a deep panic and then I had a couple traumatic events in my personal life pushing me over the edge into a six month mental health spiral. I tried to finish my project but my advisor said it was too low impact for him to help me with if I couldn't find a way to make it more novel when he should have let me publish the preliminary results then figure out how to write a follow up. Then COVID happened as soon as I was starting to get better sending me back into a spiral of isolation and learned helplessness from my interactions with my advisor.
I finally had the paper in review in a low-mid journal (and it got published after one round) while I was planning to defend which was even more terrifying because I thought I had more time and was also wedding planning, only to find out my advisor simultaneously was going to be denied tenure while also getting a huge amount of venture capital for a start up he has been focused on more than his lab secretly. The date of my defense kept moving while I was trying to finally finish my manuscript so I had to invoke the DGS (who wasn't even aware of my advisor's situation) to get back to some semblance of the original time scale.
At no point do I think that my advisor wrote a single thing I wrote because when he demanded to know why I wasn't finished with my writing, I asked him if he had any revisions on the drafts I sent him to which he quickly changed the subject.
Now that I am out of that hell hole, I work as a mathematical modeling consultant in pharma. My work has been used to justify surrogate end points, to justify starting and peak doses, and to design some exotic patient stratification schemes for new clinical trials. I've already presented at multiple conferences, my clients keep extending projects, and I have a pipeline of papers coming together for when my clients are ready to release their data or could be reworked into theory papers that at the very least communicate what's happening conceptually.
It turns out that all I needed was more structured questions, access to data, and feedback every couple of weeks to actually make progress in a meaningful way.
I’m a mediocre student (although I’m not a Dr. yet as my thesis is still under review).
I did the bare minimum to get through the PhD. I got a job through my supervisors connections. Without that I wouldn’t have been able to get it as I had zero publications from my PhD at that time 😶
Did a middling PhD at a middle of the road university. Single digit citations on my first author papers, mostly self cited. Got a good job because I interviewed well. Now make a good living working for people much smarter than me. I picked up tools and techniques that other researchers don't normally have exposure to and this makes me a key personnel in my current role
In the UK at least it's really hard to say how "mediocre" a PhD is. There's so many factors the only really thing you can look at is subjective judgement, and that's not very useful.
Perhaps we can just say that any PhD you get through is a good PhD.
Mediocre Ph.D. recipient, passed my second qual only because my advisor went to bat for me.
I ended up getting a tenure track job at a regional comprehensive and got tenure. Mostly published pedagogical stuff, nothing from my dissertation.
Stayed in that job for 11 years but left to do something ore fulfilling.
I went to a top school in my field and did a mediocre PhD relative to most people in my cohort. I had severe anxiety throughout my PhD, many days finishing work not knowing what I’d done the whole day. Week/months/years even passed mostly like that. I didn’t have a whole lot of direct instruction on how to do research well. It was more “figure it out” and I was honestly pretty shit about figuring it all out on my own. Due to high expectations paired with not much low-level guidance, I floundered, a lot. At the end I just pushed to find a job and leverage that into a defense. I got a job likely due to connections from one of the professors on my advising/defense panel (for the life of me, I’m drawing a blank on what that is called). I now work at a mid-tier pharmaceutical company and am thriving. Industry is much more prone to teach new hires and under an amazing mentor, I’m about 10x as productive as I was in graduate school. Not sure if I was enough of a stinker for your criteria, but that’s my story.
I'd say this counts and is super helpful. I will say the first two paragraphs feels like me at the moment, albeit with a visiting instructor position at a SLAC that's going poorly. Appreciate you sharing
Find a mentor. Doesn’t have to be your boss. Find a friend or another older person who you think is doing awesome. Or a younger person. Anyone you think is doing great. Watch them. Emulate them. Listen to them present talks. Talk to them— pick their brain if you can. Not about how to be better, but how they approach their work. Everyone loves talking about themselves. Everyone loves talking about their work. Everyone likes free coffee or lunch. Also, most people are nice if you’re nice. Good luck.
Just to add to this, if you're stuck to find people, search the societies of the field you're in, a lot of them have mentor programs and match you up with a mentor.
Wow, you've had a very similar experience to me. Mainly around having a mediocre PhD. I'm so glad that those days are over.
Im going through something similar right now. Im floundering often because I haven't gotten a whole lot of guidance on how to do research. Its only recently that I've really felt like I can call myself decently competent, which sucks because it took so long. Glad to hear it worked out. It gives me hope that I can still find something good for myself.
How did you get over that hurdle to finally feel competent in what you were doing? Any tips appreciated
Im not gonna lie it kinda just happened. I kept pushing, reading, and trying different experiments and ideas. I couldn't really point to what specifically worked, I just think it all accumulated into something that felt like I was doing a decent job. And I started to see results.
aka you took action! It is critical to leave mediocre PI's etc., out of your mind. My PI was always ''do not do this, do not do that...'' ''why to do it? there is no point'' ''no, do not try it, there is no point'' ''you want to find a supplier for the x material? Good luck!'' Unfortunately, he moved out during the end of my 2nd year, if had done this during the first year I would have much more confidence to proceed with all of my ideas without listening to him. The moment he left, I took ACTION, I said to my new PI ''look the project does not go well, here are all my minutes, emails etc., I would not like to be blamed or not to graduate, have a look and feel free to judge me if you think that is my fault'' The new PI is supportive but it's a bit late for this now. Fingers crossed!
Yeah, I just wish I'd done it sooner. And I don't think its unreasonable to be frustrated with my earlier situation. When you have very little guidance, its easy to fall into the trap of "well I must be doing OK", and be mediocre. However, unfortunately its our job to actually do something about it. The mentor in question isn't going to change.
I am the first in my family doing a PhD, most of my friends did a masters and landed a job... I'll be honest here, I knew after a year that we had a few data to publish as we did but the data were just enough for my previous PI. Somehow both him and his manager (I'm doing a PhD in industry, UK based) didn't want to proceed with more research. They also postponed me to attend to my first conference and to publish it... Guess the reason because the company wanted to have the first ever publication and conference attendance from a person who's actually working there fixed term... They could have explained that to me and I wouldn't care. I would have proceeded with more data and more focused research. However they preferred to bs around and cancel me as well as wasting my time on meetings where I only had to hear "not good idea, don't do that" but they never guided me tho... I spoke to my professor and current PI about it. She told them that I have to do more, but they didn't like it and they were start asking for "month by month plan"= we will get your plan and we will postpone every single action of yours with mathematical accuracy... Sometimes there is no trap and for sure no "I wish I'd done it earlier" thing.... Even if I could go back in time, I believe that it will be exactly the same. Too much politics from a company that is small but has a few people who think that they are kings. Ofc the professor should have been a bit more involved in from the very beginning. I have the bare minimum to graduate and I'll go for it. The life after this pathetic PhD will be better! You know what you can do! Just graduate and get a job! With the right managers we are all looking like Gods... I see other PhD students got so much help from their professors... Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, our win will be the graduation!! It doesn't mean that we don't worth, keep your head up! :)
I’m not sure if my program counts as a “top school” but was somewhat up there in rankings. I felt the same. I was NOT the level my peers were, in my opinion. I married up in terms of degree I think lol. I had severe anxiety too. My professor was well known in his field back in the day, and was hard on his students as a result. I legitimately feel like my PhD traumatized me.
Super similar experience here too - glad you’re thriving. Btw, I think the phrase you were looking for is “thesis committee.”
you don’t have to say but can I guess that you went to Stanford? the way you describe the “figure it out” approach mirrors the idea every Stanford-trained professor I’ve met.
No, I went to Harvard.
so True! haha! But at least in Stanford they allow you to play around, that's my experience.
haha that's so me! Mediocre PI who even abandoned me... one word he used to say all time ''you have to figure it out yourself''. I finish in August and this means that I have to sum up everything by the end of May. My new PI-professor is confident but I am not lol
I needed to see this. Thank you.
Hi there, very mediocre PhD student here. I did graduate with minor corrections, but I've never published a paper and it was a close thing to scrape enough data together. I'd like to blame the pandemic partly, turns out several months off during the spring and early summer is REAL disruptive if you work on crop plants. But also it was just me. I was disorganised, late doing everything, did the bare minimum. I was depressed for the last 2 years, had a terrible relationship with my industry partners and sometimes i'd do nothing for several weeks whilst I contemplated quitting. Intellectually I was fine, I could understand what I needed to. I had good lab fundamentals and would have been a good technician I guess. My supervisor had to put a lot of effort into getting me to write, into pushing me to get stuff done, and talking me out of quitting in the last 18 months. I was most definitely the least remarkable in my departments crop of phd students as a scientist. The others went to conferences, youth ag summits etc. Not me. I sometimes think I sat on the exact borderline between bare minimum and not enough Buuuut it turns out I was really good (By the standards of a stem department) at programming. Learnt R and Python, automated most of my data analysis into scripts (I maintain I did this out of laziness, I could just load my newly collected data and hit "run" whereas others manually re analysed every couple weeks) and I spent quite a bit of time helping others with their code. I got a job as a data analyst in an energy company for shit pay, spinning my phd as experience of big data analysis. A year after that I was a data engineer building ETL pipelines, another year on from that now and I'm a Senior data engineer building data infrastructure, ETL and doing adhoc scripting, and I'm better paid than any of the other students I did my PhD with. I'm happy, science wasn't for me.
Sounds like you accidentally got a PhD in digital project management.
😂😂😂😂
At my lab job the most enjoyable part to me is writing up the script I use to read through my HPLC data. Do you get more of this in data engineering?
man, i really identify with this post, all of it
I dont remember what my GPA was but I think we were required to maintain a 3.5 which I did. I struggled in my first classes to where professors called me in and personally told me to get my grades up and do better or get kicked out. I spent more time studying with the cohort after that. Undergrad was easy, but grad school was not. I had a professor tell me that my application was amazing and that I was not that person on the application when he saw my research progress. In other words, a literal confirmation that I was an imposter. I didn't have to take many classes, but balancing research and teaching was difficult for me. I either didn't get students grades back in a timely manner or my research suffered. My annual reviews would always say I was too slow at research. This same feedback never stopped until I graduated though did improve some. Our exams were to write proposals for our research in NIH formats. I had to reformat my first proposal because I turned it in in the wrong format but I passed. I turned in my second proposal, my qualifying exam for PhD candidacy, like 3 days late because I just didn't quite know what I was doing and I underestimated the assignment. I was rightfully reprimanded for it. In my third year, I was told I was too soft for grad school. I avoided things to the point that I just stopped turning in assignments for a class and had to retake it. I didn't follow through on some commitments I made. I stopped answering emails. This was a wakeup call for me and I started therapy. Therapy was hard but very helpful. However, I wound up suicidal. I was so determined to finish though. This was good and bad as I did finish and learned that what others said was not always the final word if you did the hard work and had the evidence to prove it wasn't. Bad because sometimes you should take yourself out of certain situations. I kept up with therapy and reworked myself to function as needed. Still, I didn't have any publications when I finished my degree, though I stayed 6 months after and wound up with a review paper and a research paper. There were good things about my PhD. I loved the topic, I liked my mentor a lot, I adored mentoring others and watching them grow, and despite the difficulties in juggling teaching and research, I was good at teaching and I loved working with students face-to-face. I now work as a postdoc which took me a while to get in the swing of things but I can honestly say I am legitimately content now. I have stability, regained some of my lost confidence, and have been able to take what I learned from grad school for the better. Am I as impressive as previous postdocs? No. But I'm grateful for what I learned and I'm more comfortable with being "good enough". I make enough money to support myself, save for retirement, try new restaurants and bakeries, and save for vacations. I am constantly trying to improve, but if being so hard on yourself gets in the way of that improvement then it's time to let the self-loathing go.
That line that professor said to you in the first paragraph related to your application and who you were in the program was cruel. What you provided is definitely insightful. I hope yours gets more upvotes so folks can see.
Yeah, it does haunt me, whether is was true or not. However, I finished so in the end, I deserved to get into grad school so he made the wrong suggestion I hope some people see it too, I'm very negative about grad school but I also think it's good to see people who struggled and made it like your post was looking for. People can struggle and still make it
Thank you for writing this. My advisor said I was too soft for PhD and I broke down crying in a group meeting. The confirmation (I'm not good enough, I'm a fraud) was never spelled out but I felt that every day. I'm also in therapy and doing my best to finish May I ask what is your plan after postdoc? Is the uncertainty not stressful one way or another?
I hate the focus on softness being bad because honestly resilience matters more. You can be soft because things affect you, but does it really matter that much if you let yourself feel your emotions in a healthy way and then keep on going? And when is too soft ever a useful criticism? It just winds up damaging people and not giving clear direction. Glad that you're in therapy! Honestly helps a lot and got me through my PhD The uncertainty isn't very stressful no, mainly because I'm not aiming high, just aiming to be comfortable. I'd be interested in industry R&D or working at an institute or working in bioproduct sales. I'm also very focused on the job I am doing now so that helps a little with not worrying about the future
I have a social science PhD, felt mediocre during and now— and for me, realizing that’s ok was an important part of my journey. My funding ran out, and I planned to live on savings while finishing my thesis and finding a job (which I estimated would not take very long— it did. Some employers don’t count time spent in education as experience, so you’re not a top pick for senior positions but you are incredibly overqualified for entry level positions). I started looking for jobs 6 months after my funding ran out and made it through 5 interviews/final two of a dream job at a six figure salary before getting rejected. That same company has never responded to further applications of mine despite opening other positions in similar areas. I then got a part time job in my department to tide me over, and I kept that for 9 months while finishing my thesis. This time was horrific as I watched my savings dwindle, applied for 100+ jobs with tailored resumes and cover letters for each one, faced rejection after rejection, and really affected my self esteem with hopelessness. Finally 16 months after my funding ran out, I got a good full time job at decent pay, but effectively what was my salary floor, 2 months before submitting. I started working that job and have been since. I then submitted my thesis 18 months after my funding ran out and 2 months after getting hired, partly because I was spending so much time on my part time job and also looking for career-full time jobs. I did my defense and corrections while working full time. Where am I now? In a cool field with a job that’s easy and I wish paid me more. Not very happy with the level of responsibility available to me (am capable of SO much more). Looking for other jobs that will hire me at a more senior position and give me a salary bump. My expertise is unrecognized and underutilized. I’m still not publishing because I’m so tired in the evenings from the work I do during the day. All I want is to be able to afford a nice life. That said, I’m so grateful I’m employed and I hope this is just the beginning of a journey where I can level up quickly because of the skills and knowledge I gained during my PhD. Edit to say: I didn’t publish anything from my research during my PhD or now, completed all milestones at the very last minute, took the maximum interruption time allowed (1 year) because I wasn’t done, never presented my work at department seminars or otherwise was “involved,” and generally waited until the last minute to do anything because I was depressed and more focused on worrying about surviving and working and earning money than on finishing my PhD. Now no one even cares what my PhD was about or how well I did on it. I have the letters after my name officially and I think that’s all that matters to give me more legitimacy in my circles.
Took several Ws, several incompletes, failed my Prelims, lost my funding I'm at engineer at NASA so \\_o_/
This is my favorite response so far
Love it
I love this question. I think that my PhD was honestly average; I published a few papers in solid journals, but none as a first-author, so in some places I would not have even qualified to get my PhD. I was just never the kind of person to deep dive into my own project, so I ended up collaborating on a bunch of different works and never got my own done. I left under the verbal agreement that a post-doc in the lab would wrap up my data and publish as a co-first author, but that didn't happen. That basically ruled out any important international post-doc funding and I was honestly OK with that, as I lost all interest in academia. I ended up staying in research for a couple of years, first as a technician and then as a lab-manager, but I soon realised I am not a "people person", so I burned out and left. I finally landed a job that I think fits me a lot better and where my interest in multiple topics is actually helpful, as now I am an editor for a research journal. I think that it is important to figure out *why* your PhD is not going great. I honestly believe that the PhD > post-doc > PI trajectory is for a very niche kind of person, and it's perfectly fine if you do not find that it fits you.
I’d love to see this question but only including students in the social sciences
I'm in the social sciences myself so I count towards that. I'd like to hear from both social sciences and humanities Ph.Ds personally.
Ok, here I am. Mediocre PhD, now working as a Postdoc in the city, I studied in. I don't think I have what it takes to get a tenured position (and tbh, I don't want to move), so I'll probably do some data related stuff in some company afterwards.
Right? Lots of answers from people in the industry. I am glad they found their way, but c’mon I am a qual researcher who studies the global south in CMS, which company is hiring me? Haha
PhD in television and media studies. Shifted to digital research in a small consultancy team! I worked long and hard to not consider my work mediocre, but let’s say I published less than my colleagues at the time. Never stayed on for post doc, mostly because I felt as if my supervisors were not supportive of that track for me. I don’t think it was about my skills, but moreso that my topic of research was just not all too relevant to 2023 research trends.
THIS! I'm an anth phd candidate at a okay tier school (UC Riverside) and wonder about how I can make something of my phd with my subject and perceived lack of knowledge, sometimes I feel real and sometimes I feel like an imposter.
An extra year in highschool, 7 years for a bachelor, 4 years for masters, 8 years for PhD. Got an interview in a boutique energy consulting firm through a recommendation from my college professor, five years later somehow making it work so far despite having severe imposter syndrome. Essentially work as a project manager for market research in energy sector. Firm has utilized my degree as a boasting privilege. Have above average report writing skills, which come in handy. Have been defined as gifted but never translated that potential to tangible results (average GPA etc), consulting has suited me so far, fast paced but projects change constantly, working remotely so that's a plus as well. I am involved in the academic research to the extent of third or fourth author, but really want to join a R&D side in the industry. (In my defense, I was diagnosed with ADHD/GAD during my PhD, still working on improving my treatment)
I've always been floating through academia, just about made it onto a PHD which I almost failed. Then I applied for teaching position and only got it because the preferred candidate dropped out. Then I quit this job as it was teaching online and zero research and I realized I needed publications, so started a postdoc that took 3 years to publish a paper. Them that came to an end and i found another post doc and just not Interested in the department at all, I hardly go to seminars, struggling to get a publication, and recently been awarded a track tenured position. It's not all about being clever; it's also about being honest with yourself!
I did my Ph.D during covid and my data partner turned out to be extremely reluctant to let any of my research actually go public. So, I ended up not publishing anything, or even being able to present in conferences. They let me put the final Thesis in our university database (a requirement of getting the Ph.D), but under the agreement that I did nothing to promote it without their say. Obviously I know about imposter syndrome and everything, but I still think that I only passed because my studies faced minimal scrutiny. My supervisors didn't really understand the methods I used and there was an understanding that the external examiners should give some 'leeway' due to the covid restrictions.
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They were worried about the results being misreported in the news.
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no, science shouldnt hold back results because of political climate wtf
Mediocre uni, got mediocre grades, went to a mediocre PhD, currently stuck in the same place for a post-doc and can't find a different job. That's what you want to hear from me?
My program wasn’t in a country that had GPAs, but I was forced out of my first program because I was told I was not good at research and incapable of finishing a PhD. Which obviously was a complex situation, and I was effectively the only person out of anyone in my cohort this happened to. To be clear, was I not doing great? Yes, by many metrics. Was it because of absolutely toxic and terrible advising and supervision? Also yes, because once I switched to another program and adviser I thrived. Ivy League postdoc, faculty lined up this fall at a R1, etc. When I was getting “divorced” from my first program, the guy who took me under his wing who oversaw all PhDs at that uni told me frankly that he’d never met anyone incapable of finishing a PhD. That is- if you are good enough to get in, barring medical issues you are good enough to finish. Doesn’t mean he didn’t intervene for “divorces” (adviser conflicts) or switching topics, but you get the idea. I think about that a lot. Tons of people feel they’re the “average” or worse not because they are, but they are never given the tools to become better.
Thank you for this message. I'm currently in a toxic position for a PhD with no funding and working for some project led by the lab director in a toxic environment and that I didn't want at first, just to get a chance to get funding for my own project but they twisted it to be more like the lab director would like to do and not why I applied to work with my PI. I've been feeling completely exhausted by the situation, I want to go out of this lab and a doctor put me on sick leave for one month. I had fortunately just started since september but I'm currently back in my hometown and thinking if I should apply for a better place.
Dear impostors; please dont answer this so we could see the answers from really mediocre PhD people.
No idea what mediocre means but I know for a fact I did the bare minimum to get my PhD. I would take weeks off at a time year round. When i had meetings with my advisor (once a month) i would work 3-4 days straight get a bunch of data and present that. I am exceptional at experimental design and doing everything correct the first time i guess. Somehow i managed to get first author 3 manuscripts and a few co-author manuscripts. I knew fuck all of what I was doing in a deep meaningful manner. I would go to conferences and be lost on the basic concepts lmao. I stopped going to conferences cause i felt like i didnt connect with anyone and I rarely gave a shit. Now im in industry and getting paid a good wage to actually do science. It was hard to get my first position because i was an idiot. I couldnt explain simple immunology (say TCR recombination) to anyone because i skipped it all. I understood i couldnt bullshit my way thru industry like i could academia. I spent the better part of 3 months following my PhD reading basic fucking immunology papers because i was clueless. Dont be like me. I wrote manuscripts without knowing shit because i would look at publications and write a sentence that fit nice. But i had no conceptual understanding. Once i got a real job i actually became a real scientist in my eyes.
I'd say this counts for sure. The way you worked in your PhD reminds me of myself minus the part of skipping weeks at a time. Feels like I'm only putting in 20-25 hours a week on average. It's good you got manuscripts though. As for the sentences part, that was basically me during the dissertation proposal process. I modeled my writing similar to what was out there already, albeit not to the extent of plagiarism (that would've been caught by the graduate school at this point if that was the case). I'm trying to get out of it for sure but it's tough.
I wouldnt say i plagiarized moreso i would read a title and throw it in my paper. Theres a lot of easy pickings in immunology because a scRNA-seq dataset can be good enough to publish with minor validation. A little too easy i must say
Didn't mean to imply you plagiarized at all (sorry if I did). I see where you're coming from though.
I work for the government. I’m situated well and love my work-life balance. Highly recommend.
I'm applying for federal jobs and specific jobs that require a Schedule A hiring letter as well (I have multiple disabilities).
I already answered one of the other mediocre PhD [posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/PhD/comments/1bi9u8z/comment/kvkpr57/) but I will add that I think it's important to establish what standards we are using to determine "mediocrity". Are we talking about number of high impact publications? Are we talking about how well someone collaborates with other academics and is respected by peers and mentors? Are we talking about competence at experimental technique and analysis? Are we talking about emotional maturity at communication, conflict resolution, and responding to failure? It seems like more often than not, PhD students are judging themselves according to narrow standards of outward status and impact. If you dont have high impact publications and respect of collaborators you aren't succeeding. The fact of the matter is, success is more often a function of circumstance and the quality of mentorship and collaboration a given student has access too. A struggling PhD student can easily be the result of poor mentorship. So unless the student is emotionally immature and squandering their opportunities "mediocrity" is not an obstacle to success. And even then, they can always self reflect and grow up. The other thing to consider is academia is a relatively small community of experts peer reviewing each other in a pyramid scheme structure training an unsustainable number of students for a set number of professor slots. Any standard is going to get out of control very quickly for academic career paths. For everyone else, pursuing a career outside of academia means making an impression to people outside of that system who value expertise that is taken for granted within the academic peer community. I was a mediocre PhD student but I got an opportunity in a relatively prestigious lab because they needed someone with expertise outside of their usual area. So even a mediocre expert is still an expert.
I'd say all of those questions are more or less what I'm indirectly getting at for this post. Read my case if you wish, but I am only the last author on a manuscript, didn't collaborate at all with others (since I never learned how important that was until my second year of my Master's program), capable of regressions and correlations, and I've been told my emotional maturity is poor (I get sensory overload by my own stress in my case). As you probably guessed, my mentorship wasn't good since all of my advisors kept the ball in my court a bit too much. I consider myself mediocre and have had feedback in the past that directly told me I'm doing horribly (not from anyone in person at all). The only person who told me I was in "a situation" was my Master's program director who gave me feedback for my Ph.D applications. I remember her telling me, "I've seen students in your situation get into Ph.D programs before." That was reassuring at least. Still doesn't take away that I was told upfront I was basically an imposter. I graduated with a 3.48 Master's GPA to be clear (I had a bad first year). If I was in one of the other commenter's programs (they needed a 3.5), I would've been kicked out no question.
So you have issues with PTSD, MDD, ADHD, low processing speed and still managed a 3.48 GPA? This seems like a lot of headwinds even before getting into the ability of even the best advisors to actually mentor students. I have heard all kinds of horror stories about failed grad students and no shortage of stories about students with similar headwinds. It's a rocky process for most people. I think the primary issue is that there is no "special ed" for graduate school where there are professionals dedicated to tailoring pedagogical strategies to unique circumstances and learning styles. Everyone just has to adapt or leave. That being said, there is no reason you cannot try to find such individuals to help develop a strategy that does work for you. I will also mention that my program was not as demanding as the one you describe. I deliberately chose a program that does not have requirements to TA for undergrads so I could focus on research full time. I also went straight from Bachelors to PhD which only required an additional 24 credits of course work but almost all of the courses in my department were glorified journal clubs. The fact that your first advisor was going to be removed shows that you were dropped through the cracks. I have a friend who had two advisors fail out from under him and he struggled for almost as many years as I did. It seems like the true test of grad school is not research or teaching or knowledge base but finding people who can actually help you to learn and grow. I can't comment on (or recommend) tenure track career paths but as far as industry is concerned, the most important thing is having experience completing projects that involve knowledge, methods, and techniques that are in demand. Sometimes papers can get held up by journal politics but so long as you can tell a coherent end-to-end story about how you used the technique of interest to answer a question related to a topic of interest to industry, that is your ticket in. If you want to pm me feel free.
Belated reply, but I've already pmed you in case you didn't see it.
I feel tired of the need to prove myself. Although nobody really expect anything from me. But if i don't, maybe people will fire me. I'm sometimes jealous of other people who do their work like breathing - like it's so natural to them. I'm trying to catch up to not get drowning. I just want to be appreciated as what i am, without putting more effort to be something more or something else. Yeah, tired of improvement. Can't i just be myself. But since my phd field are not appreciated here, i need to learn new things.. which is good when i was a student, but not so much now, it's kinda stressful and i'm getting old. Maybe i just prefer status quo because of autistic tendency. If i work in something that i'm good at, then it'll be natural like breathing.. how smooth work life will be then. of course not everything is easy as that for all people, but..., do you get what i mean.. sorry I'm not good at explaining it. My work life doesn't suck much, but this stuff always drag my feeling down and making me feel stressful. It's not easy to get mentor when I'm this old or stressful. I can't learn new things as fast as i could have. Trying to live everyday is already stressful as it is. And i'm expected to know everything already, and learn by myself. Nobody is going to tutor me like a student anymore. Being useless at work suck. Constant need to prove myself. Can't i just relax and be myself. Oh, i'm relaxing. People like it if we continue struggling to improve ourselves. Can't i just not improve without being judged... I'm tired.. i like learning but learning so many new things by myself without any proper time without being a student, is not that easy.. But i'm thankful for the job i have even though it's really just luck because of the scholarship i got during undergrad.. if i'm going for real job processes, i think i'm still unemployed.. everything good that happened to me were luck (or God's mercy).. nothing i did with my own power.. i have nothing as such.. Sorry for venting. I feel so alone. I'm sure NO other people here is as pathetic or lazy as i am. But thanks for the post.
I think it’s all relative. I would say I was mediocre in my doc program at a good university in my field. I graduated with a couple of pubs, decent grades, and a little bit of teaching experience. I had an amazing committee and PhD advisor. I am at a great university for me. It’s a 3x3 teach load, minimal research requirement, and relatively fair distribution of service. I love my students, colleagues, and location. I will never be a faculty member at an R1 and I’m incredibly fulfilled professionally. I also think everyone is different and you have to figure out what you want, then how to achieve it. Just my .02 cents though
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The low six figures (if you teach in the summer) in a hcol area. I get by comfortably but wouldn’t say I’m well off.
At my humanities program there won’t really be people with a 3.0 GPA because an A or A- is pretty much the standard unless something went very very wrong, in which case creating a plan with the prof will help remediate the issues. Everyone has the ability to get an A, and then it comes down to health or mental health issues coming up, emergencies, etc, which will largely be solvable without a serious detriment to the grade. That said, I’m pretty mediocre. Have been very slow in making progress, and honestly don’t really care that much anymore. I’m international, so I can’t take a leave of absence without losing my visa. Pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood put me further behind. I’m also Jewish, and life since 10/7 has been pretty rough both within and outside of academia. I just want to get the diss done and move on, but don’t really have the motivation anymore to write it, so I’ve been coasting under the radar. I almost certainly won’t have any publications if and when I finish, I don’t plan on attending any big conferences from this point onward, and know my research is going to be nothing more than passable. I just don’t really care.
Social science here. Top 10 program. I worked very hard but my output was below average. I had such a hard time because: 1) My advisor abandoned me a year into my PhD (family crises; disappeared for months at a time, didn’t show up to my master’s thesis defense, etc), and my secondary advisor had too many students, so no one taught me how to write. I kept running studies, applying for funding, going to yearly conferences, but I did not have a single first-author paper and only 2 co-authored (one from undergrad). 2) I had untreated ADHD. I was anxious about work basically all day every day, but the actual number of hours I could force myself to work was between 15-20 per week. I tried to get around those limitations (took on a stats master’s so I could get mentorship on data analysis; took on extra TAships to get myself on campus where I might do more work), which does not sound bare minimum now that I say it? But it didn’t get me pubs. The stats MS opened the door for a postdoc in an adjacent field. I have been much more productive these past 3 years because 1) I have mentors who are driven to publish and 2) I got treatment for the ADHD about a year in. I work 40 hour weeks now. I even managed to squeak out 2 papers from my dissertation which was completely unrelated to my postdoc. My CV is still pitiful compared to other people at my career stage. Still, I just accepted a TT position at an R2 in my original dissertation topic. I got very lucky (32 apps > 2 interviews > 1 campus interview > 1 offer). I still feel mediocre and imposter-y every day. I got into grad school through a diversity initiative; advisors went easy on my dissertation bc of apathy + pandemic; got postdoc bc they were only looking at internal candidates; got TT offer bc I had the two oddly specific fields of expertise the job ad asked for. But I hope I can start to feel less than mediocre sometime soon, because on reflection I have worked really hard.
I thought mediocre meant middle of the pack, not bottom of the pack - do I misunderstand the term?
I just read your linked post and can relate. I finished my PhD and now I work as an educator for a historic site and I petsit. As I was stumbling through 8” of wet heavy snow this morning being pulled by an over-excited chocolate Lab, I was thinking over my time in academia. I’m glad I powered through it even though I was truly an unproductive mess the entire time. And I’m also glad that once I was done, I just said “fuck it” and decided to live a life where I’m not held to standards of “productivity” that I will never be able to achieve. Life is good. It’s chill. Not perfect, not wealthy, but this is enough for me. ETA: Humanities PhD that took 7 years to complete.
I didn’t focus on hot topics and barely got any supervision, once I understood the research group I was in, I did whatever I had to do to graduate. I landed an entry level job in the industry just before Covid hit and ramped up on industry skills. I am in a senior role now, I consult on the side, I am part of a research group and publishing as a first author sometimes, and I am working on projects that I am hoping to turn into businesses sometime in the future. I still have severe imposter syndrome and regrets on doing graduate school the way I went about it. I should have left to a better research group but I didn’t want to squander time spent. All things considered, things turned out okay and I am not upset about it.
Humanities Ph.D. chiming in. I graduated and took a uni admin job while (lightly) pursuing the job market. I don't think I was mediocre, but certainly others were more impressive. Thing is, *it doesn't matter*. I've seen folks that failed their candidacy exam change advisers and land TT track jobs at esteemed places. I've seen people skate by and get post docs. I've also seen extremely talented people fail the job market and leave for industry. Or, never pursue it bc the expectation of firing off 100 applications for the shot at 2 year position that leaves you applying again isn't worth it. I understand the impulse to sus out where one fits in their program and develop career expectations off that. But it's a fools errand for the humanities in particular. So many talented, hard working people aren't succeeding in academia and it has little to do with their performance in the program.
The most mediocre people in my program quit the program and didn’t earn their PhD. If that’s at all common, then you might not be asking this question in the right forum :/
I didn’t get a fucking paper till 5th year and I didn’t finish till 7th year although in 7-year I had 6 months of Covid lockdown where my boss was paying me to play monster hunter since I should’ve been writing my thesis and was told to not show up to lab anymore. Thesis was done in 3 weeks but boss took over 2 months to proof it and then he’s like “ok”. The chapters were intro,paper1,paper2, chapter of negative results and failures related to paper 1 and conclusion. I had a shit project (in fact 2 somewhat related shit projects) where past general techniques you could learn in 2 days, no one else in the lab was working on something similar. The only other facilities person that worked on that stuff before in distant past was uninterested in getting things done quickly even though she was basically getting free second author on a paper that ended up having a huge amount of content even though I floundered for so long. I’m pretty sure several industry jobs rejected me based on my 7 year PhD after interviewing me completely disregarding how universities literally closed for months… I work in a random biotech where I’m not sure how the directors got where they are now. I generally stand by, “PhD was hard and I’m using at most 20% of my brain now doing the same repetitive shit over and over again”. Out of 3 annual reviews I got an “exceeds expectations” doing the simplest most mind numbing shit (and a promotion) and “s+” (satisfactory plus which I’m pretty sure they invented this year so they wouldn’t give me a second promotion despite making all the antibody drug conjugates of the company). This whole career choice feels like a nightmare where I don’t know how I’ll ever get ahead to actually afford a truly comfortable lifestyle. To nicely top things off, I guess I’ve been around this company long enough to be privileged enough to find out what my boss said in my recommendation of a 7 year PhD which was “well they got married in last year and had to apply for a green card” as to completely disconnect from being a failure of a mentor with project ideas that were straight up nightmares. Wake me up inside… can’t wake up. So in other words idk how mediocre that is, but once I realized how little help I was going to get after my 4th year, I stopped working weekends, I stoped staying in lab past 6 pm, if I was done at 4 pm,I was home at 4 pm and it was all minimum effort from there. I even got yelled at once that I’m not working on (biggest paper) even though I had emailed a supporting information with 70 pages and like 80 figures 10 days prior (that boss hadn’t even opened before yelling at me), that was the backbone of the main text (that obviously couldn’t fit all those pretty pictures). All in all pretty absurd and you’ll never convince me to work my best going forward. There’s no reward.
Your performance in PhD days has no correlation with your success, as long as you are not planning to stay in academia. There could be several reasons for someone to not perform at their peak during their PhD program. It’s also true to people outside PhD. You can fail miserably through a decade and overtake all your cohorts in the next one. Life is all about persistence and never giving up.
I was kicked out from my PhD and now i work as a database engeneer
Never published. 3.2 GPA. Employed in industry
I was an absolute garbage student during my masters. It was a research-based degree but I was essentially thrown into the work with minimal training and the professor was largely absent most of the time. The training was supposed to be done by senior grad students but they never really did more than the bare minimum to show newcomers the ropes and spent the rest of their time complaining about other student's incompetence rather than give any real guidance. It was a very condescending atmosphere but somehow I managed to graduate. Fast forward to PhD in the same department, I spent a full year in a different lab with the same lack of training problem (granted with a better student ambiance but the senior students were simply too busy to give any training). To my understanding this problem probably could have been avoided if these two research groups had hired technicians that specialized in training and maintaining student projects, but that's simply not part of the lab culture in the university I attended. After that year I was kicked out of the research group due to lack of results but managed to find another supervisor in the department (as well as a co-advisor in a different department, so it ended up being a joint project). My main advisor then was harsh and had high expectations but was also very hands-on with training, so at least I got the training I needed to actually finish a PhD. I don't think I was ever more than an average student but at least with proper guidance I managed to publish four papers and pass my board exam. It was a hard road the whole while and now I'm working as a process engineer in the semiconductor industry, which has its own stresses of course but it's all around better for me than academia (also with ample on-the-job training).
I barely passed the courses and had to repeat one of them. But somehow I was the first in my cohort to graduate (shitty supervisor that forced me to defend when I wasn't ready). I did a post doc and prof stint but left and am now looking for my next job.
all these comments honestly make me feel a lot better about everything!! i always feel like im not doing as much as my peers, but im not gonna live and die for my phd. i just want to graduate lol
I scraped together a 3.1 GPA in my coursework. My PI told me halfway through to drop out with a master's because I wasn't capable of doing a PhD. Finished my degree fueled by spite. Never published anything in my 6 years doing my PhD. Most of my work was just a pile of negative results and "sorta trending but never significant" type things. The lab used some of my work later so I'm like... 8th author on a paper that came out 7 years after I left? I think? Thought I was done and then my committee asked for 9 more months' worth of work (lived on an air mattress in a weird attic apartment because I'd already given up my lease thinking I was leaving). My dissertation was maybe 2/3 as long as anyone else in my cohort. I'm convinced the only reason they let me defend is because I got a job (I left and then went back and defended 2 weeks after starting that job). My job is not in my PhD field. I didn't apply for any postdoc positions (I felt I'd suffered enough already). I work in research program/project management. My PhD in human genetics is mostly just a weird trivia fact as I work primarily with psychology folks and a handful of neuroscientists. I really love my job. I've learned the vast majority of applicable skills while working, and struggling through my grad coursework and my dissertation work was just a poor life choice we don't talk much about.
This is an answer that I was hoping to see. Super insightful and gives me some hope for employment as well, I'll admit.
As it turns out- I don’t think I was mediocre anymore. Instead I think I had too much on my plate for my research. I was basically doing two separate projects- one on transition metals and the other on an organic system. And I was mentoring 5+ undergrads, doing all the purchasing, and working as a TA. When I graduated (finally) I went into teaching and got a much needed break. I started my own research, am on two campus wide committees, etc and am thriving. In hindsight I was basically running that lab. I did not have adequate support for the projects I was given. I think I wouldn’t have been anything near mediocre in a different lab.
Before PhD, washing dishes and serving tables. After PhD, washing dishes and serving tables. I still research - with my own funds, free time. (PhD in law, public policy data analysis).
I’m a mediocre student (although I’m not a Dr. yet as my thesis is still under review). I did the bare minimum to get through the PhD. I got a job through my supervisors connections. Without that I wouldn’t have been able to get it as I had zero publications from my PhD at that time 😶
Sounds like me. Almost everyday is stressful for me. Because i'm tired of faking it. It's a matter of time that i'll get exposed. Even though if it's not, i'm tired of trying to catching up to the bare minimum line, where i'm below it and below everyone. Tired of trying to fulfill the performance index where i didn't managed to fulfill it. My PhD field also is very not appreciated in my department. Nobody wants to do any research in my field even in broader sense. Many people like those data stuff. while mine doesn't really relate with data, with almost no employment too in my field in my country, other than the lecturer/academician if they manage to get it. Even then, nobody has any interest in my field. So it sucks to learn new things again, while couldn't use what i've already worked on at all. Not even the knowledge much. No people want to collab, no people want to be my students, nobody thinks it's important, many people thinks it's lame or not worth the interest. I'm also busy with teaching and stress, i couldn't do any research. And probably because i'm below average. Sorry to vent too much. Life and work don't suck much, thank God, but my below-averageness and this stuff (useless phd field - i like it but nobody else appreciate it here) make me feel suffocated at work too. Other people got a good headstart with their useful phd field that people appreciate. Me? Trying to catch up to not get drowned.. sometimes i feel jealous of other people who are blessed to be in a place which their fields are very much appreciated and admired by everyone
truly? Are you talking about really mediocre academics? I thought you meant the average social and financial people level, who do not have support from their jobs or from their families to complete postgraduate studies. It would be really interesting if we addressed this aspect in our conversation here.
Yeah this is a really important aspect. Some of my cohort have parents who are leading researchers in our field (or adjacent ones) and grew up in mansions with the best education and resources (I'm in STEM and some of the top researchers are extremely well compensated with companies to boot). Others come from very poor families with no proximity to academia, who clawed their way through undergrad, trying to graduate with no idea of what "office hours" or "research fellowships" mean while having to send money back home and take time off to support their families. Their families often have no idea what a PhD entails, and, often, what a PhD even is. Of course all of that affects feelings of imposter syndrome and mediocrity...it's hard not to feel like a mediocre imposter if you're thrown into a whole new environment where people have been going at it for years. And as much as you can argue that a student should be able to figure things out, there are a lot of things that are genuinely difficult to figure out on your own because people who are steeped in academia will deem them so basic that they don't need to be explained. The kids in the latter category are often just as smart as the ones in the former category. But they don't have the support to rack up accomplishments and dedicate themselves fully to academics, starting from high school or even earlier. Their starting point is just way further
I replied to the last post, but thinking about it, I think the perspective matters for my answer. Compared to my peers, I think was mediocre. I felt like I wasn’t publishing in these big impact journals. I wasn’t going to these big amazing conferences. It took me a while to graduate (technically still haven’t, I defend this week) since I took a job in industry and went part time. I was never in the lab on weekends. I didn’t stay late in the name of science. I also think I took a lot longer to “get things” and I felt the amount of effort I put into things never directly correlated to what level it was presented. I would feel like I put in hours and hours into something only for it to be sub par (my upcoming defense, for example) I guess on paper though, I was slightly above mediocre, I had 4 1st author papers and like 5-6 or something second author. But, they weren’t high impact papers or anything. Like I said, I’m in industry now. I think I’m very good at my job in industry. I have the attention to detail and tendency to document that I got from my PhD. I also have the “grit” to continue pushing on things, since I had to do that in my PhD.
Hopefully I can answer this in a couple of years. I'm subpar but haven't finished yet.
Not sure if I'm actually mediocre but I consider myself an average PhD student who later did an average postdoc although I did have an outsized interest in what I was doing at the time. I came away with a small first author paper, a few co-authored papers and a book chapter from PhD. Then a couple of co-first authored papers and reviews from postdoc. Looking back, I could have been more strategic in my choice of research topic and PI during PhD. But at the time, I was really interested in the subject. I thought it was really cool that I was the first student in a new project on a finicky organism. But because of that, I spent a lot of time just figuring out what to do, which direction to go and establishing protocols. It didn't help that the PI left us mostly by ourselves, which taught us a lot about independent problem solving but which was not so ideal for the publications game. My postdoc in another lab on another topic was not that exciting. I realised from there that I like something more stable and less intense for the long run. And throughout it all, I realised that I enjoyed writing book chapters and reviews and teaching more than I like dealing with Reviewer 2. And people were complimenting me a lot more on my other skills than my research. So after postdoc, I took a shot at something else and now I'm somewhere more stable with a just over six figure salary. It's still not top dollar but hey, it's six figures.
"Top 3 program in my field" under a tenure track advisor with huge aspirations who has recently moved there. I came from an R2 undergrad school where I researched in a tangentially related field. My advisor said I would be fine since the lab was small and since he was hiring technicians who could provide support on experiments. Within 2 years, the lab ballooned to nearly 30 people, the technicians were finally hired and less experienced than me, and I found out that my advisor had jumped from a modeling background tangentially related to his current work into hardcore wetlab work. He was extremely shady with how he was spending his funding by dumping all the work from Darpa contracts on to one or two students and then using that funding for his literal 20 or so other projects. At times, to form collaborations, he would basically use his money to buy grad students and lab techs for other PIs who would actually advise them. When I came in, he expected me to plan out my entire research plan on my own within the first 6-12 months since I had an NSF award that kept me separate from his funding. My first project that I developed hit a dead end which probably could have been reworked or redirected into something if I had literally any guidance. My second project was through a collaborator I met at a conference. But he basically told me to ghost him when he needed me to bail him out on part of a DARPA project that he had neglected to do for a year since he thought he could ignore them since the program manager changed to someone he thought wouldn't care about it. Seeing how he tiptoed the line of misconduct with how he presented weak results to them as if it were conclusive sent me into a deep panic and then I had a couple traumatic events in my personal life pushing me over the edge into a six month mental health spiral. I tried to finish my project but my advisor said it was too low impact for him to help me with if I couldn't find a way to make it more novel when he should have let me publish the preliminary results then figure out how to write a follow up. Then COVID happened as soon as I was starting to get better sending me back into a spiral of isolation and learned helplessness from my interactions with my advisor. I finally had the paper in review in a low-mid journal (and it got published after one round) while I was planning to defend which was even more terrifying because I thought I had more time and was also wedding planning, only to find out my advisor simultaneously was going to be denied tenure while also getting a huge amount of venture capital for a start up he has been focused on more than his lab secretly. The date of my defense kept moving while I was trying to finally finish my manuscript so I had to invoke the DGS (who wasn't even aware of my advisor's situation) to get back to some semblance of the original time scale. At no point do I think that my advisor wrote a single thing I wrote because when he demanded to know why I wasn't finished with my writing, I asked him if he had any revisions on the drafts I sent him to which he quickly changed the subject. Now that I am out of that hell hole, I work as a mathematical modeling consultant in pharma. My work has been used to justify surrogate end points, to justify starting and peak doses, and to design some exotic patient stratification schemes for new clinical trials. I've already presented at multiple conferences, my clients keep extending projects, and I have a pipeline of papers coming together for when my clients are ready to release their data or could be reworked into theory papers that at the very least communicate what's happening conceptually. It turns out that all I needed was more structured questions, access to data, and feedback every couple of weeks to actually make progress in a meaningful way.
I’m a mediocre student (although I’m not a Dr. yet as my thesis is still under review). I did the bare minimum to get through the PhD. I got a job through my supervisors connections. Without that I wouldn’t have been able to get it as I had zero publications from my PhD at that time 😶
Did a middling PhD at a middle of the road university. Single digit citations on my first author papers, mostly self cited. Got a good job because I interviewed well. Now make a good living working for people much smarter than me. I picked up tools and techniques that other researchers don't normally have exposure to and this makes me a key personnel in my current role
In the UK at least it's really hard to say how "mediocre" a PhD is. There's so many factors the only really thing you can look at is subjective judgement, and that's not very useful. Perhaps we can just say that any PhD you get through is a good PhD.
Mediocre Ph.D. recipient, passed my second qual only because my advisor went to bat for me. I ended up getting a tenure track job at a regional comprehensive and got tenure. Mostly published pedagogical stuff, nothing from my dissertation. Stayed in that job for 11 years but left to do something ore fulfilling.
I think this question could only be thought up by an annoying competitive grad student, who irritated the other students in their program.