PI Issues
Hi everyone,
I just finished my first year of PhD. I am having a very difficult time and I want to hear from people that are going through PhD as well what are their thoughts. At what point does it get too much?
To start with I am the only PhD student in the lab. The first semester I started, there was a MS student as well, but they graduated (after a very tough time and extended stay). With them being gone this puts all the weight of the lab on me. I have to supervise multiple undergrads that join the lab and I am barely able to deal with my own research and being a TA, as well as taking classes on top of managing everything in the lab, including tasks like, giving talks or hosting around 2 lab visits a week, data collection, building devices (the most time consuming) etc.
Since my PI has no other student working full time in the lab there is a lot of work that I have to do. I am having an enormous amount of pressure to get things done within no time and I don’t even understand how my PI finds that reasonable to ask in the first place. I am to the point that my PI micromanages every single thing I do for the last 5
months. They call me to their office to work from there every day so they can oversee every single thing that I do. I don’t get any independence.They are also deciding for me to take less classes next semester because they have no students and there is a lot of work, even though I don’t agree with that. I am being yelled and screamed about how I work, and how not efficient my work is, and how slow I am, and how I don’t care about the research to the point that my jaw is shaking due to the high stress and pressure that continues for hours. They are very anxious and stressed and they project all of it on me. Hearing and being around that environment every day is being very heavy on me psychologically.I am working at maximum capacity without taking any break not even for lunch. I don’t think it is me, I have my own flaws I admit and I am open to work on them, but experiencing this and having no space to improve and figure out things on my own, is doing too much damage and no good. In the end of the day I am not even satisfied with my work. On top of it all I was threatened multiple times that I will get fired. Previous students have had similar issues and there is a reputation from what I understand from people’s face when I give the name of the lab I work for. Them micromanaging every single task I have to do is killing my productivity and critical thinking. I have to do things so fast I don’t even get to process what I am doing. I feel like a robot. This is really breaking me, I can’t fall asleep, I wake up scared to go to the lab and confront them…and there is a long way to go until I finish this degree… I don’t know what to do. When I tried to have a talk with them, they say they don’t want to listen to what I have to say, it’s all excuses and they interrupt me every time I have tried. I never even get the chance to be listened.
I would appreciate any thoughts, suggestions from anyone that has gone through a similar situation. What would you do/ have you done in a similar situation?