u/FuzzyPDE

Second year postdoc here.

In my field (geometric analysis) I feel like my passion and hence motivation has been in steady decline ever since I started in my PhD.

For two reasons:

1. I feel like I’m spending more time reading and learning than problem solving , most of my time is spent deciphering and unstucking myself in reading and understanding what on earth the authors are talking about in books and papers. I understand that if you go into fields like combinatorics with lower entry threshold and less reading, it’s even harder to produce results since the field is so accessible that most ideas you can think of has already been done.
   But still? I would rather have spent 6 years problem solving instead of reading, and to be frank I spend most of my time stressing and taking break from stressing from reading, this doesn’t feel normal or fun to me. Definitely not the experience that lured me into math in the first place (the dopamine from competition math and solving problems)
2. I probably would complain less if I’m actually reading big ideas and smart ideas. But I feel like even at my level I’m still reading tons of definitions, and results that are considered basic theory and machinery they are not even worthy of mention in a paper. Rarely do I feel like I’m reading about the “brilliant ideas”. Here’s a concrete example, you might think the Gauss Bonnet theorem is a clever idea, but to understand it (for general manifolds) you have to read enough about topology, smooth manifold and Riemannian manifolds to even have the machinery and definition to understand the statement, let alone the proof.
   It Feels like this with every new project I take on it’s tons of learning basic stuff before I even get to the central idea.

This is definitely not the experience I was hoping yo get going into math, I wanted to learn cool brilliant ideas and solve problems. Most of the time I don’t feel like I’m doing that.

What’s another field I might try that isn’t like this besides combinatorics? Representation theory? Combinatorics?

Thanks for sharing!

For the record I have graduated and now half way through my first postdoc. I’m in math

But I feel like my advisor didn’t really teach me how to research, sure he pointed me to paper or people when I’m stuck that occasionally helped. But he never really trained me to do research, only occasionally gave me help knowledge wise by telling me to read certain books or papers and I mean very rarely does he do this and very rarely has it helped.

My prelim advisor said I should have asked her for advice on who to choose as an advisor instead of choosing the only person doing the field I was dead set on pursuing (which I realized I’m not even that interested in). She said when she advises she would give a little hand holding even if she deem necessary and actually train her students to do research by writing papers with them and in the process, help teach them how to do research.
My advisor did not write paper with me, he did gave me the problems to work on but insists that I need to earn it myself.

Is this typical? What was your PhD experience like?

I feel like my PhD was ruined from me not promptly switching advisor when I realize I wasn’t being trained.

For the record I have graduated and now half way through my first postdoc.

But I feel like my advisor didn’t really teach me how to research, sure he pointed me to paper or people when I’m stuck that occasionally helped. But he never really trained me to do research, only occasionally gave me help knowledge wise by telling me to read certain books or papers and I mean very rarely does he do this and very rarely has it helped.

My prelim advisor said I should have asked her for advice on who to choose as an advisor instead of choosing the only person doing the field I was dead set on pursuing (which I realized I’m not even that interested in). She said when she advises she would give a little hand holding even if she deem necessary and actually train her students to do research by writing papers with them and in the process, help teach them how to do research.
My advisor did not write paper with me, he did gave me the problems to work on but insists that I need to earn it myself.

Is this typical? What was your PhD experience like?

I feel like my PhD was ruined from me not promptly switching advisor when I realize I wasn’t being trained.

Like holy shit her face it’s just fucking abnormal , it’s deformed. Her eyes are tiny but eyeballs are bulging like two bumps out of the sockets. Her nose is just one round bump and I look exactly like her.

Everytime I think of how all of my suffering stem from her reproducing. I hate her. And everytime she makes that fake miserable sad voice to get sympathy from others I want to physically vomit.

Story of my life. Always get along with women so well, literally do stuff together hang out and have great time and great conversations. No this isn’t just in my head the girl literally invited me to go out and do stuff together just by ourselves. And as soon as she realize I had feelings for her.

Messages go dead silent, barely talk to me and always too busy to do things again.

Why? Is god really this cruel? Is finding love really just so fucking exclusive to those who are sufficiently good looking?

Yeah I’m done, i can’t live like this anymore. I’m planning on exit by the end of this year.

Thanks for nothing ugly ass parents, but unlike you I’m not going to reproduce and pass this deformity and suffering to the next generation, the cycle ends here.

I’m sick of banks, and insurance and every companies I’ve ever have the misfortune to deal with sending me letters with my sensitive informations.

Ive elected to not receive any physical statements when possible but I’m still getting so many.

Having to check every single one of these mails and shred it’s annoying, and I have to do it because some of these idiots would send me letters with my account number which can be used to pay bills, or my ssn even

How do you guys handle this?