Those who mastered out of a STEM/research PhD and don't regret it: what are you doing now?
TLDR: I'm heavily considering mastering out of my program, but the thought of leaving is terrifying, especially with the job market being what it is. I just want to know if post-mastering-out success stories can be possible, so tell me about yours?
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The longer version: I'm a STEM (biology) research grad student at an R1 university in the US. I originally applied to the PhD thinking that I really wanted to get into managing/project directing research in industry, and all the jobs that seemed interesting required at least a PhD. I went back to school for a post-bacc to fill in my course requirements, busted my ass to get into a lab during the tail end of COVID to get research experience, enjoyed my undergrad research experience enough to look into PhD programs, and made it into an R1 PhD program.
My lab right now has a lot going for it: I genuinely love my research topic, I've come up with a really interesting hypothesis that already has really promising results (It's my 2nd year in the lab, going into my 3rd year of the program) and the potential to be impactful, we don't generally worry about having to TA or losing funding (I'm well aware of how rare and awesome this is), my labmates are always so helpful and kind and not competitive or toxic, and the worst thing I could say about my PI is he's extremely hands off and just expects me to figure everything out on my own with no help, which is far from a horror story as far as PIs go. Like...on paper it should be basically perfect.
Except, I barely feel like I'm alive anymore. I moved 700+ miles away for this program, to a city I thought I could tolerate, but it turns out I am genuinely so miserable living here. On paper it should be fine, but it just feels like it has all the downsides of both a large city and a small isolated town and none of the benefits of either. The weather is genuinely miserable, and I haven't found anyone I really have much common with, let alone local friends I can become close with, not for lack of trying. It doesn't help that I don't have energy to do anything other than drag myself to the lab every day and then numb out watching Youtube videos and doomscrolling when I get home.
I'm already heavily medicated for depression/anxiety/ADHD and even with all that I still can only achieve the most base level of functioning. The most I can do on the weekends is drag myself out of the house to go grocery shopping or pick up prescriptions at the pharmacy, as in, that's a big deal for me that I celebrate, meanwhile my labmates are going hiking and having movie nights and going on roadtrips or going out to concerts and I can only dream of having the energy to do any of that without putting myself out of commission for the next week to recover from it.
It's not even that I'm working overtime at the lab, I am just genuinely so exhausted and depressed I am definitely only doing about 4-6 hours of active work a day at best, and forget coming in on the weekends. It's gotten to the point that I don't even want to think about my research topic and any time my PI or anyone brings up the idea of learning new protocols or skills or trying brand new types of experiments, my brain just slams on the brakes and can't handle learning anything new. I know it's probably just burnout but knowing that doesn't help me trying to fix it.
My first thought was to take a mental health leave of absence, but my cultures/lab animals (invertebrates) would all die if I'm not there to take care of them so I'd be set back months if not over a year if I did come back. My PI also doesn't really believe in mental health (he's a very "if you're passionate about your work you don't need to take breaks" kind) and he's already gently pressuring me to wrap up my current project for publication (which seems *very* optimistic at best) so I don't think he'd be amenable to me taking a leave of absence anyway. My entire being is screaming at me that this program is wrong for me but idk if I'm just being shortsighted (the ADHD) and that this is just burnout talking, not a gut feeling I should trust.
I'm terrified of giving up an opportunity that I know a lot of people would dream of and that has the promise of getting me to a better place in life, where I can move back to my home city and find a job where I can make enough to afford my own apartment and have the energy on the weekends to go make local friends and occasionally travel and do fun things again.
The job market being what it is right now it feels terrifying to even consider mastering out and trying to job search right now, that's the main thing that's stopping me. If I knew there were tolerable jobs waiting for me on the other side I would have left months ago. The idea of pivoting from STEM research into science communication or even technical writing seems so genuinely more exciting to me. I think I'd just rather be part of translating research/communicating it for layfolk to understand rather than generating new research myself in the wet lab.
Am I crazy for even considering it? Is there light at the end of the mastering out tunnel? I just want to know there's something good that's possible to come out of this. I've been considering mastering out since about a month after my PhD started and going into year 3 now I've been toughing it out for years at this point and I just don't know what to do. Thank you for reading this.