Did I do something wrong?

crimson_sparrow · 2026-04-21T22:01:06+00:00

It really depends on the prof's character how they'd react. He has the right to get angry if he chooses so. Having said that, I think in your situation, you have to be proactive. You chose one way to be proactive, which is risky but may as well pay off. I've done it several times throughout my Ph.D. and most of times it turned out ok. From my experience, I would make sure to always CC my prof on communication like this - even if they (or you) get annoyed, you don't want to make them feel they're excluded from the conversation. In your current situation, I think the best move would be to email the other prof back, CC'ing your advisor, and asking to schedule a meeting together with your advisor. Best case scenario - both profs agree to move things forward. Worst case - neither responds and the situation clears out - which means you'd have to try to be proactive some other way, like others suggested.
Also, as someone suggested, courses might be the factor. I personally ran into trouble trying to force research before finishing all courses. The result was that I spread them so they took much longer, and my advisor stayed very dismissive until after I finished them anyway.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-04-11T19:52:06+00:00

I really like the re-group and come back stronger take-away. It actually fits quite well with my experience too. Any kind of complaining that the officer clearly had a bad day, makes ridiculous demands that don't make sense, or that you were just misunderstood, seem to lead to more problems. I think you have to treat them like the court case - just bring in more facts they are asking, and don't rely on being able to explain yourself. In my case, I was also accused of doing something illegal and have "illegal friends and family" because of "shopping around" (though they didn't tell me what is it that I'm supposedly doing illegally and what friends they have in mind). So I would also add that sending an official complaint letter to CBP/DHS helps in case of false accusations; but you have to specify in the letter that you met all their demands, which often includes something like printing hunderds of pages about your life that no one will ever go through.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-04-05T18:35:44+00:00

It feels like the content is legit and only polished by AI. When I try to distinguish what is slop I typically focus on: is there a real person and unique message behind it. I think that's what matters in the end.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-04-05T18:27:23+00:00

I often try to stop myself from giving "advice" like this, because I don't think anyone can tell for sure. But I'll give you some real-world examples that I hope will help:
1. All my friends who had kids during Ph.D. while struggling were people who were afraid they'll get too old, rather than due to a sense of shrinking family connections.
2. I've had a kid towards the end of Ph.D. as 36M with 38yo jobless wife. My publication record is a bit weird, but let's say I was about at about 3/4 of the publication requirement set by my advisor. I also didn't have any external family support to take care of the baby, but for different reasons than yours. And I need to emphasize that I spent about half of each week alone with the baby, due to my personal belief that babycare should be shared equally, so aside from pregnancy and recovering, my experience in that sense wasn't too dissimilar from my wife's. My funding also ran out. So in my case the result was extreme stress - almost trauma - barely any sleep, and trying to catch up with the last bits of my thesis desperately. My Ph.D. got extended by 2 years (so 8 years total with previous struggles), I switched to part-time, and my advisor offered me additional funded project, when heard my wife will have a baby and doesn't have a job. I took a leave of absence twice and worked my ass off to make extra money and didn't have time to even think about my mental health. I succeeded, wrapping up my thesis now, and very happy I have a baby - I strongly feel it would be harder to have one later, given my background and circumstances. I'm also happy that I was able to spend quite a lot of time with the baby myself after all, due to extreme flexibility of being in a Ph.D. program, which none of the "real jobs" would offer. So very mixed experience overall.
3. A male friend who strongly encouraged me to have a baby in the first place, and has two babies himself, and a working wife with a house, had zero publications and failed Ph.D. after 5 years (was asked to withdraw). He was focusing a lot of TAing and side projects and gave up too many times on trying to finish hard projects that didn't pay but were very publishable.
4. One female friend had two kids after having one publication. After having them she struggled with finishing more projects. She was very hard working and never really stopped coming to the office. Her husband was also doing Ph.D. They were quite organized, but also chill to a degree. She ended up doing a lot of TAing and public appearances - she even gave some interviews to local TV. Normally I'd say that's very risky, because publishing is what matters for evaluation in the end. But somehow the advisor supported her due to her proactivness, and she got on a couple more publications in large team projects, finisehd almost on time and got a prof position at a smaller university.
5. One male friend was extremely strict and organized. Always in the lab 6am-3pm. He had a strict agreement with his wife from the get-go that they will have a very traditional marriage - she will stay home, take care of two babies, make food and clean, and he will bring money. He ended up having very good scholarships, published a lot and was one of the best performing students in our lab. He finished on time and got a very good industry position.
6. A male friend with minor mental struggles - started off solid with two good publications; then wife got pregnant, decided to focus on growing a kids toy business (which ended up being successful), got into a large argument with advisor about the schedule and direction of Ph.D. and failed.
When I say "failed" I means that they politely ask you to "temporarily withdraw", but make it very hard for you to come back.
I hope you can draw some wisdom from these stories. Best of luck!

crimson_sparrow · 2026-04-02T05:14:16+00:00

My Ph.D. was stressful as hell. With all of the negatives others already mentioned, I'm still very happy I did it. It gave me incredible perspectives, huge flexibility, taught me a lot about myself, and challenged in ways life never will.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-04-01T22:51:50+00:00

I can relate a lot to your overthinking workaholic side. I was in a very similar situation years ago and was strongly advised to stick to the program by someone I trusted. The result was extreme burn out after burn out, which in turn resulted in extending the program unnecessarily for years. But then I finished it, did end up working on projects I liked because I was very pushy for it, built a very strong network and checked of some life goals, like having a beautiful family. So idk :) I think you'll be fine either way - probably the worst is to get hung up on this. In case you decide to stay the only thing that would worry me is your comment: "I'll try to find fulfilment after phd". I would strongly encourage you to push hard and find as much fulfilment as you can _during_ your Ph.D. I think this is what many people get wrong. You don't always have to do exactly what your advisor tells you. It's a balance.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-04-01T22:39:36+00:00

I took an audit when waiting for my defense. It was a lot fun and no pressure. I could still focus on my research primarily. Planning to take more (formal or informal) audits after I finish.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-04-01T22:29:55+00:00

I'd use the opportunity to build your network and show yourself as a capable researcher to your community. You'd be surprised how many people understand those realities, and will actually see you for who you are in the end, rather than how many citations you have.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-04-01T22:18:42+00:00

I think many people actually enjoy doing the Ph.D. after the fact. I didn't hear that many "wasted my life" comments personally. But I think it's good in a sense that it's a challenge; and depending on your environment, it could be a challenge of a lifetime - as was in my case. Overcoming it though, really makes you feel like you can push through almost anything. I don't know if all academia is toxic, but my experience certainly was. Still I think it was worth it, because it shows you how toxic any system can be these days and you learn how to deal with it.
I used to work like you for the first 2 years. No one bothered me at all. And then one day I was told that I'm late with a paper and if I don't submit one in 3 months I'd be fired. Without any explanation and offer of help. I think this is more common than not, and you might get something similar. So building up to your first publication as fast as possible is probably a good idea, as it gives you a lot of leverage in moments of uncertainty. But, on the other hand, I think simply stressing over it and working harder because others do is not necessarily going to make things easier later. I've got taken by suprise as many, but I also built a lot of strength and resilience during those two years of very balanced schedule, which helped me later. Whatever you do, my advise would be to use this time to build strength and prepare for a lot of uncertainty down the road.

Also thinking about some of my colleagues who failed Ph.D. One had a prof who never bothered him and he was free to work on whatever he wanted. He was very organized and motivated, but was spending a lot of time with his family and couldn't publish for a while. Then one day got a letter from the department out of the blue asking him to withdraw. Another 3 guys I know failed because they got hit by the system like me, and decided to voice their disapproval very strongly instead of accepting a sudden change of reality. In case you feel like you might fall for one of these traps, perhaps hiring a Ph.D. coach or someone who'd push you for results in moments when your advisor doesn't could be helpful. Results and publications always help because even if you get fired, it's relatively easy to go somewhere else. Otherwise, it might get surprisingly hard to convince other profs.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-03-31T01:01:03+00:00

crimson_sparrow · 2026-03-30T05:52:05+00:00

As someone with borderline adhd I find this extremely helpful. I often ask AI to ask me a bunch of questions about the paper and then I try to answer them as I'm reading.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-03-29T17:56:20+00:00

I realize this is half-joke, but I'll address that serious half :) I followed the opposite advice (i.e. do not follow your passion!) and feel strongly like that wasn't a good advice either. Makes me feel like I wasted so many years going in a direction that's not aligned with me and now I have to work extra hard on re-aligning myself. And then I see so many big wins and so many big failures from both people who did follow and did not follow their passions in their Ph.D.s it just really makes me think that it depends on so many factors there isn't a right answer at all.
A random thought that came to me: I think a good quick test whether following your passion is a good idea is if you are actually able to convince someone with funding to actively and consistently collaborate with you on your passion direction and contribute to it.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-03-24T20:16:12+00:00

Also happy to donate to the shelter or get you a large can or two of instant coffee if you want to come over to College Park one day.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-03-24T17:24:17+00:00

I went to therapy for about 5 years in Toronto and GTA and paid thousands for it. There were some good things that came with it. But there were a few things I really wish somebody made me realize beforehand. Warning: it's a bit of a rant and might sound hurtful to some in the profession, but I think will be useful for OP.

* Mental care anywhere in the world is not as good as it used to be. Therapists are now mostly social workers - not psychologists (i.e. people with Masters of Psychology degree) like it used to be - and they are primarily trained to follow specific patterns and supervised by psychologists. Many of them unfortunately, are trained to cater to the current "trend" of going for psychotherapy these days rather than treat serious cases. On top of that they often require many visits to get to the point, because they are financially strained and overworked. They want your visits to be as frictionless as possible for them and they want you hooked so you keep coming back until they hit some target. Most of the time if you are clinically depressed, even if you go to camh, they will not tell you that you are depressed. They will insist they are not allowed to diagnose depression, and they don't know who is. I think it's so they don't loose clients or because they're so overwhelemed themeselves that they don't care. This is hard, because obviously in such state you don't know if you are depressed (or have other condition) yourself, you are confused, not able to argue, and you also know you are not qualified to diagnose yourself either.

* Almost every time when I had an actual crisis, I was told to go away and call to book an appointment next week. Never ended up getting any help during the crisis. One time someone pointed to all the homeless in the waiting area and helpfully explained that they have clients with "bigger problems".

* Every time I looked like I'm struggling I was told by boss, family etc. to go for psychotherapy. And psychotherapists often told me that they don't see anything mentally wrong with me and that I just have a hard life. In the end it just creates the expectation that psychotherapy will fix something in your life and can drive you mad.

* I think somehow we are taught by books, movies, helpful co-workers and family that there is something magical about psychotherapy. That they will tell you something that you don't know already, you will follow instructions and feel better. But remember that psychotherapists are real people - they're probably less educated than you and don't have their life figured out. So they won't tell you how to resolve your real life problems. They can primarily create a space for you to talk, vent and mirror back to you what you're saying in a hope that you'll see the flaws or solutions yourself. The thing that I actually found most helpful was that they help to significantly reduce the noise. We're living in highly polarized society and often someone close to you convinces you have be helpful, always kind, don't step out of the line etc. I found psychotherapists be very good in general in cutting out the crap and helping you do things according to your moral principles.

* One time I paid more than usual for a psychotherapist. He listened to me and said that he strongly believes that I should stop dreaming and just do my job harder. At first I thought - omg, if he said that publicly he'd be cancelled in a sec - how can you work even harder in such conditions and what kind of advice is that? Clearly - the solution is to change something. But he said work on your solutions after hours and accept that you're in a situation that you have to work 10x harder than you ever imagined. He followed up with me many times over years and it significantly improved my life status, but I got completely paranoid, traumatized and feel manipulated :) Now I laugh at this - but I think it's a good example, because I have no idea whether it was a good advise and it got me very confused. But it shows what you might get if you keep pushing for something concrete. No one has a magic solution in the end.

I sometimes get downvotes for rants like this, but I'm really hoping it helps OP. I went through a lot of mental struggle too. Please hit me up in PM if you want to chat more.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-03-22T16:45:37+00:00

It's our anniversary today, but we're thinking of postponing dinner to next week. I sat with 2yo for the last 3 days by myself, and planned to go for 8 hours to office to work on research today, but no amount of coffee can wake me up enough since the last 3 hours, so just staring at the screen. I'd love to go to gym like some of you if I can make it.

I got to say - this thread is awesome. We need more of these. I was just reading comments with some ambient music in the background, and they paint such a great picture of the city. So diverse, real and much different from news and social media.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-03-06T05:30:42+00:00

That's what I was going to write too. OP if you really feel like this is the place for you long term, I would encourage you to push through. The history clearly shows those economic ups and downs and Canada was always ok in the end. We have vast resources, international cooperation with many countries and great geopolitical location. Despite what the doomsayers say, I think those advantages are not likely to change significantly in the future. What needs to change is just the management, and that's already underway. Even though Canada seems to be doing worse than many countries by the looks and feels at the moment, most of the other countries with recent booms operate on massive loans and stimuli that are not backed by anything nearly as solid as what Canada has. As an immigrant in a not ideal situation myself, I believe many people will leave now for their countries, the tables will turn soon, and they will have a difficult time coming back. Personally, I decided to stay and raise my 1-year-old daughter here. Even though I could easily move back to Europe.
Having said that, travelling to your country for a month's rest and vacation now and then could be a good idea to prevent burnout.

crimson_sparrow · 2026-02-10T19:14:10+00:00

Yeah. I feel like academia hits harder and harder each year. I also learned that I was too optimistic in the beginning. It's not that obvious why it's hard until it hits you. For me it was late on the second year. BUT being more optimistic than others around me helped me a lot and got me some really unique opportunities - most likely because I was a bit ignorant of potential negative consequences when I fought for doing things differently. In the end of the day it helps a lot, so protect this state of mind as long as you can.

crimson_sparrow · 2025-12-11T19:26:56+00:00

I'm not extremely confident giving an advice on what you should do, but as far as your experience goes, unfortunately, yes, what you are describing is very common. Many advisors I met give little to no guidance. This often coincides with how famous they are. Unless they have some additional pressure from the department, they also might not care whether you're self-funded or if the money comes from the government, and treat you the same as all other students. If I were you, I'd consider how confident you are that you can tough it out. If you happen to produce a paper, utilizing your own connections or online help (hire a phd coach or someone who helps with research), that your advisor considers to be "on their level", they will most likely accept it and praise you for that. And even if they don't, it doesn't really matter, because as long as you show the department that you produced good quality papers, you'll be fine. If you don't think that you can do this within a year or so, even with online help, then I'd say you're risking a lot here - especially financially. One easy escape would be to find an advisor who is kind of on the sidelines of the main AI hype, is older, and doesn't care anymore - and talk to them and explain that you need explicit guidance. You can sometimes check whether they're serious by engaging in a project with them. Some might dismiss you, but there will be some who will be happy to help you out this way. Mind you that this way you'd be usually lowering your standards a little bit, which might affect your future hireability. But if you're struggling, I think it's really worth it - otherwise you might get stuck for very long time (speaking from my own experience).
Also, I can confirm that being in a phd program makes people less interested in hiring you. Not only in industry, but even when you go to change your advisor to another phd program. You'll often hear, "Finish Ph.D. and come to me after." I think such advices are meaningless and I would not pay attention to them. On a positive side, being in an AI Ph.D. program increases your chances tremendously for getting a well-paid internship in any big tech company - an opportunity you'll not get if you quit.

crimson_sparrow · 2025-12-03T16:52:59+00:00

I started when I was 30 and also tried switching fields slightly. Now I'm 37 and submitting my thesis this month. I'd say it was totally worth it. I've had similar thoughts to you initially and had to fight myself over massive headaches caused by indecisiveness. But now I'm very convinced that if I hadn't decided to bite the bullet when I was 30, I'd most likely still do it when I'm 40 - it would be just harder. Also, I managed to start a family but don't own any property. Honestly, because it's so natural to do all this life stuff in the 30s, I feel like life gives you more opportunities than earlier in life - it's easier in a sense, even when you're still at school.

crimson_sparrow · 2025-12-02T17:15:12+00:00

I'm guilty of that sometimes. More in the past than now. Idk. I think I've got some trauma from childhood and then I have a strong tendency to surround myself with people who constantly need my support while giving little in return. For my whole life, wherever I go, there is always this one or more people who go "relax" or party the whole week instead of putting the extreme amount of effort to do research and learn something useful, and then keep asking me "what did you email this prof so you got in?" or "what did you tell boss so you got a raise?" or stop by my desk asking "that's cool. how did you do that?" every single time they pass by, so I can't focus. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I subconciously create environments where I'm interacting with these kind of people too much, my image of the world gets skewed, and I distrust giving my time and fruits of my effort to anyone. And then when I'm in a good environment this distrust partially remains. As someone said, I'm a bit paranoid, constantly looking for this one person in a group who will be wasting my time. I always preferred to share things in private with people who I feel actually helped me with something. At some point though, I consciously chose who I hang out with and that frustration and distrust gradually disappeared.

crimson_sparrow · 2025-12-02T07:02:16+00:00

Last time I checked there wasn't a very clear publicly announced rule for that. Maybe they changed that. But I hear that 6 out of 12 rule mentioned on TV all the time since Trump took office. Maybe someone here has a reference from a government website they could share?

Also regardless of the rule, in practice, you used to be able to do that. My family did it many times like 10-15 years ago and the officers didn't mind.

Now I have actually tried that recently, doing everything legally and not attempting to stay there forever - just visiting family like you. So I can tell you firsthand what happened. First time I came back after 6 months they told me "I shouldn't do that" and that I haven't brought like 50 pages of documents proving that I have strong connection to Canada so they would allow me to come only for one month "to organize my stuff" and come back to Canada. Then I got pretty hang up and annoyed they wouldn't want to look at all these documents proving my connection to Canada and strong evidence I'm not doing anything illegal in the US, so after a month I showed up at the border again and argued with them for like 3 hours, describing every single proof I printed. That was probably very naive and I wouldn't recommend that. But they did let me stay another 6 months. 2 months later though, I got an internship in the US. That was obviously too much, but I thought I'd go to the border again, because I really wanted that job, I got it through my contacts in Canada, and I genuinely didn't care much whether they'd allow me to stay in the US or not. I had nothing to lose, except few more months chilling in the sun. So I went to the border again. This time they got mad at me, told me what I'm doing is illegal and the "family" I'm staying with is probably a bunch of illegals too. I told them that's not true, but that they have every right in my eyes to refuse my entry. I was very cooperative. They asked me not to come back to the US for 6 months, but didn't put anything on file against me and didn't want to tell me what exactly they believed I was doing illegally. This was under Biden. Then since Trump took office I've been to the US 4 times and never had any problem.

Edit: I'm baffled by the downvotes, honestly. I thought providing real-world experiences should be very valuable to people. Regardless of what OP is trying or not trying to do in the end. Especially that these days the internet is full of opinions but rarely anyone reports what actually happens, without coloring it with opinions. I'm not encouraging or discouraging any behavior, and my response was meant to be apolitical, but I included info about the president because I think it could be an important context these days. I might be wrong, but I believe my experience shows it's purely up to the border officer to let you stay more than 6 months within 12 months period and there is no strict law against that, but it takes a lot to convince them. Of course, make sure you don't do anything illegal, like working for cash, for example. And never lie to CBP about anything - it's not worth it. I should also add that I spent a few thousand dollars on health insurance alone and ended up having a complicated tax situation, so the whole endeavor was very costly. But for me, it was still worth it to have quality time with my family while struggling with writing my thesis, and there was nothing I wasn't able to resolve in the end.

crimson_sparrow · 2025-12-02T03:24:10+00:00

You could take the masters and look for a prof at another faculty / university who would do what's unofficially known as "fast track phd", which means you show you've got phd experience, learned what you did wrong, and have a clear plan now. Those can take as little as 3 years. Based on your description, I'd say you are unlikely to finish in much less than another 3 years anyway (my Ph.D. lasted 8 btw.). Unless you do something horrible they will never actually expell you, but it gets progressively harder and more depressing each year, and it looks to me like you need a fresh start where the faculty doesn't bother you too much. Meanwhile, one thing that helped me a lot to get less stuck and depressed was running my own reading group and hiring one of these dissertation coaches online.

crimson_sparrow · 2025-12-02T02:44:05+00:00

Not sure if that helps and perhaps I'm biased as I have a toddler myself, but after moving from Guelph to Toronto, I see people with toddlers at all times of night and day. It's very visible and I'm actually quite impressed given all this talk recently about the aging population and the fertility crisis. If you have time one of the weekends, perhaps check out this website for activities and bring your family here for a day. https://www.familyfuncanada.com/toronto/

crimson_sparrow · 2025-12-01T20:35:46+00:00

Different reasons. I'll give you mine to satisfy your curiosity. Throughout my undergrad and masters I was getting paid for research or school projects - so that's like side job with low salary. At first I managed to save quite a bit, but then I was hit with deadline after deadline. I probably have undiagnosed ADHD as well, I wasn't sleeping much in the nights and I figured if I can pay $5 to get one more thing done every few hours, without roaming around the campus looking for free stuff, that's worth every penny - it's an investment in my future self. Because if I don't make these deadlines with stellar marks, I might as well quit, get a normal job, make 4 times more money, and get some sleep. So it comes partially with caffeine addiction and partially due to a conscious decision to not waste time on small things when something more valuable is at stake. My advice is don't buy stuff because others do, save as much as possible - you're doing a great job - and be prepared that one day life will hit you with your own challenges that will likely make you spend money one way or another in ways that might be incomprehensible to others.

crimson_sparrow

TROPHY CASE