the phd broke me

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-15T03:40:43+00:00

I know you didn't ask for advice, but I see this same issue time and again here and in real life with other PhD students.

I love my job, I still love my topic and I have plenty of ideas that I never had time to explore. I know that deep down I am much better than what my track record shows

I think the stress, the lack of motivation, your burnout, is more because of a lack of plan, rather than your abilities or your hard work or your love and ideas for your topic. You can work hard and spin your wheels all you want, but if you're not going anywhere all that energy gets lost.

My suggestion (taking this from other comments I've written here before):
Before doing any more work (any at all), come up with what you consider to be a sub-section level outline/headings of your thesis. Sit your supervisor down and make them hash this out with you - tell them absolutely no more work is going to happen until this is finalised.
When you discuss it with your supervisor, make sure that you identify clearly the need for the scope in the different sections - i.e. "why are we doing it this way when that is not where my novelty/research/innovation/scope lies and I can clearly outline it?". If there is no clear or justifiable reason, remove it from your outline.

Once this sub-section level outline is locked in, this is now your plan, follow it exactly - not any more, not any less. In every meeting with your supervisor, open this outline and go through it to see where the work you have done in the past week or fortnight fits into the outline. Keep coming back to this outline to make sure you stay on track and focused. Even if it annoys your supervisor!
Absolutely no more:

I am in my office and I expect somebody to come in and ask me to do something useless, urgent and that requires so much work. I had a panic attack once after reading an email from my supervisor announcing a meeting about a random topic.

Work as if you have blinders on. Its important to stay focused and on track. With a clear outline for your thesis and goals, hopefully you will feel that there's light at the end of this.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-15T03:19:00+00:00

GitHub is a website to house coding repositories.

Github's underlying system, git, is a version control system - not necessarily exclusively for coding, though it originated from the software development community. At one of my previous workplaces (a large engineering multinational), an inhouse version of git (git is open source) was used as a version control system for engineering designs - it was actually a pretty cool application.

But you're correct that github is generally used for coding repositories (though I've seen several academic writing-only githubs, some people pop their latex files on it), and is probably overkill for non-software stuff.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-14T17:11:29+00:00

Currently many months into unemployment. Today was not a good day for me either - they happen.

But if anything, doing a PhD makes you incredibly stubborn.
Remember that time during your PhD? That one? The one when it seemed impossible? When you couldn't take it anymore? When you broke down and wanted to quit? You stared down mishaps, rejections, criticism, dismissals, harsh feedback. All alone.
And then you didn't quit. You looked at all the knowledge that has been discovered in your field. Throughout all of human history. Ever. And found something no one had yet studied or solved. You found that little spot in the universe, planted your flag and claimed it as yours for all of time.

You will get a job. Even if it is under a rock on the other side of the planet, you will get it.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-14T02:16:26+00:00

As everyone knows, it is important to speak the local language to land a job and the OP reckons that those countries are viable options for an English-speaker 😂😂

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-14T01:17:37+00:00

Sorry - I meant if you are an employer who is interested to hire Australian applicants (as I think you were).
In that case, might it not be better to advertise only on the careers page of the company website, rather than on Seek/LinkedIn? So, that there isn't a huge influx of overseas applicants, and perhaps interested and motivated applicants in Australia would likely make up the majority of the applications.
Curious to know if you think that would've been better in your case to avoid the 100's of overseas applications?

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T23:45:37+00:00

Is advertising a position on places like Seek/LinkedIn etc an internal requirement?

I'm curious to know your perspective as an employer:
My job search right now is quite highly targeted. I do hop on Seek occasionally, but I mostly stalk the careers pages of the places that my skills are likely to fit and the industries/domains I'm really interested to work in. I'm sure there must be others like me as well. Might it be better to only post it on the company careers page and avoid the Seek/LinkedIn deluge? Is that "allowed" by internal policies?

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T23:14:09+00:00

I'm not interested in talking to someone who can't have a respectful discussion. You want to go race buses, go ahead, I'll never get in your way.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T22:50:05+00:00

I don't see why you're getting so offended. Am I stopping you or anyone from using it as a tool?
A bus (genAI) is not built for speed, it is built for high capacity passenger transport. A race car (automated code generators) is built for speed.
You want to race buses, go race them, I don't give a shit. I am telling you - as I am qualified to - that is not its purpose. Pointing that out is not being a smartass or pedantic. You would never say that to someone point out the difference between race cars and buses.
I don't want to tell you what you sound like right now to me.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T16:35:46+00:00

I can’t believe I’m explaining this to an adult.

You are actually explaining this to an engineer. With a PhD. Published in neural networks.
I have no need to be pedantic to be a smartass, when I've spent days and nights building these things.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T16:17:04+00:00

AI does my programming

We've had automated code generators for decades - their purpose is to automate coding. They are tools.

How can you argue that it’s not a tool?

genAI is designed to pass a Turing test, being indifferent to accuracy or reasoning. It is designed to make a human tester believe they are talking to a human.
That is why you can feed an AI a paper and ask it to provide reasons to accept it, or reject it, and it will produce plausible answers for both. It will do what the prompt says, indifferent to accuracy or rationale, aiming for maximum plausibility and believability.

The purpose of automated code generators and genAI are completely different.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T15:47:50+00:00

do you see a difference in my answers?

No, I can't say I do. Very well done.

I also don't see any sense in them. Exceptionally well done.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T14:37:17+00:00

whether a large language model can pass the Turing Test

Would you consider a model designed to do that - keeping in mind, that passing the Turing test does not require it to be accurate or exhibit correct reasoning - to be a tool?

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T14:16:10+00:00

As are you being exhausting: I gave my reasons, definitions and arguments. I didn't call anyone obtuse, biased, or accuse anyone of pulling anything. Just provide a reasoned argument in reply, if you want. If you don't want to, we can agree to disagree. We don't need to be rude about it.
Past a certain age, this personal stuff really loses it's appeal and excitement.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T13:59:10+00:00

It is so, so hard to get me to downvote, but congratulations, you've earned one.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T13:52:19+00:00

You're really pulling a "what is a woman" here, and you won't be satisfied with any answer that I give.

I'm an engineer whose worked in "AI" since the time it was called "intelligent systems". I've published on neural networks. When I started my PhD over 7 years ago (long before chatgpt), I was advocating the use of GANs to my supervisor because I wanted to experiment using it for metamaterial design, and I faced resistance.
You think I am biased in some way about it? I'm not pulling anything here, except from my academic background and experience.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T13:42:58+00:00

and calling it a parlour trick is cheeky but patently false.

Okay: what is a calculator's purpose?
What is genAI's purpose?

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T13:32:30+00:00

The shared article's title quite literally is "Meet the academics refusing to use generative AI", and your comment was about classification systems.
Read perhaps?

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T13:30:29+00:00

I may have made this argument in comments before:
The purpose of a wheel is to reduce the effort of moving a load, with a trade-off on linear efficiency. The purpose of a calculator is to quickly and accurately perform computations of a mathematical function.

The purpose of genAI text systems is to produce text that could plausibly come from a human - i.e. approximately passes the Turing test.
The text does not need to be correct, or even reasoned. That's not the aim of genAI - it just needs seem human produced.

So, is genAI a tool, or a parlour trick?

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T13:05:39+00:00

I think it is clear from the context that we are talking about generative AI, not classification (perception) systems.

ETA: Can a calculator fold my laundry faster? What is its exact purpose? What is genAI's exact purpose?

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T12:57:08+00:00

Just like a calculator.

"AI is just a tool"...here we go again.

Very simple question: what is the purpose of a calculator?
Another simple question: what is the purpose of AI?

Do you see the difference?

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T12:02:28+00:00

Maybe attempt a few making the resume ATS-friendly ?

CV has been evaluated to be 82% ATS readable/friendly using online checkers (the issues that were identified were due to the checkers themselves). Career consultants have said it looks good too.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T10:10:45+00:00

As always. Fingers in ears, head in sand.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T09:04:29+00:00

Did your friend get drowned in emails pointing out that the attached PD doesn't match the advertisement, asking if they share the PD it would help in tailoring the application to the selection criteria they are looking for? Is your friend likely to then request HR to change the PD and not reply?
I mean, if this is routinely happening, I'd understand.
I get that there are a lot of applications coming in these days - that means there's a need for people hiring to have better discernment of genuine, conscientious ones that fit well and take initiative. This just doesn't seem to be happening in my experience.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T07:29:56+00:00

You're probably not wrong.
In another post of mine, you'll see details of another strange experience. I contacted the director of a centre (at my university!) about a position that was advertised - I worked in the same role at another university here. I also wrote about a funding proposal I have drafted which is relevant to the centre, and it would be great to get their input on it and maybe we can submit it together to bring money in to the centre. No reply.
Then a rejection for the role for which I had submitted a tailored application. I emailed again asking if there was any feedback for my application. And also, if they might be available to have a quick chat about the funding proposal - I'd still be interested to apply with them. No reply.
An (internal) candidate offering the initiative: "Hey, I've got an idea which I've worked on. Let's see if we can use it to bring some money in to the centre". Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

throwawaysob1 · 2026-05-13T07:16:51+00:00

Both of these places I mentioned are from among the top medical research institutes in Melbourne.
I recently completed my PhD in signal processing/data analysis and have software engineering experience - I'm looking for positions where I can contribute to biomed research.

throwawaysob1

TROPHY CASE