text:
I feel I've done enough for a PhD but my supervisor disagrees
I have been working on a PhD for over 6 years, and in that time have published 5 (conference) papers, each of which I intend to convert to journal articles after my PhD. My supervisor has been insisting that I do some experiments which have turned out to be considerably more challenging than either of us expected. Our funding has run out, so I recently asked my supervisor if it would be okay to scrap the experiments and defend what I have done so far at the end of the year. Based on the volume and quality of my work, I think any objective person would feel that I have done more than enough for a PhD. (Indeed, I've had a professor who clearly has read my work ask me out of the blue at a conference why I haven't graduated yet, as he thinks I've done way more than is typical for a PhD.)
My supervisor's reaction was particularly bad: He accused me of reneging on a promise, suggested that I've been conning him for years, etc. I agree completely with him that the experiments would be nice to have, but I disagree that they are essential, and I particularly disagree that they are worth going into debt over. I think we could get a good paper detailing what we've done so far and what the challenges have been. Unfortunately that option was unacceptable to him too.
Question: Any attempt to discuss this further with my supervisor goes nowhere. What are my options at this point? I told him that in the absence of funding I will be dropping out at the end of the semester. He said that is a waste, which I agree with, but ultimately I don't want to continue what I'm now viewing as abuse.

Update, one month later. Taking the advice I received here and elsewhere, I decided to complete one additional set of experiments and then speak with my supervisor again. These experiments' results did not solve all our problems, though they did clarify some things. We then had a discussion about what he expects me to do to graduate, and again, he made clear that he doesn't care about what I did previously and only wants the new experiments and some computer simulations of the experiments. I tried to justify what I did previously as necessary to do the new experiments correctly, but he wasn't convinced.
Some suggested that my situation would be different if I had journal publications. So, I asked if submitting my previous work to journals soon would make a difference. Surprisingly, he said yes, it would. So, we agreed that I would submit my previous work to journals before the end of the semester, and write up a chapter in my dissertation on the completed experiments. I will switch to a part-time position at the end of the year, move to a cheaper location, get a job, and return late in the spring semester to defend. In that time I should have reviews for some of the journal articles, which is sufficient for my supervisor.
Update, 6 months later. After a delay due to COVID, I successfully defended this summer, and am working a full-time (non-research) job.
I submitted two papers to a journal late last year, both of which were accepted well in advance of my defense. My supervisor seemed skeptical of the papers' acceptance before they appeared online. I suspect that they believed both would be soundly rejected, but the reviews were fine. The most substantial points were fixed by rewriting parts of the papers to improve clarity. My dissertation was quickly finished. As it turned out, we agreed to reduce the chapter on the experiments to an appendix.
My defense was fine overall. At this point, I believe the problems with my supervisor stem mostly from differences in research philosophy. I added a brief description of my philosophy to my dissertation; I think this helped my supervisor understand my choices better.

what part of the world are you in? Is there a department chair or graduate director you could talk to?

US. I've spoken with the "graduate advisor", a professor in my department who is supposed to handle problems like this, but I'm interested in what my other options are. The graduate advisor kept pushing me to stay on for another semester...

So why haven’t those conference papers been made into real papers? The actual conversion ratio post-PhD tends to be lower than expected.

@JonCuster the question does not state the field unless I missed it. At least in CS conference papers are real papers.

What field are you in? If conference papers are worth a lot in your field, then you probably have enough..If they are worth nothing, then you basically have 0 papers and no experiments... If they are worth a bit or very little you have somewhere between nothing end maybe enough....

the fact that the goal is to make journal papers from the conference papers suggests it is a field where journal papers are what matter. As for the claim "each of which I intend to convert to journal articles after my PhD", this is worthless. My first reaction is "yeah right". You say you don't want to do research for free, well it could easily take years of your free time to do the necessary revisions on those papers to fulfill the improvements the reviewers ask for.

@Maeher - true, but the point is made that they will be converted to journal articles. If the OP had five journal articles accepted or published, the discussions with the department might well have a very different tenor.

by the way since this is the US, do you have the option to take the qualifying exam and advance to candidacy, then just leave school while finishing the dissertation and paying only a small fee to stay registered? Perhaps you can negotiate with your advisor regarding what you do during this phase.

Journals are considered "first class" in my larger field. But it is not uncommon at all in my sub-field to publish only in conferences during your PhD and then publish final versions in a journal years later. 5 conference papers is more than typical for a PhD in my sub-field. And one of the most highly cited journal articles in my sub-field was first published in an obscure conference 7 years before the journal version (and the conference version is cited more). I personally published at conferences first so I could get more feedback.

@JEs9X in such fields, conferences benefit you the student, while journals are probably the only thing that benefit your advisor's career. For example in their promotion review, only journal papers may be considered. They may only get a bonus for publishing in journals as well. So look from their perspective; they spent a lot of funds to send you to very beneficial conferences to learn and network, but you have not followed through.

That other professor asking you why you haven't graduated yet. Could he be an alternative supervisor?

Thank you for the update, it was very nice to have that coda here! It sounds like the main thing that broke the dam was getting those journal publications. Maybe you'd consider switching the accepted answer to one that suggested the key journal-publication strategy?

@DanielR.Collins I think the problem is broad enough that a more broad answer is warranted. Also, I can't get behind the rush to publish in journals. Many folks here seem to share my PhD supervisor's attitude that if I think a paper is worth anything I would submit it to a journal. This is part of the difference in research philosophy I mentioned. I'm not really cut out for academia, where "publish or perish" rules. I agree more with Gauss: "few but ripe". The goal of the PhD to me is not to publish in journals, but rather to learn how to do research.

@JEs9X: Hmmm. It seems like if your goal was "get a PhD", and the instrumental solution was "publish papers", then the best thing you can do to help people who follow you with that goal is to highlight that publishing papers will solve their problem. Regardless of whether you personally wish that process was different.

@JEs9X Objectively, it is hard to judge what is enough for a PhD from outside or as a student. That is why we have supervisors, graduate defense etc. You or someone you met at a conference thinking enough is often unreliable, though I understand you want this wrap up. Stating that it is enough according to your research philosophy is just lame, so I would recommend to drop that as an argument. Your personal research philosophy is not an argument, that is a wishlist. If you do not agree with your advisor, finding help in your doctoral program, department is a better strategy.

@JEs9X do you mind elaborating slightly more on the research philosophy differences in your 6th month update?

@kjacks21 First, I focus a lot more on quality than my PhD supervisor does. I was unwilling to publish experiments that I knew were poor quality. It seems to me that he would have been much happier if I didn't notice the quality issue and we published a questionable paper. Second, my supervisor thought a lot of my research process was a waste of time. For example, I do much deeper literature reviews than he does. However, I now don't believe the research philosophy differences explain the issue. It seems more likely that he views me as a slacker who makes up excuses to avoid doing work.

This is a really hard problem that is hard to give advice for. If the advice is bad, you will suffer, not the person giving the advice. You know the personalities better than we do. But, as an outsider, it seems like you are being abused. You are giving, but getting little in return at this point.
Fighting with an advisor is seldom a wise choice. But quitting after five years with good productivity seems equally terrible, maybe worse.
For your consideration only, let me suggest a possibility. Work with the graduate advisor on a plan to get you out the door properly. Tell them that you are feeling abused and defeated unjustly and you need to graduate. It is at least partly the responsibility of the institution to assure that you have a clear path. Take their advice to stay an extra semester, but put them on notice that you need funding, either from them or from a proper job elsewhere. Other professors in the department might also be able to apply some pressure if they are approached properly. They can prevail with your advisor even when you can't. Advisors need the support of their peers, generally, and need to be seen as fair in dealing with students. But don't try any of this if your reading of the personalities suggests it would be counterproductive. But you have a right to insist on a fair path and a right to insist that your advisor and the graduate director do their jobs properly.
If you trust that outside professor enough to ask for a letter applying some pressure on the graduate director, it might be useful (or not, depending, again, on personalities). Most especially if they would consider hiring you.

Yes! I used a variation on this plan effectively. I basically established the practice of meeting with each member of my committee and every one of my letter writers every two months to update them on my progress. Then they would send follow-up notes to my chair praising him for all that he helped me to accomplish and saying that they were supportive of/prepared to sign off on my graduation. I was allowed to graduate just a bit later than planned.

yes, there are people at the university, who's job is to help students graduate, help navigate relationship with the PI

I would leave out the part of feeling abused and defeated and simply request the requirements for graduating - leave emotions out of the equation and focus on substance and action.

My advice is to write your thesis up and submit it to the committee.  If you are going to have an argument about whether your work is sufficient, it will go better for you if you can show that everything is written up.  Maybe you still don't win.  But the time is not wasted.  And it is too loosey goosey to argue about "done enough" when you're not looking at a document.
Personally I think 6 years, several papers is enough.  And this guy trying to drive extra experiments, that aren't working, sans funding, in year 6 is being unreasonable.
Write it all up.  Dump it on the committee.  Involve the department chairman and the grad school.  You may still have problems.  But I bet if you show some spine, you end up doing none or at least "less" extra experiments.
Good luck.

The graduate advisor told me that in my department people have submitted their dissertation to their committee against their supervisor's wishes before. He didn't say much about my chances for success aside from that if the committee's reaction is positive then the supervisor might just let the student go.

I just submitted mine--worked.  But my point is that even if it's not successful, it moves things along.  And it's a lot easier to have the argument "I'm done", when you can show a document.  Having the argument you're done, when you can't show anything tips things too much in favor of the advisor.  Even if you don't win outright, I still think it helps move you along.

This is great advise. I would however at least start to involve your supervisor once "meat" section of the thesis is in good shape. Maybe you can swing his opinion once he sees the work and everybody can save their face.

You simply aren't going to get a PhD without the signatures of your committee. And the rest of your committee will generally give a lot of weight to your advisor's opinion when they decide to sign off or not.
Of course if you quit now both you and your advisor will lose out. As will the department and school because they all invested resources in you and did not get a successful graduate out of it. Plus you have various rights to make a big fight for them via appeals to the administration. All of this gives you some leverage to negotiate what would be acceptable to finish. As with every negotiation, it often starts from what seems like an impossible point, but it's very often possible to find some alternative or some middle point that can work. If experiments are off the table for you, what else can you do to satisfy them? Talk to the entire committee and find out. You could even do this formally at a qualifying exam if you must. But if your advisor is not yet satisfied, you really should offer something more.
If you are not being funded then the last thing you should do is stick around as a full-time student paying out of pocket to hang out in a lab and be someone's research assistant. Your school may have the option of being part-time (which still costs you, but less at least), or taking a leave, where you can work while finishing up. Ideally you should take the qualifying exam, where you basically propose what your final thesis will entail, and then advance to ABD status. Then you can finish up the final agreed-upon tasks on your own time. At least you aren't going into to debt to do it.
As for your plan of publishing journal articles, I can almost guarantee you that you will come across reviewers just as demanding as you advisor. Major revisions could easily entail months of further experiments in the lab, for each paper. You really need to start one or more of them in the process and learn this. It's something you should already be all-too familiar with before you earn a PhD, frankly.

Fair points. I've tried negotiating with my supervisor, but that went nowhere. I'm going to look into submitting my papers to journals, as I've actually already revised most of them as chapters in my dissertation. I'm "ABD" right now, having taken advanced to candidacy years ago. Leave is not an option to my knowledge, as my university has some weird rules about it. I don't believe I can get a TA position, so financially I'd have to find another job that's likely less convenient.

@JEs9X In that case you should have proposed a research plan. Did you implement that? If so you are in good shape to defend and worst case your advisor would have to grudgingly accept while kicking himself for not putting in his demands back then. However a likely outcome of the defense would probably be a demand for more work, but it may not be quite such an open-ended demand for major new results.

I recall something like this happening with a fellow graduate student in my dept.  The advisor kept wanting more.  Just because the advisor wants more doesn't mean the advisor's position is reasonable.  The student went to another member of the thesis committee for help, and was able to negotiate a resolution that led to graduation.
My advice would be to first bolster your position with data.  Specifically, you should get a list of all the students who obtained PhD's from your department within the past few years and, for each of them, determine their publication list at graduation (the former can be obtained either directly from the graduate office, or from the department's commencement announcements; for the latter, use your choice of search engine, e.g. Google Scholar).
This info. should be subdivided into logical categories (first-authored conference papers, co-authored conference papers, first-authored papers in peer-reviewed journals, co-authored papers in peer-reviewed journals, etc.).  Make a spreadsheet.  Then determine if you are indeed being held to a different standard than is typical for your department.  If you are, then go to your graduate advisor, show this, and then state, objectively and without rancor, that you have met the standards for your department.
This is a much stronger argument than simply arguing that you should be allowed to graduate.  If you can demonstrate that the PI is forcing you meet standards significantly different than is typical, that strongly bolsters your position.
Alternately, you may be surprised to find that your fellow grad students typically do have at least a couple of first-authored papers in peer-reviewed journals before they graduate (that was typical in my department), in which case you haven't met the typical standards for your department.  Only the data will tell you this.
Also, I would politely tell your PI that you want to resolve this is a civil manner, and that his ad hominem attacks are unacceptable.  If he balks, the best response to his accusation that you are "reneging on a promise,...been conning him for years, etc." would be to say: "You would not like it if I made the accusation that you've been acting in bad faith, i.e., that you are keeping me here even though you know I've met the requirements for graduation, and simply want to benefit at my expense.  So please don't accuse me of bad faith either."

Most of the other answers here don't really address the professor's situation.
The professor may be feeling significant pressure to deliver results, especially if he does not yet have tenure.  This means, in part, having students like yourself graduate and deliver good quality research.  He may be in denial about the fact that your planned experiments were not feasible in the time and budget he had set aside for this.
Rather than approaching it as a potential confrontation, you may find it better to address it as a shared problem: you not finishing your degree is a problem for both of you.  It's a black mark on his track record for graduating students, and he is not able to deliver the expected results for funding he secured.
If you approach it in the light of: we both underestimated the complexity of the experiments so how do we get the best possible outcome with the time and budget remaining?  One part of this is definitely finding acceptable content for a thesis and having you graduate and possibly publishing some journal articles.  Another part might be working together to write up a post-doc project for the supporting experiments, which he might then shop around to funding agencies.  This might be a project for you or a future student for him.
The most important thing though is to recognize that you're in this together, and that it's in both of your favors to find a good way forward where you successfully graduate and he can claim success in the research project.

There are many replies above, with excellent advice for you.
However something that is missing above, I would like to add here.
I was exactly in the same situation 10 years ago (Germany) - funding finished but professor was asking for more; visa was linked to studies and without funding I couldn't continue, so eventually dropped out!
I can suggest you what not to do!
1. Don't ever think of quitting at this stage.
2. Don't irk your professor in any way. Be polite and assertive.
3. Don't isolate yourself at this time when you need help from the fellow researchers at your department.
4. Don't take a full-time job in case if your funding is finished, but your thesis is not.
5. In case if you were able to secure a part-time job or external funding for your studies, don't let your professor know about it. I told my professor when my funding was finished about my new job, and he never bothered about my thesis as he assumed I was happy with my job.

This is way out field but you might want to consider moving to the other professor if he will consider allowing you to defend your thesis with him...
Had a friend who changed supervisors but was not easy...
Will definitely get that supervisor noticed in their department though...

I also thought of suggesting this, but was you say, a long shot. Might be worth an ask. The problem would be that the other university has its own requirements, which might set you back in time.

Reasonable suggestion. The graduate advisor told me that switching supervisors is not a good option as apparently according to university rules I'd have to redo my proposal and apply to candidacy again. I'll ask someone else in case he got that wrong.

@JEs9X my friend changed universities as part of this... not easy...

Unfortunately, situations like this are best resolved before they reach this stage.
I think your path forward, given that you're already in this situation, is to speak with, in this order,

Your committee
the graduate program leadership in your department
your department chair
the graduate program leadership in your school
a university problem solver, like an ombudsman

Work through one at a time, until you can come up with a mutually agreeable solution with your adviser.  Having you actually pay or live unstipended to continue your degree is NOT a mutually agreeable solution.  If your adviser is in a hole, it is the department's place to dig him or her out of it -- not yours!  The department should be looking for resources to fund you.
For the record, the right way to not get into such issues is to form and use a graduate student committee as early as you can.  One of the goals of the first meeting is to determine how often the committee should meet.  As you get closer to finishing, an important milestone for the committee is to work with you to figure out what you need to do to finish.  There is no way this decision should fall on one person with inherent conflicts.

My university's policies have a recommended "chain of command" to go through that doesn't involve the committee at any point and starts with the graduate program leadership in the department. I'd recommend others in a similar situation check their university's official policies for a recommendation. The committee at my university seems to be used primarily for proposals and defenses. I have never heard of them being involved (formally) in anything else.

Did you never write a research plan before starting your PhD with milestones/goals you want to pursue and to which you could now refer to as being fulfilled? Or a talk you gave outlining those which was seen by your advisor and another professor. Both is pretty much mandatory at my university to not end in the situation you describe and being dependent on a single advisor with own interests suggesting new experiments at the end of your PhD. It also allows a third person which I had choose (another professor from different chair) to be mediator in that case of advisor and student disagreeing. What experiments and measurements you want to do should have been outlined between both of you at the beginninig.
What I don't understand and cannot judge is your conversion of conference to journal papers. Does a conference paper count as much as talk or a poster in your field, is there a serious review by 2-3 reviewers? In my field having no journal articles apart from talks/posters given at conferences or conference papers that are part of a special issue of a renowned journal would be a strong point that you are not ready to finish PhD.

The proposal my department requires has something like this, but my understanding is that it's not binding. And as I recall, the experiments my supervisor wants me to finish weren't on there. There's also no mediator position to my knowledge, unfortunately. In terms of the reviews, it varies. 3 out of 5 of my papers received some form of review. And in my sub-field it's not unusual at all to have zero journal publications when you finish your PhD.


text:
How should a university deal with outsourced essay writing?
My campus is full of flyers, typically attached to lightposts and so, advertising to write essays for money.  There's plenty of such services offered on the internet as well.  Presumably, many students make use of such service.
Clearly, it is unwise for students to make use of such services, and I suppose it violates regulations.  How can a university deal with the issue of ghostwriting?  That means: how to identify probable cases of ghostwriting; how to proof that ghostwriting took place; and how to sanction it?  It seems considerably harder to tackle than plagiarism.

How long does it typically take to a student to write that kind of essays?

@MassimoOrtolano: And, as an add-on to your inquiry, how frequently does a supervisor usually discuss and get updated on the progress of the essay while it is being written?

hmm. thats a decent idea.  i wonder if any students have enough bitcoins...

@DavidRicherby My question is how the university should handle the consumers of ghostwriting.  I think tackling it at the source, i.e. tackling the ghostwriters and their advertisements, is impossible.  Edited the question to clarify.

Note: this question was triggered by a TA friend who had a student who handed in an essay with the ghostwriter's bill still attached to it.  Oops.

@gerrit so close -- but yet so far to an (assumed) 'a'.  didn't even look at the paper before they handed it in..

I wonder if there is some university policy dictating what can and can't be put on lightposts? I would personally look for fine print in the university's policy which may justify hitting them with punitive fines and fees. And these fliers have phone numbers, yes? How about a call from university admininstration, lawyers, and/or police?

How should the university deal with it? Exams.

I agree, exams solve the problem (for the most part) but then you are putting an artificial time constraint on them which is unlikely to exist in the real world (which is why I try to avoid them).

Do we have a sense of the kinds of courses most affected by this? I assume this is most likely a problem for large, survey-style classes. (I would guess that it is harder to "fake it" in deeper, more technical classes)

When they are MBA students, just give them their degree. They understood all they need to know for their future career.

@automatonic I don't know.  I imagine it's not the natural sciences.  I've never had a university assignment myself that I would call an “essay”.  Theoretically I could have paid someone to do my homework but I would have hopelessly failed the exam...

First, let me say that you should read the answers to my related question. One answer is quite clear that you should not even bother checking (the author of that answer did admit being uncomfortable with that answer...as I am).
This is a significant problem at my university. One way we try to address it is that we have students verbally answer a quick, random question about their assignment.
Good news: This does catch some students when they can only answer "uh, ah, ummm."
Bad news: Some students still use ghost writers and just memorize the paper so they can answer any question about it. If the assessment covers all the learning outcomes then it can still result in students learning.
One thing that I generally do is, throughout the semester, I keep track of the "quality level" I see each student is at. This takes several sessions and when classes are quite large there might not be enough interaction to support this strategy. However, if you do have this information, you can use it to compare to the overall quality of their written work. If they never know anything in class but they write "golden" work, then it is a warning sign.
It is important that it is just a warning sign because there are some students who write well but are not so great at in-class interaction. You always need to use your judgment.
As far as how we handle it, we consider using a ghost writer an identical offense to plagiarism with identical punishments.

To whoever is flagging as "obsolete" - the above is not obsolete, as it serves a purpose; informing earthling that the change was made. Earthling has no other way of knowing that the edit was made. (earthling - if you're the one putting the flag in, put your name there... I can't see who submitted the comment flags.)

@eykanal I did not flag anything on this page.

This is a good answer. We blame students' laziness for their plagiarism. However it is 'laziness' on the part of teachers which allows it. (NOT REALLY LAZINESS AT ALL - almost all lecturers I know are very diligent - more like a system which doesn't allow teachers to spend enough time and effort properly assessing students). If teachers had resources to individually track learning and orally examine whenever necessary, this time of plagiarism simply wouldn't make any sense.

@eykanal when someone edits a post, the author gets a notification that an edit was made.

@corsiKa - if an edit is made to the opening question, no notification goes out to the authors of the answers.

The infamous ghostwriter services for theses in humanities, law and similar in Germany are very careful as to how they advertise their services because otherwise they could be sued for assisting fraud and similar reasons. Something similar might apply to your legislation, but if nobody ever considered acting legally against these services, it is likely that at least some of them are legally attackable. In this case, a collective strike against these services may at least weed them out. Obviously, you need to speak to a lawyer with expertise on your legislation and such issues about this.
If no such law exist and the problem is sufficiently serious in your country, universities could even lobby for a law against this. At the very least your university could ban the respective advertisements on its grounds. If these services are operated by graduates of your university, it may also be able to simply revoke their degrees, depending on your university’s statutes and, again, your legislation.
While these services may reappear under a different guise, they may be more difficult to find, more expensive (due to the risks involved), more shady and similar and thus less attractive for students to use. Also, depending on your legislation, you may obtain information on students who used these services and punish them, which could have a strong deterring effect.
You can increase controls as to whether students wrote the essays themselves, e.g., they have to be able to answer questions about them, and to increase the punishment if they didn’t.
Your university can set up fake services and severely punish everybody who uses them. Again, this depends on your legislation and university’s statutes and you should definetely consult a lawyer about this.

Perhaps it should be noted that whether your last point is feasible or not also depends on the country and legislation.

@DCTLib: I should add a disclaimer that I may not have added enough disclaimers …

Whether a university can ban advertisements also depends on the country, jurisdiction and university. Some US campuses cannot prohibit free speech on campus, especially if they are public universities. It would be extremely tricky, if not impossible, in those cases. So 'the very least' a university could do might be rather undoable.

+1 for suggesting legal action against ghostwriter companies.

I have a friend who works for one of these kind of companies and she gets a lot of mixed reactions when she tells people what she does.
The companies that offer this say that they are providing examples and their work should not be submitted, therefore avoiding any legal responsibility themselves.
You definitely have to approach this problem by deterring the students.
For GCSEs in the UK, the government tried to reduce this kind of cheating by reducing the coursework components and having any coursework be completed under observation but that would be too difficult in university probably.
The following ideas at a university could be tried:

Run stings where students are punished or pay for failing essays.
They could run feedback sessions in the middle of coursework writing, where students can talk about their ideas and progress, perhaps keeping tabs on the coursework process could spot people who haven't written it themselves.
Put posters up warning about the punishment if caught, a kind of "we are watching you".
Ask for submission of drafts and/or notes.
Finding some way of logging the research done for an essay might help. For example having to access your sources/scan them in from on campus (library or network) could be something that might prevent outsourcing essays.

"but in the end she is just trying to make money" - a contract killer can say the same. Upvoted your answer for the various suggestions that touch upon continuously getting updates about the progress of the work, rather than just requesting to see the finished document.

If these companies are really just seeking to provide 'example' essays, then wouldn't a better business model be to sell subscriptions to a database of essays? If a student wants to see an example of a particular essay (say one that matches an assignment description) a student can pay an additional fee to have a new essay written and added to the database. If these companies are really morally upstanding, they should provide easy access for instructors (maybe for a fee) to compare electronically submitted essays against the database for any plagiarism.

@O.R.Mapper the (or, a) difference is that contract killers are directly performing an illegal action: the killing. Ghostwriters are not. It's not illegal, and presumably not even immoral, to write an essay for someone. The unsavory action is when the person for whom the essay is written tries to pass it off as their own work. So it's a difference between doing something bad yourself, versus doing something innocuous with the knowledge that someone else will use it to facilitate something bad.

@DavidZ: Writing an essay for someone with the goal of helping them cheat (I doubt anyone can take seriously the pretext that it's just an "example", when that example just happens to be (1) made in a way that it exactly fits a custom essay task, (2) is made upon request when such a task is assigned and (3) is presumeably completed just within the time limits for submission of that essay) is deeply immoral, and - with respect to the "laws" relevant in this case, namely exam regulations, honor codes, or whatever the respective university calls them - probably downright illegal.

@O.R.Mapper That is a rather perverse comparison and only likely to start a pointless discussion. Downloading music is also downright illegal while around a hundred million people are perfectly legally involved in the business of killing six million tobacco users per year. How is any of this related to the answer? Not at all.

@Lilienthal: It's related to the answer in that "but in the end she is just trying to make money" is never a good justification.

@O.R.Mapper That's highly debatable. As David stated, essay writing is not actually illegal so comparing it to contract killing is a bit of a strawman. Given the existence of millions of employees in questionable but legal professions the paycheck argument seems perfectly valid to me. Keep in mind that certain religious communities would be fine with applying your contract killer comparison to an office worker for Planned Parenthood. They feel as strongly about abortion as you seem to do about essay writers. :)

@Lilienthal: The statement in the answer I was commenting on is "she gets a lot of mixed reactions when she tells people what she does but in the end she is just trying to make money". This conveys to me that there is some criticism, but "in the end", we are somehow supposed to disregard the criticism because she is "just trying to make money". Thus, in my comment, I pointed out that I do not agree the criticism gets any less valid or less important just because someone is making money (or conversely, that the criticism would be more important if she were not making any money). ...

... As illustrated with an intentionally clear-cut analogy.

"therefore avoiding any legal responsibility themselves." <- No, they are not. If you can show they know, should necessarily know, or are turning a blind eye to what happens with the works they author - then they should be quite responsible legally. Depends on where in the world you are and the specifics of the law there, of course.

These services intentionally subvert a quality control system. Yes, it may be legal, but so inside information about trades used to be. There is a reason the latter was made illegal. (no, I am not comparing with the other issues where their illegality is obviously necessary to protect the fabric of society or the other one where there is a political debate where the line of legality should lie).

Put some fliers up yourself. Again, state that the work provided is for reference only, and should not be submitted. When contacted, provide different previous years' papers.
When these papers are submitted, hit them with plagiarism violations.
To make this more ethical, warn the students at the start of the year that this would be happening. And of course, don't keep the money, but put it into a charity fund.
Of course, before deciding any course of action, consider consulting the ethics board at your institution.

This is called "fishing". In my opinion, it's not ethical. I am not sure it's leagal.(I am not a lawyer).

It's interesting, as it affords a positive benefit (a reference) to those that simply want a reference, and a negative "benefit" to those that are attempting to cheat.
But I will certainly concede that it's in a bit of a grey area.

Here is a suggestion (which might or might not be legal in your jurisdiction, and deemed acceptable or not by your administration; check before acting!).
Put up some of flyers yourself --- then refer any student who contacts you for appropriate disciplinary action.

What makes you think that all the students who contact you would identify themselves? you would only punish those without technical skills who use their real name on the internet, feel happy, and ignore the smart ones - this is as bad as not taking an antibiotics course all the way through and leaving the strong ones behind

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
I am currently debating whether to leave my PhD program- any advice?
TL;DR: Young graduate student in his first year of a PhD program who has lost a passion for the academic world. Seriously considering quitting but don't know what to do. Science background.
My background
I'm 21-25, with a Science background, B.Sc in Physics. Took a year off between Undergrad and Grad school and worked full time as a research scientist. Theoretical background (most of my work has consisted of modelling). Strong quantitative and computer skills. Excel in presentation/project focused environments.
General Information
I am currently finishing the second semester of my first year in a PhD program at a top tier US school in an engineering program. I have a full scholarship that pays for all of my tuition and a living stipend (typical graduate student stipend ~$1800 a month after taxes, so quite enough to live off of). I'm not a US citizen (from Canada), so I'm here on a student VISA, so if I decide to stop I have 2 weeks to leave the country. I cannot hold any other employment in the US while here on my VISA. My PhD consists of ~1.5 years of combined coursework and research, followed by a qualifier at the end of that period (research based), then into your thesis (doesn't have to be related to what your qualifier research was on).
Current Academic Situation
I came first semester ready to start a new life...(first time moving away from home- did my undergrad where I was born). I did very well first semester (3.9/4.0 GPA) and research was on track (mostly lit. review). By the end of first semester however, I noticed that I was losing interest very quickly in both my coursework and research - it started to become very hard to get myself through to work on a daily basis. Went home Christmas break for a few weeks and came back to start my second semester and immediately noticed a big change. I started to struggle in my classes and fall behind on research. It wasn't that the material was too difficult, I just had no motivation to do it. No excuses here - just didn't really want to do it so I didn't. I reached the end of the semester and realized just how far behind I was. I am likely going to hit ~C average this semester (A last) and am drastically behind on research. I had weekly-biweekly meetings with my supervisor all semester, but I sort of hid just how bad things were going. Had a long meeting last week where I basically came clean on everything (said I was struggling in classes, behind on research) and the supervisor was very supportive. The supervisor believed in my potential and suggested I speak to a school counsellor and emphasized that this kind of thing was common for doctoral students.
Personal situation/feelings
I come from a family where both my parents have PhDs. Although my parents have always been supportive and open to my life, I feel as though they would be very disappointed if I quit and this pressure is very real to me. I have tried to have the conversation with them and their attitude is mostly: "just put your head down and work through it, it's just a phase". Quite frankly most people seem to think it's a "phase" when I tell them. Outside of school my life is great. I'm not unhappy or depressed, I have hobbies, friends, I work out - it's just school that makes me feel this way. I just don't like the academic world at all any more. I HATE classes (always have) and where in the past research has been the saving grace keeping me interested in school, it now is losing a lot of it's appeal.
Basically, I feel no passion or drive for what I am doing any more. This for me is a huge problem. I'm not the kind of person who lacks passion in life. Quite the opposite in fact. Right now I have no such drive for school. I have a long term long distance relationship with someone from home that is incredibly happy and stable. They visited here many times since I moved and we are doing great. I would be lying if I said it wasn't a factor in me wanting to quit. (Having my partner move here is a lot more complicated). The relationship has been incredibly supportive and is very aware of my current situation and has maintained a very neutral stance, trying to play devils advocate wherever possible and trying to make sure it doesn't influence the decision. I should state that I am pretty sure if I had to choose between school and the relationship, I would choose the relationship  immediately with no regrets.
I have just reached a point where I find myself doing just about anything else but school work. I'll get groceries, clean the apartment, watch TV etc... before doing any work. I'm trying to stick around for a couple of months for the summer (to see if not having classes changes anything) but since talking to my supervisor I'm already having doubts about even that. At this point, I feel like moving home and getting any job would make me happier than what I am doing.
Financial situation
I have a few thousand dollars in the bank (enough to get me home /move out etc...) and zero debt. If I move back home, I can likely live with my parents for the first month to get back, then I'd be looking for a job and moving in with my partner. I realize having no debt puts me ahead of a lot of people and I'm not particularly concerned about the situation financially - I'm very lucky to have what I have and am aware of this.
So what's the deal? I know I have this amazing opportunity. I'm at a top tier school on a full scholarship. I wake up every day and get to work with the top minds in my field doing important research. I'm doing something a very small % of the population ever gets a chance at and yet still I have no motivation to do it. I'm not sure if I'm doing it for me any more, or I'm doing it so I don't let down other people in my life. My parents, mentors, friends, all the people who keep telling me how amazing this opportunity is. The more I look back, the more I realize that Grad school was what I did because I basically just didn't have another plan.
What would I like to do
I'd love to find a job. I don't need to make a lot of money to be happy - I live off of 22k a year right now and am perfectly comfortable. Money isn't a major motivator for me. Working in the financial sector, doing quantitative risk analysis, banking, DoD, just about anything sounds more appealing than school to me. I know I'm smart and I've got a strong quantitative background combined with very good personal skills. I'm great with people and one of the things I HATE about the academic world is how under-used that part of my skill set feels.
I have no idea what to do. I want to quit, but I haven't. Maybe I shouldn't? I've been looking into options, but quite frankly I'd much prefer to have some kind of plan before quitting - at the very least this pays my living right now. I'd love advice from anyone. Someone who's been in this situation, someone who hasn't It doesn't matter.
I know that what I am doing does not make me happy. But I don't know what will. Please help.

Update two years later
I chose to leave school, and came home. My relationship fell apart but I found a decent job working for a tech startup and did that for about 1.5 years - I saved some money and took some time off and now I'm doing full time analytics consulting work for a website - It's working out well so far and I enjoy the freedom of it (work from home) etc. Though I do often wonder about what would have happened if I stayed, I don't regret it.

You mentioned (multiple times) how you hated classes in general - is it the same with the research you're doing? Because if thats the case, and a change of the area of research wouldn't affect your decision, then its certainly clear than you didn't really want Grad school. But if its just the coursework, I'll suggest that you bear it out, as its finite and not very important in the long run...

Questions should be written so that the questions and the answers they generate are useful to a broader community. The situation you are asking about is important, but your personal details might cloud the answer.

While the details of this question are not entirely generalizable, I think the overall situation is one a number of people are in, and so far all the answers have addressed the general situation rather than the specifics.

I answered a similar question: How should I deal with discouragement as a graduate student?

Here is my general advice for graduate students who are thinking about quitting graduate school (and I'll sprinkle in some specific advice):

At one point or another, almost every graduate student wants to quit, so you're not alone.  The fact that you're not alone doesn't solve any problems, but it may give you some peace of mind.  The advice from your supportive advisor to seek out counseling is a very, very good one.
The decision to get a graduate degree is personal and different for everyone, but regardless it is a long-term decision that will probably have a significant effect on your future.  The five or six years of your life spent doing it could open up many doors; that is not to say that other opportunities aren't worth considering.  You really do have to do what is best for yourself, in the end.
Getting a PhD really does require passion (and in your case this is weaning right now).  You can push through a pretty good chunk of time without it, but if you don't find the passion, it's going to be a long haul.  If you were passionate and lost that, try to figure out what it was that you were passionate about before, and see if you can get back in the groove.  One of my favorite Richard Feynman stories is about how he rebounded from a slump because he watched a spinning plate in the dining hall.
If you hate classes, make it a priority to finish them up quickly so you can concentrate on the research!  Classes, while important, are not why you are in graduate school.  A friend's advisor told his students that he would be upset if they were getting A+'s, meaning that they weren't spending enough time on research.
You can take time off from graduate school and come back later.  This is hard to do (particularly if you have to leave the country), and you can't necessarily expect the same financial support when you return.  But, you can do it, and if you need time off, take it.  My suggestion for you if you are still on the fence about staying in grad school is to look at an internship somewhere for the summer where you are away from school and can clear your head.  Then come back next semester.

All of my advice is kind of ignoring what may be your most important statement:

I want to quit, but I haven't.

If you've thought through all the reasons why you want to quit, and this is the answer, then you should take time off -- 'quit' is a harsh word, and not really a necessary one (see point 5).  Your point is well taken that you shouldn't try to stick it out for anyone but yourself -- we all go through worries about disappointing others, but most people want you to be happy, and they will understand.  You will almost certainly find a big weight lifted from your shoulders, and not extra pressure from those around you.  Yes, having a plan before moving on is always a good idea, but I've been in a number of places in my life where I decided to do something before having a definite plan, and it all worked out in the end.  Good luck!

To the contrary, I find the Feynman example misleading. I know quite a lot of people who are very passionate about some scientific stuff, but the discouragement comes from misalignment of it and topics or approaches at their PhDs.

@PiotrMigdal what you say is 100% right.

Best advise I got: Get over the stressful moment (finals, ...), perhaps wait until some break is (almost) over before thinking it though, and consider your situation calmly.

Love the Feynman anecdote!

Whatever you decide to do, just keep in mind that leaving a Ph.D. program because it's just not right for you does not represent any kind of failure on your part. I know plenty of people who didn't leave graduate school because they thought quitting would mean admitting that they couldn't hack it; this simply isn't true, and if your only reason for staying in school is that you don't want to disappoint your peers, parents, or advisor, then you should think long and hard about taking some time off from school and reassessing what you want to do.

Finish what you started.
I dropped out of a prestigious program 6 years ago, with much of the same reasoning:

"The degree is just a piece of paper anyway"
"If I want to learn things I can just learn them on my own"
"What's the point?  To spend that many years just to get a qualification to impress other people.  I don't care about money, and if I want a job I can get a job now."  (I was making $80/hour on contract work at the time.)
"I'm planning on starting my own business"

But here I am, 6 years later, applying for grad school to give it another go.
Here are my reasons for going back:  (I welcome people to correct me if I'm wrong about any of these!)

Most full time employment is mindblowingly dull.  As a student you don't fully appreciate this.
A PhD is not very different from a job in the sense that you have to show up and do some work, most of which you don't necessarily want to do.  The difference is, with a PhD you get something at the end, but with a job there is just endless tedium.  Also with a graduate degree you get to use your brain a bit more.
Your job prospects will be severely diminished, and your salary will be lower.  It is fairly difficult to get a good research job without a graduate degree, and most opportunities outside of grunt work will be closed to you.
In academia, you're used to working with smart people and having intelligent discussions, etc.  If you leave and enter typical workforce, that goes away.  There will always be a significant gap in academic potential between you and your colleagues and this will bother you because it means you are not hitting your potential and are effectively being under-utilized and under-paid.
Feeling underutilized and unchallenged is very very bad.  You will hate your job and therefore hate your life, and it all goes downhill from there..
Everybody wants money.  Most people that want money really badly, have at some point in their lives said "Nah, I don't care about money, money doesn't make you happy."  Being broke doesn't make you happy either.
The fact that you quit will forever haunt you.  No amount of "Bill gates dropped out too" or "I'm too independent to need this" will make you feel better when you see your former classmates graduate with PhDs while you have to live with the fact that you started but gave up.
In the workforce it doesn't always matter how smart you are.  Most places I've interviewed have trouble hiding how impressed they were, and several have told me directly that I'm the best candidate they've ever seen.  I always breezed through the most difficult interview questions and I've gotten offers from Google, Facebook, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, etc.  BUT at the end of the day all of the jobs they offered were boring menial tasks.  You could argue that it's possible to start with a menial job and then work your way up, but as I mentioned before, a PhD is also a job, why not just finish that?

Also, regarding your note on quantitative finance, please be very aware that the world of quantitative finance is very competitive and most places won't consider you if you don't have a PhD.  I know because I tried several times to get a job doing quant work, but every firm I spoke with only offered back-end jobs doing menial SQL work.  Your mileage may vary, but be warned that most people don't care about how good you think your quantitative skills are.  (One fairly famous hedge fund manager told me very directly "everyone thinks they're going to be great at a new skill, so why would anyone risk their money on an unknown, unproven entity?".)

I just noticed this was asked in May 2013 and not May 2014, oops!  Ah well.

I concur, the possibility of being underutilized and unchallenged in typical workplace is one major reason for me to strive to stay in academia. Working at big names like "Google, Facebook, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, etc." also boils down to boring menial tasks? Can you please elaborate on this? I don't have any industrial experience.

@sinoTrinity What I did not know when I left uni, was that there is a huge division in the real world between "developers that come up with ideas that improve the business", (aka "researchers") and "developers that should do as they're told" (aka "programmers", "SQL developers", "engineers", ...)  Generally speaking, most software jobs fall into the second category.  e.g. I got a job at Goldman Sachs, and I thought I would be working on financial models, but it turned out they wanted me to write programs to draw bar charts showing their profit. Same with Google, they just wanted a mobile dev.

ok, but don't you acknowledge that you could have found a different team in Google that does something more interesting, or at Goldman. For example, you could have been doing risk analysis at Sachs or Search optmization at Google with a Masters.

One thing I do want to add, however, is that getting a PhD in Japan and Korea is restrictive for prospects  whereas not having a degree is not. (Just a point to consider for potential readers from those countries)

@CaptainCodeman I find it a little offensive that you consider something like making a bar-chart-drawing app below you. I'm "qualified" to do the research work by education, but I find it boring so I focus on engineering. Creating something to me is much more rewarding than just modeling it for others to make, and it is absolutely NOT trivial to engineer it the right way. There's no such thing as "just a mobile dev" at Google, otherwise any random high schooler would be qualified to do it and they wouldn't pay $100k+ for the position.

@CaptainCodeman while I haven't read your full answer, and probably won't I think starting it with "Finish what you started." is a disaster of an advice. I'm sure your whole post cannot can be summed up in that one sentence, so that one sentence probably misrepresents your answer anyway. Why not make it more nuanced?

Oh boy, I am currently doubting whether I should or should not pursue a PhD, due to a (probably) temporary lack of motivation, and the reasons I am giving to myself to motivate me to do it follow precisely from thinking of how the alternative career might be like, and damn I am pleased to see that your own experience is exactly what I suspected mine would be like in industry. Also... How did things turned out for you, ten years later?

I'm surprised that both the question and the existing answers talk little about what used to motivate you to do research. You wrote, "where in the past research has been the saving grace keeping me interested in school, it now is losing a lot of its appeal". So what was that appeal, and how did it get lost?
Here are some possible answers, from my own experience; I'm sure there may be others in your case.
Did you get disillusioned about your field of research? Perhaps in the beginning you thought that if problems in this field were solved it would make a difference in the world, and now it seems that the big problems can't be solved and solving the small problems won't make a big difference?
Did you get disillusioned about academia? Did you have experiences that changed your view of academia? Did you come in the pursuit of truth and found that a lot of it is about the pursuit of publications?
Did you get disillusioned about your own abilities? Perhaps you were used to often being the best at what you were doing, and now you're surrounded by more smart people and your abilities seem less exceptional (and thus less motivating) in comparison?
Or perhaps your motivation had always been to please your parents and now that's not enough anymore?
I think having a clear understanding of what used to motivate you and why it stopped motivating you is a necessary and sufficient basis for the decision you're trying to make. If you lost interest in this particular field, you might have to look for a new field. If you lost the motivation that comes from a strong belief in your exceptional abilities, you might have to learn to enjoy being among the best and not necessarily the best. If your view of academia changed, you might try to find a place where academia is more how you'd like it to be, or if there doesn't seem to be one, perhaps academia isn't the right place for you. If you were only doing it for your parents, perhaps you should just leave. And if you lost interest because it turned out to be harder than you expected, then perhaps you should indeed "just put your head down and work through it, it's just a phase".
I think the key to sorting this out for yourself is to keep an open mind about your own motivations. Some of them may have been very pure and just got lost along the way and perhaps you can tap into them again; some of them may not seem so desirable now that you take a new look at them, and you may be glad not to have them anymore; but whatever they are, what's important is that you're honest about them to yourself and figure out how and why they changed, and that might allow you to see where they're leading you and whether staying or leaving is more in line with what's important to you now.

I like this post a lot because it clearly states the things almost everyone gets disillusioned about during a PhD: academia, your research topic, and your own potential. Losing faith in only one would be enough to affect you emotionally, but it's rarely just one. Accepting that both reaching your limits and the emotional journey (especially the negative emotions) are part of the program helps to stay positive.

You are not alone.
Most graduate students are in their 20’s. Many have boy/girl friends and are away from their partners while in school. Many graduate students are international. They go abroad to study. They are away from their home countries. They study in a different environment/culture. They may have language problems. Fortunately, your situation is not that bad. Many graduate students go to graduate school as a family tradition. Their parents/relatives are academics. They were raised to be academics.
Most (if not all) graduate students have trouble with their course/research works in school one time or another. Many graduate students lose their interests in the school. Some quit. Some stay.
Your long post seems to suggest to me that you mixed your personal life with the graduate school life. We are human. We have emotions. We let our personal life interfere with other aspects of our life sometimes. We know we should not let it happen. But, it happens.
You did well in the first semester. Everything changed in the second one. Something happened. No one knows what happened except you. In other words, you are the only one who knows the answer.
I would suggest you to take a break, long or short, to figure out what you really want to do. Then, make your own decision.
There are good answers and commentaries here. I will not repeat them. I would emphasize something very important, your future is yours.

We know we should not let it happen — Huh? Why not?

@JeffE Sometimes, personal life would jeopardize the professional life. That’s what I mean. I am actually a victim. I gave up my academic life for personal reasons. I always regret it. Too late to change that. I try not to mention it in the answer because it’s too personal.

PhDs are not for everyone. That's why most top-tier schools have about a 50% retention rate, some closer to 25-30%. You need to discover what makes you passionate, and it might not be what a PhD will get you.
I have a friend who is currently getting his Bachelor's degree. His father is a rocket scientist for NASA, so naturally he went into the Physics program. It took only a couple semesters of C's and D's for him to realize Physics isn't for him, so he switched to Computer Science. Then he realized he hates Math, so he wanted to switch majors again.
All this time, though, he has had a creative outlet. He makes things, sometimes out of leather, sometimes out of steel; the other day he came to class with a clay pot he'd just finished. Toward the end of this last semester he went through with changing his major one last time. He already has too many CS credits to give up on that major altogether, but he's dropping the Math minor that comes de facto and is picking up an Art minor instead.
I've never seen him happier than he is now. He found what he's passionate about, and it's not what his father did. You have to discover your passion. And it sounds like the job you had back home is just that.

If you don't feel any passion or motivation after the second semester, I'd say you have to really take a hard look at if graduate school is something for you as you'd still have a few years to go. If you should quit or not firstly depends on what you want. You need to try and find out why you lost your passion. Was it there first, and did something cause it to leave? Where you ambivalent about graduate school, and now you found out it was not for you?
Please do not stay just because you might disappoint others, live is just too short for that.

Given the glut of PhD's I would suggest that you get a real job. A PhD is worth only if you are really interested in doing research otherwise you'll waste 4-5 years (then another 3-4 years doing a postdoc). Faculty positions are few and far between and then you'll have to worry about getting funds/tenure. So unless you're highly motivated by research/academia you'll mostly be miserable. In the industry a PhD doesn't make much more then a Masters and significantly less than a MBA, so there is no financial justification. Also there is a very good chance that you'll be working on things which don't even require a PhD. Some are lucky to find a good research environment but not everyone.
On the flip side if you do quit now then at some point you'll regret not getting a PhD. So think about what you want to do in life (besides having and providing for your children). A (PhD) degree is just a means to an end. People sometimes get emotional about it but they should not. Talk to your parents and I am sure they'll understand.

"A PhD is worth only if you are really interested in doing research" -- citation needed.  Google, for instance, hires many PhDs and most of their time is spent in non-research work.

@ChrisGregg Yes, but Google would have hired many of those same people with only master's or even bachelor's degrees.

Google gets PhDs for pretty much the same money as those with MS. I dont know of any firm where entry level PhDs are being paid 1.5x or more than those with MS or even BS.

@user7021 Yes, there is one. It is called Renaissance technologies.

I know how you feel because even as an undergraduate, I once packed my bags. But a friend prevailed on me and I'm still thankful for not quitting. Consider the following:

If you start a count down to finish date and get really excited about seeing the day approach, you'll know time passes really quickly.
Our emotions/feeling/circumstances are temporary/passing but our achievements (good or bad) are permanent.
Creative/innovative people (like you) get tired of routine. If you take interest in something around you that requires you to learn something challenging (say music) or something alien to you, your PhD vital signs may be positively influence.

I am not an expert at these things but I know that when I get tired of routine... I stimulate my creativity somewhere else... Not for the gain but for the challenge.
Good luck man...

I read your post and from what I can see you don't sound like you enjoy your PhD or academic life in general. I personally did not find the reason why your situation became so hard. Perhaps you don't feel ok with the fact that your girlfriend is at home and you have to be somewhere else. Perhaps you you don't find the project entertaining. I'd say it might be the research itself that does not motivate you. One thing I am certain about is that you have to feel passion for doing research. You need to be determined and driven. Otherwise, it's easy to lose motivation.
You may need to ask yourself if you really need to stay where you are! PhD is for those who plan to be professional researchers. It's only counts if you plan to stay at any university. Not only will this have to be your everyday job, you will also have to be the person who proposes many new projects and be a leader for others. If don't see yourself in this roll, then it's probably better if you consider quitting. It's nothing wrong with quitting PhD. Besides, you can still begin a PhD somewhere else. You don't need to stick to the one you don't enjoy.
I can tell you that I met many people in my office. Everyone of them had their sort of crisis and this seems quite natural stage in the whole process. The research is also not a usual job and can be frustrating. Things always go wrong. Only determination, enjoyment, and passion make people stay and continue their PhDs.
As some of the others already said, It's nothing wrong when you quit PhD. Taking a longer break, coming home for couple of months, calming down may help you realise and understand a lot of things which are difficult to spot when you under pressure.
Good luck

"PhD is for those who plan to be professional researchers" <- Not necessarily; there are other valid reasons. But you do need a good reason to work on whatever research you're working on - or you're unlikely to persevere. Don't work on Ph.D. research out of some kind of "academic inertia", because of your good grades/positive experience as an undergrad.

It seems to me like the fundamental question here is that of whether or not your current feelings are part of a typical grad student "phase" or indicative of misaligned life goals, priorities, etc. on a much deeper level. Ultimately, a question you'll have to answer on your own and most likely by trusting your gut and intuition.
There are many, many reasons why you might be feeling the way you do now. From your description it's clear that you started the PhD process knowing you were accepting less than ideal conditions in some areas of your life with the understanding that these would be offset by other benefits. You might be more or less ambivalent about some of those benefits now that you're in the process, and the tradeoffs and benefits would certainly change if you were to switch sides and leave the program.
I would suggest assuming, for the time being, that one-year-ago you made a well educated calculation of the costs-benefits of the PhD program, in particular with a time horizon greater than 5 years.
Staying in the program then means trusting in the vision of one-year-ago you in that the long-term benefits to your life outweigh the immediate suffering (including the less than ideal use of your skills and the momentary loss of passion). On the other hand, your valuation of the tradeoffs and benefits of the PhD may have changed more than you expected, in particular with respect to your relationship or your connection to the research area.
The way to know this, in short, is to trust yourself. If your current path is just wrong for you -- if you feel you're compromising some fundamental part of yourself -- then trust that feeling. Otherwise, trust your prior vision: accept that your feelings are part of the PhD journey and trust that you'll find your passion again soon (when you stop putting pressure on yourself to find it).
One last thought that might really be the crux of the issue is that getting a PhD is a highly individualistic and very lonely experience. Richard Butterworth has a talk that really drove this home in which he says:

A PhD, by its very nature, is a very individualistic venture. ... The next big surprise for people who are starting PhDs after an undergraduate degree is just how excrutiatingly lonely a PhD is.

Your issues are real and I do not want to discount them in anyway.
In my view, you are in a privileged position and if you can make the most of it, then it would be not be a loss (as you tend to describe your experience now).
Here is a simple test: think of where you want to be in (say) five years from now? If you want to be in a place which requires a PhD, then start working on it now, other wise get out.
I know this is simplistic but it works when the issues are complicated and there are no easy solutions. At least in this way, you will make an informed decision and will not have the guilt later on!

Just suck it in and get it!
After you pass all the formal requirements, you will have a mini-tenure for 3/4/5 years (depending on the Dept you are in). I was thinking to quit first two years but now (in the mini-tenure period) I'm enjoying my life and research (from 9 to 5 only).
Try it, if you don't like it, you can always quit.

See if you can get a Master's in your second year, so that your graduate studies are not completely wasted. This is but too common in doctoral programs that they let students who are admitted to doctoral programs without being the "doctorate material" to finish the required number of courses, take the qualifier as the bottom line as far as qualification goes, and let you off with a Master's degree. They don't like that, but that's likely flight overbooking: you know that some people are not going to make it. Discuss this with your adviser.
For what I see on the earnings curves, there's a notable jump at 4 years of college/getting a Bachelor's degree, where the average earnings jump up by may be 15% from "Some college" to "BA degree" category. After that, the incomes are pretty flat, with a very modest 2 or so % return per year of education. So you ain't losing much in income, but an unfinished degree puts a big "L" across your forehead. I mean, if you drop out and found a Google or a Facebook, that's fine, but the probability of that happening is about 1e-6. (You don't know how funny that 20k figure is going to look like when your new wife asks you: "As I am expecting a baby, we need a bigger house... and also please open the college saving account for our baby", so your bold statements about income are totally out of line with real life. Or at least the life you will have in 10 years time.) The engineers that I taught seem to be starting off at $40-50Kpa, and I see no reason why a guy with a decent quant background should be making less than that.

who are admitted to doctoral programs without being the "doctorate material" — ...or decide for some other reason not to complete the PhD program.  Your framing strongly suggests that everyone who drops out of their PhD program just aren't good enough; in my experience, this isn't even true as a first approximation.

an unfinished degree puts a big "L" across your forehead — Oh, come on.  Seriously?

If user7007 can sell himself better, he may be out of trouble. So far, a nondescript name does not present him as a dedicated, driven person. If there is a personal situation, that's very understandable (although I knew a girl who essentially quit doing research in her 3rd or 4th year to plan her wedding...). If somebody just drops out of the Ph.D. program because they lost interest, I don't know what they could be saying at their job interviews, and how the potential employers are going to look at a person whose short-term, a-few-months-ahead outlook is subject to change overnight.

I have to say I don't know very many people who dropped out of a Ph.D. program. My reference circle is naturally that of international students, and they don't quit unless there's the end of the world in their home countries with their families. I knew some American students who did drop out; whether that was through better options outside, lack of dedication, lack of ability, I can't really say. But of course the world outside the campus is a different one if you don't have the employment restrictions.

"an unfinished degree puts a big "L" across your forehead" "I have to say I don't know very many people who dropped out of a Ph.D. program." You probably do, they just choose not to be friends with you

You obviously misinterpreted my statement about income. I am well aware that 20k a year is not enough to raise a family or own a house etc... What I meant by that was right now in my life I have very few responsibilities like those, so the 20k is enough for now - meaning for the next few years at least, I'm ok with not making much money, while instead focusing more on something I enjoy. I imagine gaining work experience + my background would make me a candidate for a job that pays more within the bounds you seem to consider acceptable.

I also don't understand why an unfinished degree looks like a big "L". I was accepted into a program at a top tier school, which obviously means I was qualified to be there (full scholarship as well). I am doing well in my program despite my sentiments. Why would an employer frown upon me saying something like "Well, I went to do my PhD and I did very well, but I very quickly realized I didn't have passion for my research anymore and the doctorate did not feel like a good fit. Now I am searching for employment opportunities such as this one where I feel my skills and passion will be utilized"

international students, and they don't quit unless there's the end of the world in their home countries — Again, not even true as a first approximation.

You do not have to like my opinions and my friends, and you can't bring yourself to agree that others may see academic world differently -- at least consider my advice getting a Master en route.

With some of the "not-so-doctorate" material, the discussion is often "Well, let's be nice to him/her and let him/her finish the Ph.D. -- (s)he'll find something in industry just fine" (at which point you may be on your own; if you are not going to publish, the faculty may stop caring about you). The biggest dropout is of course due to qualifiers/comprehensive exams, and this is a complicated function of student intellectual ability, student motivation, student testing anxiety, and faculty meanness. user7007 is not even there yet; I think it is better to try and fail than to chicken out.

Frankly, if you're going to go and not finish a degree, best you stop within the first year than to try to convince yourself, "It'll come together" and then not finishing six years later. It's not like it's magically going to get better from here.

@StasK I think your views on the matter are a little harsh (and in a way contribute to the fear people have of leaving a Ph.D program). A Ph.D is not the culmination of your academic career. It's a career choice, and like any choice is right for some and not for others. People are tempted to go for a Ph.D because it looks like "more school", but it takes time to realize that it's a choice of career and that it might not even be the right one.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How to explain a bad grade to a delusional student?
There is a student who attended a seminar where they were supposed to study an assigned research paper and deliver a presentation to the class. Their presentation was very low quality. Four (!) seminar tutors, from post-doc to associate professor level, all agreed to assign a low grade. I am confident that all reasonable measures to ensure fairness were taken. The student received a careful explanation of the grade based on a clear (and beforehand known) list of partially evaluated rubrics.
The evaluation turned out to be a big blow to the student's ego and even after several weeks, the person can't digest the failure, despite very careful explanation on the spot, as well as several interactions and (failed) attempts to "better the grade by performing some extra work". The student keeps coming back with requests for additional explanation of particularities of the failure.
What is/are the right pedagogical technique(s) to handle such a situation?

clearly, the student has a high self-esteem and opinion about him/herself
probably did not face a situation of a miserable failure before in the past
the student does not seem to see/accept the relative difference in his/her performance and the rest of the peer group

My question is only about the student's unwillingness to accept the grade, not about the student's performance or the grade's fairness.

Send them here

You're going to hate me for saying this, but please also consider the possibility of your own evaluation of the student's work.  Your term "delusional" is not, in my opinion, a good way to describe a student to an online community.  Too frequently I hear professors complain about this kind of thing, when occasionally (yes, it happens), the professors themselves are suffering from a Dunning-Kruger effect and believe in their own infallibility.

@James: fair point. But here we speak about a committee of 4(!) teachers of different levels unanimously coming to the same evaluation, itself based on a clear list of partially evaluated rubrics.  Everything in the powers of the teachers was done to ensure fairness of evaluation.

I work with people fresh from school sometimes and the whole concept of rubric just doesn't make me feel really good. One of the things fresh kids seem to have trouble with is subjective evaluation - schools need to prepare students for that. Not everything can be fairly measured, and sometimes you are measured wrongly, and you need to be able to deal with that. Sounds like this student needs a hard lesson in "you can't change the past" and taught how to move on and improve. Maybe more detail about their failings would help, but in my experience, it doesn't. They just need to forget about it.

My first question to you would be

Did you lay out the assignment expectations and how the grade would be determined when you gave the assignment?

If the answer is "yes" (and I expect that it is), I would use that as a starting point for explaining to the student why he/she did poorly.
That aside, it seems that either (1) the student didn't understand what was expected (regardless of the question above), and/or (2) the student isn't prepared for the type of work required, and/or (3) the student had a bad day.
It sounds to me like the answer is firmly #2, as repeated attempts to improve the grade hasn't worked.  Given that you've already spent a good deal of time with the student, it might be time to have a heart-to-heart discussion and say that it is time to stop thinking about that grade and to move on.  Obviously, you need to do this diplomatically, but (as they say), to make an omelet you need to break some eggs, and sometimes a firm and diplomatic "get over it" is appropriate.  I would pose the following questions to the student:

Do you have a clear set of goals that you are working on for the class?
Do you know what other grades are going to be part of the final grade for the class, and do you have a plan for making sure you are ready for each assignment / talk?
Do you conduct practice talks with other students in order to get constructive feedback? (if not, you should!)
(If the problem is English language skills) Have you sought out on-campus help with your writing or speaking skills? (this is available at many larger universities in the States)

Depending on how much time you are willing to devote to helping the student improve, you could also offer to sit in on any future practice talks to give pointers and feedback.  Likewise for written work -- you could offer to pre-read assignments.  This is a slippery slope, so tread carefully.  You want to avoid having the student see you as an always-available tutor, but there are times when providing such support is just part of the job.
Finally, I would stress to the student that one bad grade does not make or break a student, and it is better to make mistakes while in school than later when they might mean more in the bigger picture.  School is about learning, and you learn from mistakes.

P.S.: my first ever college grade was a 47% on a chemistry exam (the average was 80%).  I was devastated, but got over it, and ended up with a "B" in the class.

+1 for it is time to stop thinking about that grade and to move on. I see students who will dwell far too long over a grade without understanding that while it can be good to do a full post-mortem, at some point you should just accept it and look to the future.

I am not a teacher, but I think sometimes students can think a grade unfair because of how hard they worked on it. This student is probably looking at how much work they did, and not (just) at the outcome of their work. "How could I put in so much effort and do so poorly?" is probably their real question. Telling them what is wrong with the presentation tells them why they did poorly, but they still don't get what they should do differently in their process in order to arrive at the same level as everyone else. (agree #2 in answer)

A generic 'it was lower quality' is very unhelpful if the student doesn't understand what they did wrong in order to improve and not make the same mistakes next time. If you make clear the grade won't change but here are the particular points that could have been better only then can you say it is time to move on. Refusing to even discuss a seemingly arbitrary low grade without adequate explanation is one of the most demoralising things you can possibly do.

This can be tricky.
To answer properly, it is important to know if the student is asking about explanations for his grade or just demanding/requesting a better grade.
The second case seems "easier" to me because then one can just ask for a specific reason why the student thinks, that a higher grade would be appropriate (or just reply that there is no negotiation about grades).
In the first case, when the student asks for explanations, one has to distinguish again: Is the student interested in explanations, to learn from failure and to improve, or to prove that the grading was not appropriate.
Here the first case is easy as soon as you can make sure that the student understands your points. In the second case one could, in principle fall back to the case above: Ask for specific points and don't negotiate about grades. I think that most difficult part is to ensure that you do not have to repeat yourself too often. You could work with written notes for you and/or the student on which you can build for a next discussion. If you see (from the notes) that the discussion is not evolving you can communicate this to the student. If you have the notes of the last session available, and the student raises a point which you have discussed, you can point to the notes and ask what is still remaining about this point. If he repeats the same issue from the last session, answer that there is no negotiation about grades.
Regarding self-esteem and experience of failure, it is important to communicate that science and also learning science if a lot about failure. There is this famous quote from Samuel Beckett:

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

Also, failure in a learning task shall not be related to self-esteem in any way (sometimes hard to accept for students). You can help the student by talking exclusively about his performance in relation to the task he had to do.

(+1) for the Beckett quote, and for the exact separation of possible situations.

I was marking computer programs by hand, which dates this story. I awarded the single worst program 1 point out of 10, which I believe was promised for getting one's name in the correct place. Over half of the lines had elementary syntax errors, which was remarkable because he composed it at a Mac (512!); only the grading was from paper. He thought with only half of the lines clearly, totally wrong he deserved 5/10.
Finally I told him that if I cut off half his body he would be totally dead. This wasn't very nice, but it did stop the complaints.

This is a great answer to my old question :-).

An all too familiar situation. I will focus not so much on what to do about this particular student but what can be done for the future.
In my university system we use grading criteria, which I think can also be referred to as "rubrics". The main point here is that you set up careful critiera for what should be met for each grade. You can then tick off what is fulfilled as a basis for grading. You also need some weighing system to add the different criteria into a single grade. This is also important and can be done in different ways. In some systems aritthmetically, in others by stating rules for what is a specific grade (such as to get a B you need nothing lower than a B on all criteria). Room for experimentation and discussion!
The students should know (be carefully informaed about) the grading criteria and how they are weighted to the final grade by the time they start the course. When the grade is set it becomes very easy to explain why the grade became what it became and it will be up to the student to argue why they have met a higher criteria than what they have been given.
Now, the caveat, this will not work better than how carefully you have done the ground work with putting together the criteria. So while rubriics involves quite a lot of pre-course thinking to begin with, rewards for all concerned are large at the end.
A final remark: I find that the grades I provide are more or less exactly what I would have given by just reading it and setting the grade based on my impression. The criteria provides an explicit basis for that judgement. I have interpreted this as "we know what we are doing but we may not have expressed it explicitly to ourselves."
A quick search on some combination of "rubrics", "grading criteria", "essay writing" etc. should give plenty of ideas. I do not have a good starting resource to provide at this stage.

+1 I have studied (and occasionally taught) in three universities in two different countries, the first two used an evaluation system very similar to the one you are proposing, the latest used the "classic-north-american" system based almost solely in "comparison with peers". I find the first one to be a lot more fair and difficult to argue against, but it is more difficult to implement.

@Peter, what breaks my heart is that we are using these on the elementary level.  In elite private grammar schools on the East Coast of the US, students are taught to expect a rubric Q&A as a part of the assignment.  Opened-ended questions asking simply to justify an answer have become too "open to interpretation."
What can be done for the future?  I can say only that future shock seems to hit every generation equally.

Say something like

I cannot go over this assignment again with you.  There are several
  other students who need my attention, and we have already discussed
  this issue multiple times.  The grade you made is final, but you can improve your overall grade on the next assignment.

It is your job to give out the grade you feel is appropriate.  You did that.  I would also instruct the TAs not to go over this assignment with him either.  Right now all you can do is explain that the grade is final, and their is nothing he can do about it.
When students enter college they are immature, part of your job as a prof is to treat them like adults, and help turn them into mature, professional people.

Although this rubric from Rubistar is certainly not tailored to the university level, it is an good example and a useful tool in regards to the rising need for teachers to "prove" a grade (in any sense, not simply "good" vs."bad").
This is on the rampage, and rubrics seem to be the safest way to show students (and parents...and administrators...) what is going on in our heads as educators evaluating based our own (formerly self-evident) assignment criteria.
Giving students, their classmates, and TA's similar rubrics, rewording with "I showed" or "SWBAT" can prove, if you will, how delusional any party may be.

Fixing the problem after the fact is hard. I am aware the advice comes late now, but the rules of engagement are easy to set at the beginning, not the end.
Therefore, I often map out such problems ahead of time. If it's a one-on-one (e.g. in a project or individual coursework), and I notice students that I believe have much higher expectations of themselves than I estimate is warranted, then I set my expectations very explicit and clear and even higher than normal to leave a quality buffer to what you think would be a good solution.
Good students will usually accept the challenge without argument (one way to distinguish them, BTW!), but weaker, but ambitious students then realise that there is a lot more to do than they thought was needed and may sometimes complain or become argumentative. These are used to getting away well with comparatively little in the past. Stick to your guns, and you may be surprised as to what you can get out of them in the end. It also gives them a good learning experience in that, in the end of the process, they understand the nature of excellence and develop a newfound level of pride in their own achievement.
If you suspect you have such people in class, the idea is similar, but, of course, undirected. Make clear it is a hard class upfront. Don't give them the impression they can "wing it". It is much easier to start out tough and to decide to go for milder approach later on if you think that is appropriate than the other way round. Some care needs to be taken, though, to not increase the anxiety of already insecure students - so, tough requirements can be balanced by offers of support.

It depends very much on what kind of class this is, and what kind of evaluation tools are used. It is possible that the 'experts' are simply looking at things differently. It is not unusual for brilliant students to see things quite differently, and be right.

It is not clear to me how this answers the question. I can see how you might want to separate out the brilliant from the delusional, but your answer doesn't say anything about how to deal with delusional students.

I am making the point that maybe he isn't. Academia isn't always right, and many academics are delusional themselves. Without knowing what kind of class it is, and what methods of evaluation are being used, I am not going to assume that the author of this question is correct in believing that the student is delusional. Is this geology? Math? Psychology? Anthropology? English? Physics? Philosophy? Without knowing, it is impossible to answer. Academics can be wrong too, you know. It happens all the time.

If you need more information to answer the question, leave a comment on the question asking for clarification. The "Answer" box is for answers only.

This answer is delusional for thinking that "brilliance" is an acceptable substitute for clear communication.  Brilliant work badly presented is still a bad presentation, and it seems that this assignment graded the presentation (and was presenting the work of another, so no possible points for brilliance of the work).

It is not unusual for brilliant students to see things quite differently, and be right. — [citation needed]