Leaving graduate school.

I’ve decided to drop out of graduate school. I’ll leave with a Masters and I try to tell myself that still means something, but often I feel like a failure. I looked like such a great candidate on paper when I applied. Then I got here and I chose to work with the wrong professor. What a horror, what a mistake. He is evil incarnate. I know I’m not the perfect graduate student, but how can I succeed with a professor who just makes me feel like dirt? My closest friends and family are worried about me and I’ve been worried about me, too. I don’t think crying every day is healthy. There must be a better world out there and I’m determined to find it. Isn’t there anyone else out there who left a PhD program without the PhD? I just feel so sad and alone. Angry, yes, and so alone. The majority of my classmates will make it through, even though they’re unhappy, too. But they’ll make it and I won’t.

When I told him (my professor) that I was leaving because I would rather teach then do research, he seemed supportive at first, but our last conversation ended with him insulting me and telling me that I had been a waste for the past 3.5 years. I know I shouldn’t take his insults to heart, but it was terribly hurtful. And that may well be our last conversation ever. It makes me sad that he would want to end things by hurling insults at me. I just said okay and walked out of his office. I wanted to respond in kind but I also wanted to look back and be proud of my behavior in the face of such spitefulness. I hope this bitterness will fade. I hope I can look back on these years without hurting quite so much.

So what is the next chapter? I have to find a job, a real job. But I still have a class to teach this semester – the only highlight of this misery. Today after discussion section, one of my students told me that I did a good job teaching protein purification. Well, I may be the shittiest scientist ever, but at least I can feel good about something. I can explain gel filtration chromatography and SDS-PAGE.