stuck

I had a thesis committee meeting last week. Unfortunately, preparing for it coincided with the breakdown of my Plan (I got enough stars to keep my pretty yarn, but then it all fell apart), so instead of being sensible and working consistently, I dragged out the process of writing my progress report and powerpoint presentation over a painfully long period and got no sleep.

The main part of my meeting seemed to go fine (aside from a committee member suggesting a simple explanation that could account for all my data in a way I hadn't thought of). It was nice to hear that my advisor's standards for completing one part of my project were ridiculously high (let's just hope he doesn't decide high standards are better).

The worst part was actually the part not related to my project. At the beginning of the meeting, I had to stand outside the room while my advisor and committee talked about me. It was awkward enough just standing there, because there's a student lounge right outside the room. Luckily, a student I knew was there so I could chat with her and distract myself from the fact that they were probably talking about how much I suck (for at least ten minutes).

As much as I would hate to be told I suck, I'm starting to wish grad students got official feedback about progress somehow. Employees in the lab have to have an annual review meeting where they get given something in writing about what they're doing well and what they need to improve. I'm not sure I see the point of my advisor telling my committee about me, since nothing is written down. There is a form they have to fill out to say I've had the meeting, but it only has space to describe my project and a box to tick if I'm on track to finish at some point, so it doesn't help much. Saying that I'll be fine if I do what I've said I would do isn't enough when I'm not sure I can do what I've planned.

I spend so much time thinking I suck, but then I wonder why nobody ever complains to me directly. It's easy to think that it's just that my advisor is too non-confrontational to say anything negative (which is a realistic option, since I've seen what he put up with from a post-doc who did less than me at my worst). It would be nice to either get some reassurance that I'm doing okay, or know for sure that I should give up on research and find something else to do.

The only time I almost cried in the meeting was when I came back in the room and they sent my advisor out. I was expecting that it would be the same as last time, i.e. they'd ask if I had any problems with my advisor, I'd say no, my advisor would come back and I'd go on with my presentation. Instead, they asked how I thought my progress was going. I said it was going okay, but slower than I'd like. And then immediately regretted it, because of course they asked why. I wasn't about to admit that it's because I'm lazy and I suck, so I said I wasn't sure and just looked stupid instead.

Then they asked if this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my career, which is when I really almost cried. Maybe that's a sign that it's not... Still, I'm not ready to cut off that option completely so I didn't say no, although my non-committal answers probably had the same effect. I tried to say I was just focussing on trying to finish the PhD and I still need to think about what comes next, but one committee member definitely thought I was "profoundly unsettled", which is true, but not something I wanted to admit to. Although, honestly, whether I explicitly admit to being unmotivated and unenthusiastic about research or not, they're hardly going to be fooled into thinking I'm the opposite.

At the end of the meeting, they came back to the topic of what I wanted to do next, because that would affect my project. I.e. if I don't want an academic research career, I could just do the minimum required to finish with a crappy thesis. That made me think my advisor had suggested I'm not good enough to do better. I know there are plenty of more positive interpretations, but this is why I think I'd prefer clearer feedback.

I've spent the week since the meeting mostly avoiding working, because I'm afraid to try in case I do suck. Now I'm supposed to be making a poster for the departmental retreat. It should be easy, since I've already put my results into two different forms in the past week and a half, but I'm stuck. I know I should put some effort into trying to make it good, but I'd really rather just throw something crappy together so that it's obvious I wasn't really trying and therefore my full potential can't be judged.