University Faculty Crushed by Workload

“I'm at the end of my second year of my PhD. I research AI and social media, and most of my PhD has gone pretty smoothly. But now I'm doing my fieldwork (interviews) and recruiting participants has been CHALLENGING. I use Instagram ads as my main way of reaching people. It's not that I don't get any interest, I always knew finding participants was going to be hard. The problem is that almost everyone who reaches out to me (we're talking 20–30 people already) asks me the exact”

“I’m a 3rd year PhD candidate, and I’m feeling so unfulfilled. I have been feeling this way for over a year since joining this PhD program. I hate being stuck in the location that my school is, and knowing I have to be here for 3-4 more years makes me so depressed. I have a great lab and PI, but I am just not passionate about the work. All I want is to find a job elsewhere, have the freedom to move, and be able to start a family. I’m not actually sure if I would be able to find a job, however, th”

“I need help. I need advice. I'm sorry to say this, but our advisor genuinely has some character issues. He frequently subjects me to psychological abuse. None of the students in our group have anything good to say about his character. He threw a project at me that he himself barely know, and after I struggled through it on my own with zero guidance for eight months, he suddenly said my progress was too slow and gave my direction to another student. All my accumulated work—my code, my experim”

“I have found myself at a point in life that I am very unhappy with my current job trajectory so I am looking for a change. If there is one thing to know about me, I have always considered myself a jack-of-all-trades and truly feel like a master of none. There are so many disciplines that interest me and none that I have found myself to be particularly "bad" at. By bad, I mean just completely unable to get it even after countless hours of focused study. There are of course those that I”

“When I collect good data... My project will make more sense. And then I can write my thesis. And then I can find a post-doc position. And then I can apply for a hopefully permanent faculty position so we don't have to move again. And then my boyfriend will get a job. And then he might propose to me. Maybe. submitted by /u/anna_bee1 [link] [comments]”

“So I started a phd this year in Japan (we are reaching the end of the 1st semester). Was pretty excited for it as this was my dream school, dream program and dream department and was also really excited for the topic I was supposed to work with. now, since the start and even slightly before I have had many, many struggles with the bureaucracy here and even the university itself. people in general are on the nicer side…. mostly the few foreigners there are, i have to admit. But I knew this could”

“Yeah I might be one of the first people to say this. But let me explain. Edit: Since many of you had a lot of problems with all the context I gave. Here is a very quick summary. I make the equivalent of $71,000 USD in my PhD and it’s the best financial decision for me in this horrible market. I hope no one has further questions since context is word vomit or AI. submitted by /u/Kooky_Training2903 [link] [comments]”

Starving from a creative outlet or starving from food ?

Sunk cost ,lol that's creative

“That is insane given amount of time and effort they put in to get the master degree.”

“hi everyone! i’m very lucky to be in a tenure track position in the humanities, but i am based in a city which i absolutely loathe living in and and it is substantially eroding my mental health. i speak the local language but it’s hard to assimilate and make friends as this is quite a monocultural and insular society. my colleagues have just remained colleagues, and i feel like an outsider in my department a lot of the time. it’s been 4 years and i don’t think things will improve. i have been ap”

“I finished my computer science bachelors but cant afford the extra year for honours. I can make it work but id like that as a last resort. I really cant stand writing more code as I was basically forced into this course anyway. I like to think im really social and would prefer something more people's focused. I thought of tech sales as an option so I can use my education to some degree but I heard that market is terrible right now. Any thoughts would be appreciated thanks. submitted by”

“I feel like I was so close to the end, turning in my thesis in 3 months. But now my supervisors have forced to publish with them, I tried saying no, they didn't listen. I somehow accepted ill publish with them for my careers sake. If I don't publish with them, I won't get any recommendation letters. And I just know my next employer will need it, even if I'm leaving academia. My non academic job will still be research related, so I thought having publications might help me in the”

“Similar thing happened to me. I found an advisor when I was a master’s student because I believed in her saying. I worked my ass off because I wanted a strong letter. I literally worked 24*7. My advisor was a famous control freak, like she would even control courses I took and my dating life. And she used the recommendation letter as a leverage to force me to continue to work for her after she would write the letter. She understood the power imbalance and used it to the extreme. I had to agree t”

“Hi everybody, this is a vent post. I am almost done with my PhD and I accepted a job before finishing. I thought that by getting a job, I could wrap up my thesis with the work I had already done (> 3 individual first author papers, >20 papers total, over > 2000 citations) and graduate. But my advisor still wanted another project and said I had promised the department one more during another milestone before the defense. Because I couldn't see a way out of graduating (you need your a”

“Hey everyone, I am going into my second year of my two year program MA general psych. I initially came in wanting to try new research interests and potentially go down the professor route. I am not happy, and i may leave my program. The problem is I truly have no idea what I want to do. I love this field but it is so broad both a blessing and a curse. If I stay in my program I need defined career goals. If I don’t have those…then I think I need to find something else. I just have no idea where t”

“I am an early career scientist and I’ve finally adjusted to work/life after a PhD (graduated late 2021). My boss’s 3rd year PhD student is now working with our group full time, and my boss has asked me to help mentor her. She has been part of our group since she was an undergraduate, so I’ve known her for about 4 years. She’s under the impression that she can finish her PhD in a total of 4 years (so only 2 more years of research). Average program length is somewhere between 5 and 6 years. She’s”

“My research focus is interdisciplinary, and the departments in question are unable to agree on how to split my time and reqs. This has been going on for 2 months now, and I'm getting a lot of emails and pressure to decide on how to reconcile their respective demands. I don't have the expertise or the authority to do this so I'm at a complete loss to understand why they're sending their arguments to me rather than each other. I'm coming back to academics after time spent worki”

“My research focus is interdisciplinary, and the departments in question are unable to agree on how to split my time and reqs. This has been going on for 2 months now, and I'm getting a lot of emails and pressure to decide on how to reconcile their respective demands. I don't have the expertise or the authority to do this so I'm at a complete loss to understand why they're sending their arguments to me rather than each other. I'm coming back to academics after time spent worki”

“My research focus is interdisciplinary, and the departments in question are unable to agree on how to split my time and reqs. This has been going on for 2 months now, and I'm getting a lot of emails and pressure to decide on how to reconcile their respective demands. I don't have the expertise or the authority to do this so I'm at a complete loss to understand why they're sending their arguments to me rather than each other. I'm coming back to academics after time spent worki”

“Hi y’all! A bit of long-winded background: I’m an ABD PhD candidate who recently accepted a visiting position at my alma mater, a small liberal arts college. I’ve taught for many semesters as a Grad TA/instructor of record at my grad institution, and have generally let students call me by my first name since I was pre-proposal and generally a bit more casual. However, in this new position, I will start as a Visiting Instructor since I am still ABD but, contingent upon me defending my dissertatio”

“Hi PhD fellows My three years contract ended in march and I was able to get an extension till the end of july to finish my writing and submit (some crucial broken equipement for months delayed results and I was able to get the extension), in return I had to work on some parallel project not in my PhD during the extension. I finished writing a month ago. Needless to say that these last months were extremely tiring, my PIs are not correcting as fast as I expected and I'm just waiting, my coPi”

“Hi 👋 Just wanna share my 4-years lasting experience with you, who might understand I bloody love science. I love the physics. I came to my current field being so inspired and excited. And I am smart. I won prizes, my professionalism and awareness were noticed. But... But my supervisors, some people around, the wild paper-stuff: all of these just broke me. I was young when I came. With lack of self confidence, with doubts that I deserve all of it. And my supervisors, being not supportive at all,”

“I'm a May 2026 grad finishing up my second week and I would like some feedback on whether my current situation is unrealistic for a new grad, and if so how to improve it, or if it just feels overwhelming because everything feels new right out the gate. (Apologies for how long this ended up being, hopefully it's not too rambling) I was initially started day one with 4 30-minute "sick" exam appointments, a 2 hour block for diagnostic workup, lunch, then an afternoon of 30-minute”

“Hello everyone — I'm a tenure-track faculty member at a university in East Asia, currently preparing for my upcoming tenure review. In the last academic year, I taught three courses: one Level 4 elective and two Level 2 core courses. For the Level 4 course, my student evaluation score was 3.3/5 , but the response rate was only 14.6% (13 out of 89 enrolled students). By contrast, my two Level 2 courses received scores of 4.2 (response rate 29.3%, enrolment >100) and 4.6 (response rate 40.4”

“I started my research career 8 years ago with no intention of doing a PhD, but eventually took the plunge. Now I'm 3+ years into my PhD and I'm completely lost. I am interdisciplinary chemistry research, I work with sensors, I am in India. Situation : 1.My experiments are failing consistently 2.I'm approaching 4 years in the program 3.Lab environment is toxic,labmates are difficult to work with 4.My supervisor is mostly absent; there's minimal to no guidance 5.Resources are sever”

submitted by /u/sirius_fit [link] [comments]

“Just reading the hiring announcement of newly created admin position while faculty careers are in limbo over constant budget cuts and tuition was just raised. So the messaging is “We’re sinking, no more frivolous spending on things like tenure track lines. Btw, we just created a new position for the Strategic Head of Time Wasting Office Chair Filling, they make >375K/year (real number), please welcome them.” Going to throw a chair today. Throw one in solidarity with me please. Let the rage fl”

“How is everyone coping with doing thesis and paper revisions long after the PhD is over? Especially when the next job has started? In my case, my non academic job will have started way before my thesis and paper corrections come in. How have to made time to do this unpaid labour while being fully employed, especially out of academia? submitted by /u/Best_Neat6984 [link] [comments]”

“I'm panicking a bit. We had a summer program start to get grandfathered into grad plus loans. We were presented with taking 3 classes. I opted for 2 so that I can work and not be too overwhelmed. I was a huge dumbass and didn't realize they wanted us to take all 3 classes. My academic advisor looked at me like I was an idiot. Now, I'm going to have to take 17 credits (this includes an internship). I've been out of school for years and even when I was in school, I never took that”

“I’m seeking advice from those who have found ways to pursue meaningful academic research outside the traditional tenure-track path. I’m 46 and will soon complete a PhD in Organizational Behavior after a 20-year career in corporate HR and consulting. I’ve accepted that a tenure-track role is unlikely ( almost impossible ) and my humble realistic 46 self is comfortable with going back to consulting career. What I’m trying to understand is whether there are viable paths to continue rigorous academi”

“Hi everyone, I’m currently mapping out my long-term career goals in academia. My absolute dream is to teach Computer Science at the university level full-time. However, I have zero interest in research. I want my entire career to be focused on teaching, pedagogy, and student mentorship. If it turns out that 80%+ of full-time university teaching jobs realistically require a lifelong research component, I plan to pivot my goals toward high school teaching or the tech industry. I am currently tryin”

“Hi everyone, I'm a postdoctoral researcher, currently working in South Korea, and I recently got an offer to join the Juan de la Cierva program for 3 years at the University of Seville . My professor told me the salary would be around €1,800–2,000 per month , but I'm not sure whether this refers to gross or net salary . Also, with that amount of salary, is it enough for a family of three (me, my wife, and a 2-year-old son) to live modestly but comfortably in Seville? Compared to my situa”

“Hi all - I'm in the process of applying to a non-matriculated graduate program in my field, where I'm a working professional. I completed 45 of 48 credits in my masters program 15 years ago; and although I left my program because I got the professional job I enrolled in graduate school for, it always bothered me that I didn't actually have a masters. I'm in a position now where I have the time and money to complete that last course. In any case, I'm being asked to complete a”

Thanks for the info, if u dont mind could i dm u? Seems like u know a lot

“My wife is 10 years in MI, private school, 57k. And that’s with her masters. Some people think they make 100k but at a messily 3% raise a year, that’s very unlikely”

“So, I just had a meeting with my supervisor. We don’t really have regular meetings, I just give him minor updates along the way. We agreed on a scope for the second paper in march. I finished the manuscript after a couple of months. Sent it in beginning of June, and today he said it’s garbage. He agrees in most of the analysis, however, in some areas we disagree on some stuff, fair enough. However, he strongly encouraged me to split up the publication as he thinks it contains content for 3-4 pap”

“My field is pure math. Like the title says: This summer I came in top 3 in a difficult poster competition. That was the highlight of my PhD journey so far (currently pushing my 3rd year). Now I received the news that one other grad student is likely about to publish a work on a problem that I have been working on for the past two or so years. I am using this post as a means to bring some closure to myself since the shock of this news affects my mental state and working capacity. As much as it su”

“I’m preparing my master application and was encouraged by a friend who got accepted to email a lecturer beforehand. However, i’m particularly interested with a Doctor (non-professor faculty members) whose expertise relevant to my research interests. I’m not sure whether this lecturer has a lab or not. Is it normal to email a Doctor / non-professor faculty members in a way that is similar to emailing a professor? submitted by /u/PingPong_in_MyBox [link] [comments]”

“My first post ever in reddit. I am hoping to get some anonymous interaction. I am doing a PhD since more than 2 years. I already have my first publication towards my PhD plus many co-authorships. I got bullied by our team leader and my PhD supervisor does nothing about it. He trusts the team leader with everything and team leader does everything in lab while supervisor works for his consulting company and doing other things. At this point, he might know what kind of person our team leader is (he”

“Hey everyone. I’m in a major problem and could use some help. A few months ago I reached out to a former professor of mine for help finding a job in a new city, where my Alma mater was. I have been in the workforce for almost 5 years, but looking to relocate. She ended up offering me to be her graduate student. I took it without deeply thinking what I wanted. Now fast forward to about 3 weeks before the semester begins, I have no desire to take this spot. I actually have another job opportunity”

“i’m so stressed. my only science lor writer has ghosted me, apparently the same professor has been unresponsive to a lot of students so i’m sure it’s not a personal thing there’s probably something going on w him so i hope he’s okay. but i have no idea what to do, my app has alr been verified and ive prewritten a lot of my secondaries and this whole thing has been holding me back bc i know it’s out of my control. what’s worse is that he is my only science one. i’ve reached out to other profs so”

“Planning to defer my admit as i’m not able to get a visa slot. Really unhappy at my current role and feeling insanely burnt out so looking for some advice on what to do, if I defer. I already quit but took bacn my resignation due to not getting a visa slot and life at work has been bad since then. My employer knows i’m going to leave, they have no incentive to keep me around or increase my pay for instance. I’ll have another year before school starts. I’ll also be 29 by the time school starts ne”

“I am in the last year of my program. But I am feeling like I’m not going to complete it. I am at the final data collection and I cannot get enough people to take my survey. Topic: impact of mentorship on teacher efficacy Population: Virginia public school teachers in their first 3 years of teaching Needed size: 128 submitted by /u/North_Veterinarian13 [link] [comments]”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MY CANDIDACY EXAM IS IN 1 MONTH AND I HAVE ONLY 20% OF MY READINGS DONE EMAIL INBOX LOOKING LIKE THE MISSED SPAM CALLS ON MY PHONE EXCEPT I SHOULD ACTUALLY BE READING THEM FUNDINGS RUNNING UP BUT RESEARCH IS RUNNING NOWHERE THE UNDERGRADS ARE WAY MORE ELOQUENT THAN I AM AND THERES ONLY SO MANY TIMES YOU CAN ASK "WELL WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE ANSWER" AS A REPLY AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHAT THE FUUUUUCKKKK IM SO FUUUCKKEDDD submitted by /u/durianpu”

“Hey everyone! I am about to start my first “real” job in academia in the fall semester. Long story short, a fixed term faculty position came up and I was notified by members of the department about this role. It was kind of rushed, due to faculty members leaving at the end of spring semester, going on sabbatical, etc. I ended up getting the job today (yay!) but I obviously don’t have any access to course shells. However, I do know what courses I am teaching. Basically, my question is did anyone”

“Hey im a 25 year old computational physics student about to start my senior year but I have gotten burned out with college and I miss work. I worked since I was 12 to 22 from being a paper boy to a body guard and army enlisted and I have taken a step back to do college the only problems are that I hate doing school and not working anymore. This has made me to decide to finalize my portfolio, do a pull request with numpy and do a free website job and start applying. I have applied to 380ish jobs”

“I’m preparing my master application and was encouraged by a friend who got accepted to email a lecturer beforehand. However, i’m particularly interested with a Doctor (non-professor faculty members) whose expertise relevant to my research interests. I’m not sure whether this lecturer has a lab or not. Is it normal to email a Doctor / non-professor faculty members in a way that is similar to emailing a professor? submitted by /u/PingPong_in_MyBox [link] [comments]”

“I teach undergraduate Creative Writing very large state university in the South. For reference, I graduated undergrad 6 years ago at an art school in the Northeast. When I was in undergrad the expectation was that we were to read a novel/week for each class (5 classes) or at least 100+ pages of stories, essays, craft, and so on. Now that I’m teaching, I find that it’s impossible to get students to read reliably, and even if they do, it’s capped at 20 pages. I’m teaching a workshop in the fall an”

“Kind of confused and not sure what to do. I recently had this class that I really loved and participated a lot in. My prof definitely knows me as I have struck up many conversations with him in and out of class about topics in the field, things I was curious about that were mentioned in class, career stuff, and it was a small class size (~10 people). He is also my program coordinator, and since I am adding a lot of extra courses to my schedule (mostly to satisfy prereqs but also out of curiosity”

“Yes, it's sickening. I am so blessed to have had a career in academia for most of my adult life. I get about 4 1/2 months a year off.”

“Hi all. I am a 2nd-year STEM-adjacent PhD student. I had a brutal meeting with my advisor today and I am trying to figure out how to salvage things. He told me he's been unhappy with my progress for months, and said I need to think about (1) whether I actually want to do a PhD, and (2) whether I want to do one in his lab. He also said it feels like my workflow is "working the 24 hours before our meetings start"-- which, if I am being honest, isn't entirely wrong recently. The p”

“No I get it. But as a CS graduate I’m learning to reclaim my time. I assert my expertise by point out the issues before hand and being there with a solution after. In this lab, there was someone that always ran to AI but now she rather ask me. I also communicate problems I find and how I solved them. It can be hard with current demands but personally as someone that recently entered this industry, I see it as my responsibility to protect the industry I love and call others to do the same. I’m al”

“not news to anyone here but worth a read. i did not know how extreme it was at Duke. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/opinion/college-grade-inflation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xVA.wM5T.iFxpZ_fqZAgQ&smid=url-share (free link) submitted by /u/nandor_tr [link] [comments]”

“I am currently at a grant funded position in a university (I work in research) and it is so stressful working there because of uncertainty. My supervisor did his best to keep me there for a little less than 3 years, one time he had to switch me to another department because that department didn't want to keep me there because my supervisor didn't have enough funds to convince them with my position, he told me the funds are coming in fine in this department but it seems like he i”

“Update: I am on a TA position where I have to teach to get a stipend and my PI is not paying me. Also, I did not stop working on the lab projects a single day since I joined. I did all the work for this course projects on the weekends and during nights. Hi all, I am seeking honest advice since I am currently lost. I am a 2nd year PhD student. In our lab I had been working on 3 projects: 1. My main project which is the core of my thesis. 2. Two side projects which are with my PI collaborators. Fo”

“Reserving time slots and more generally scheduling your time is a good approach. Do this: schedule your meals, schedule your workout time, schedule your break time, schedule when you focus on DSA or interview prep, schedule when you spend time working on your side projects, schedule your sleep, schedule meditation time, and schedule recreation time for watching movies, schedule time for socializing etc. Stick to the routine. This works for astronauts to fight burnout and keep it together in extr”

“Loving early retirement. Mostly because colleagues wanted to become administrators (and are shitty at it). Miss the good students but no rear-view mirror in my car, as the song goes). Anyone else enjoying leaving? If so what’s on your bucket list! submitted by /u/twilightyears [link] [comments]”

“I recently received my PhD. I did not attend the convocation ceremony. In fact, I have never attended a graduation ceremony; I'm not sure why. Probably a mix of trying to appear nonchalant and a sense of the degree itself not mattering all that much compared to the experiences I gained and the work I did (I am mostly happy in life, lol, so no sad story). Moreover, everyone refers to each other by their first name in my field, so I have never really been called a doctor. Anyway, today I got a”