PhD students feel overwhelmed by workload
10 posts across 6 communities in the last 30 days; 30% from r/PhD.
“I probably could have beared with it if it was only limited to programming, but it showing up in creative fields has made me feel all sorts of negative emotions. I hate that I can't even enjoy any fanart without trying to check if it might be AI generated, I hate that I always…”
“I’m a PhD student in AI, and I’m struggling to figure out how to manage all the different things that seem to be competing for my attention. On any given week, I might be dealing with: Working on my thesis Running experiments and debugging code Reading papers and keeping up with…”
“With AI getting so good, it can pretty much end-to-end do any project I might want to undertake as part of my thesis. So does a PhD program just become a longer masters program at this point? I honestly don’t have anything against learning math from AI in principle! It’s great…”
Several PhD students describe feeling burned out and overwhelmed by the demands of their programs, working long hours and experiencing guilt when not focused on research. This highlights a culture of overwork within academia.
SOURCES (12)
“With AI getting so good, it can pretty much end-to-end do any project I might want to undertake as part of my thesis. So does a PhD program just become a longer masters program at this point? I honestly don’t have anything against learning math…”
Hey everyone, u/Wapencio had the, in my opinion, wonderful idea of making a Discord server for PhD students in computer science where we aim to play some games together and while doing…
“I probably could have beared with it if it was only limited to programming, but it showing up in creative fields has made me feel all sorts of negative emotions. I hate that I can't even enjoy any fanart without trying to check if it might be AI generated, I hate that I always have to check for an AI GENERATED DISCLOSURE on any new game on steam. And some aren't even honest about it, and look down at artists.Some context - I'm a frontend dev and I've lost all interest in work, I just see it as a”
“I’m a PhD student in AI, and I’m struggling to figure out how to manage all the different things that seem to be competing for my attention. On any given week, I might be dealing with: Working on my thesis Running experiments and debugging code Reading papers and keeping up with the literature Writing/publishing papers Collaborating on other projects Meetings with supervisors/collaborators And, of course, the random ideas that seem incredibly urgent at 2 AM The problem is that I genuinely enjoy”
“I am in academia and have been heavily using AI to accelerate my research. Recently I got approved for Claude scientist and I took the pro version of Chatgpt. But after 3 days of using both Claude and Sol5.6, my codex usage is down to 30%. I want to get so much done but unable to do looking at my limits. Will 20x be available soon again? Is reset provided regularly for new users? submitted by /u/anxious-soul12 [link] [comments]”
“Hi all, I have made decision to take time off to start PhD. I am now seeking advice on how to proceed. I have a masters in CS back in 2010. Since then I was mostly in industry (msft) Now I would like to transition back, but super overwhelmed how to start or what to do. I am based in the US. Some options include redoing masters -> PhD, going over seas etc. Realistically how should I approach this? Apply to as many and take time filtering down? Or just get back slowly into flow and do masters t”
“For context, I'm a rising sophomore at a t15 cs school majoring in computer science and AI. I've always thought that I wanted a PhD to further study theory ML (as long as five years ago) but am unsure due to the exponential growth of LLMs recently. Honestly, I'm not even sure of the reason as to why I'm still in college: if we are going to have AGI/ASI by the time I graduate, then what is the point of learning math and science outside of personal enjoyment? There's also the p”
“I’m doing a PhD in CS theory and this AI stuff is making me really depressed. I used to enjoy research. The math used to be fun. I used to do cool stuff and feel good about it. Now ChatGPT is better at what I do than I am. I am much better off just buying a ChatGPT Pro subscription and talking to Astra or Solana to take its ideas. Of course they are better than what I can come up with. Why should I even think anymore? Why should I use my brain, when ChatGPT is better at math than me anyway? Well”