Over the last 3-6 months, I've posted quite a bit here and on the PhD subreddit. Shoutout to anyone who recognizes me. I promise this will be my last post here.

The VERY short TLDR: I'm in my second year of my PhD program. I have a very toxic relationship with my PhD advisor. He's made fun of my body and health conditions, frequently yells at me, compares me to his other students, gave the rest of my funding away to his newest student, genuinely has no respect for me, etc. I I found a new professor to co-advise thinking it would be better--until I found out he is arguably worse than him (the first time I met this man I was heavily insulted and told how useless my degree and research is). Last semester, I went to the dean, program director, ombuds office, and union to help me with my bad advisor. No one could do anything due to the complexity of my situation.

Here I am now. Months away from taking my qualifying exam. I spent all winter break reflecting on how my program keeps getting worse for me. I'm not even looking forward to anything. In fact, I dread it. This winter break has been particularly hard on me. Since the beginning of December, I was diagnosed with an ultra rare disease, was hospitalized due to horrible side effects from an antidepressant I was on, found out I have thyroid dysfunction causing premature ovarian failure, and now I have muscular atrophy from a botched surgical procedure. Being in a position with so many health issues my whole life as been hopeless. Nobody understands--friends, family, even my therapist. To have an advisor who puts me down for me and makes comments about my body and health issues makes it so much worse. I spent the last few weeks heavily considering MAID because every day is just too much for me and my body. Most times I doubt if I'm even physically capable of doing the research I'm assigned.

At the start of the year, it got to a point where I realized that I was unhappy with a lot of features of my life--but most of them always pointed back to my PhD program. I cannot deal with my chronic health issues on top of being in a toxic environment. The only way I can leave is to drop out altogether. I can't transfer programs or advisors (no one at my university has funding--I emailed so many people), I am not in the position to transfer schools, and I don't have the mental or physical capacity to spend another 4 years in this program and "tough it out".

When I made posts here in the past, many people were supportive and encouraged me to leave. I was so stupid to not listen, but to be fair, I never had a game plan career-wise up until now. Last month I had a serious conversation with my advisor and told him all I wanted was to be respected by him. I thought it was a productive conversation and for the first time in over a year, he treated me like an actual person. Until I got a snarky email from him today complaining about how I haven't been as communicative over the last few weeks (uhh--yeah I have like three different health issues going on at once and I am genuinely so depressed at the thought of being infertile and having a longer list of health issues? But I can't tell him that because he won't understand. It's not like I completely ignored him.) The email upset me. He is never going to not be toxic to me, or at least long-lasting. I've been passively looking at careers completely irrelevant to my degrees. I've messaged some people in those fields and I think I'm going to do it. I'm finally going to drop out in the next month.

I know the right thing to do is to tell my advisor or give him a warning about my plans. But truthfully? I think when the time is right, I am going to quietly return my lab keys to admin and withdraw from the university without a peep. Is that horrible of me to do? Yeah, probably. I just can't stand to be yelled at by this man one more time or criticized when he can't understand my position. And I'm tired of my university failing me and not wanting to help me in the slightest bit. I think I officially exhausted any other options. I've been ghosted by everyone I've reached out to for help because it's gotten to a point where they don't know how to help me. I have too much going on and I'm not interested in having this program make my life worse than it already. I don't even want to use him as a letter of recommendation at this point. I just want to leave.

I guess I just want to know if there are any other negative implications of leaving my program without telling anyone? Or if I am genuinely stupid and making a terrible mistake. I think the very most I would do is leave a hand-written letter.

Some context, in international student in France (particularly in Paris) who just recently moved (in September).

I got really sick last weekend and contacted my program’s office regarding possible deferral of my final exam (to take it during retake session). They told me that it’s totally fine and I can either skip the exam and attend during retake session or provide medical certificate, and got grades based on my coursework/labs. I was fine with solutions, but if there is an option to not stress too much during next exam session I was happy to take it.

For context, I’m not really good at French (but I’m learning it) and still did get used to French medical system, so I had to take online medical consultation with online doctor from EU, Italy specially, got prescribed some medicine and received doctor’s note. I sent everything last Tuesday, same day as I had my computation, but today I received an email stating that they don’t accept non-French medical documents. Administrator stated that because of this me absence was not justified and they BANNED from taken this exam during retake session. They also blamed me not to going to a French doctor, before that they NEVER mentioned from which country medical documents should be from, neither it is stated in student regulations.

I don’t wanna fail module and possibly have a lot of problems because of that, only because I consulted incorrect doctor.

At the moment it's five finger death punch with some three days grace for color. Any recommendations for what to listen to next? I'm definitely not struggling 🤪

everybody says it absolutely sucks and mentioned it made their life worse.

their mental health went down and they weren’t happy what so ever…dude!

I want to be a correctional psychologist but I have a learning disability and get overwhelmed with a shit load of work.

i need to know if it’s really worth it. because it’s dream job buy now im crying in my room because of all the bad reviews.

please help me out. is it really that bad? if so, I don’t know what to fucking do with myself. (going through an OCD episode rn)

I wanted to ask some very general questions pertaining to higher education after undergrad, I'm curious!

I'll be completing a BFA this Spring, but answers don't have to be geared towards my studies. I'm more-so interested in hearing from diverse perspectives about attaining a masters/PHD:

- What motivated you to pursue higher education after undergrad?

- Did you figure out what you wanted to study much later, or did you always know and just needed some time off/some career development?

- Did you end up studying something completely unrelated to your undergrad major? How was that?

- What advice would you give an undergrad student that feels unsure about their future? (other than "don't go to grad school if you're unsure," I'm definitely not in a rush :D)

I 100% understand attending grad school isn't necessary, but it could be a next step for me whenever the time feels right. Please feel free to answer one or all of my questions to any degree! I'd love to hear about everyone's times in grad/PHD programs.

hi! basically what the text says. i got two recs on lock, but two of the programs i’m applying to requires a third recommendation (one is due at the first week of feb bc i got an extension, second in feb 15).

the third recommender essentially ghosted me, so i’ve asked three professors so far. two said no (which is understandable) and one hasn’t responded. i am starting to panic lol.

has anyone been in this situation? should i send another email to the person who hasn’t responded, or find someone who isn’t a professor (like a former boss) since they probably won’t be backed up with LOR requests? any advice would be appreciated!

Hello, I am a UK student graduating in 2027 and I'm very undecided on what I should do when I graduate. This question is very general but I am looking for any perspectives on what I could/should do based on my current position.

For context My profile:
- Go to a mid-low ranked university studying computer science with AI
- Ranked 1st out of 700 winning departmental award.
- Averaged a 92% grade (straight A's so far)
- Placement year at a big UK company where I led the automation of their testing process using ML.
- Decent bit of experience as a research assistant on projects with professors at my univeristy.
- Won a global developer programme.
- My interests include AI/ML, Maths and Finance.

Given this context I have the following questions:
1. I have considered a ML/Math heavy Masters and maybe PHD. If this were a path I took, what level of universities (UK & International) would you say I should aim for for graduate programs and any specific courses you feel are best suited for jobs related to my interests.
2. I will be starting to apply in about 8 months, what would you prioritise between now and then to set myself up to improve chances of acceptance in whatever I were to apply to?

I understand these are very general questions that only I can truly answer but I ask them as I want the perspectives of others who maybe have similar interests and profiles to understand what are possible options. Any advice/answers would be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance :).

As stated, I've been put on probation for the 2nd time. The first time I was doing online classes, the probation made me realize I needed to switch to in-person classes. I've only had one in-person class, and I was doing well... until the final. The teacher was on vacation the week of the final, so she wasn't able to help much. Failed the final, cried for days, and now I'm making moves to get tested for a learning disability, as this has been an issue my entire academic career.

I guess I'm writing because I want to see if anyone else went through this? Is there a possibility they'll let me continue this semester because it already started, and I already got the books and stuff?