You’ve Decided to Quit Your PhD — Now What?

December 2016 was a turning point in my life. For years I had been working toward my PhD, and by some metrics things were going well. I had completed all my coursework, passed my written comprehensive exams, and finally reached ABD (all but dissertation) status. I was published. I had traveled nationally and internationally to present my work. I won an award for being an outstanding graduate student.

But by other — and more important — metrics, things were a disaster. For a long time I had been feeling depressed and unmotivated. I hadn’t made significant progress on my research in months. My advisors were justifiably frustrated with me. I was in a long-distance relationship with my husband, and the loneliness was painful. Things were so bad that when I decided to walk away from my PhD, it didn’t feel like a choice. It felt like something I had to do in order to survive.

Unfortunately, my experience is not uncommon. Graduate students experience anxiety and depression at higher rates than the general population, and about half of PhD students quit.

The cruel thing about deciding to leave is that even though it might be the right decision, that doesn’t mean it feels good. It almost always feels bad to walk away from something unfinished, especially if you’ve put a lot of time and effort into it. But hindsight has taught me that there are some things you can do to soften the blow. So if you’ve made the decision to step off the PhD path, this article is for you. I hope these tips will make your transition a little easier.

1. Congratulate yourself. Seriously, look at yourself in the mirror and say “Congratulations.” Then treat yourself to ice cream, a movie, or whatever makes you happy. You have the courage, maturity, and strength to step away from something that isn’t right for you. And you are giving yourself a precious gift: the opportunity to improve your well-being. All that is worth celebrating!
2. Find your support. After you make this decision, you might have feelings of shame and embarrassment. You might be questioning your intelligence or competence. Your imposter syndrome might be raging in full force. Keep these feelings at bay by surrounding yourself with people that will tell you the truth, and will tell you as often as you need to hear it. The truth is: There is nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about. You should feel proud of yourself for having the strength to make this decision, and for doing something that will push you in a better direction. Walking away from your PhD doesn’t mean that you’re stupid or incapable. All it means is that you chose a different path.
3. Avoid people who don’t support you. Hopefully there won’t be too many of them, but there are likely to be a few. Some might be angry with you, or try to make you feel guilty for leaving. Avoid them. If you can’t avoid them, try to ignore them. Or alternatively, set — and enforce — some firm boundaries (this is a good article about setting conversational boundaries). You don’t have to discuss this with anyone, and you don’t have to listen to anyone’s opinion about it. If it’s all still overwhelming, lean on the people who have your back. Use them to fortify yourself against your critics and to heal yourself when you’re hurting.
4. Give yourself time and space to process your feelings. This includes distancing yourself from people who may not be unsupportive, but they may still trigger some bad feelings. After interacting with them you may feel like a failure or be filled with resentment. For example, one of my friends loves to make facebook posts with inspirational quotes about never giving up. I know they aren’t directed at me or my situation, but feelings of shame and worries about incompetence bubbled up to the surface every time I saw one. I unfollowed her until I felt more secure in my decision.
5. Consider keeping it a secret. Some people might need to know about your decision immediately — your advisors and committee, for example. For everyone else, it might be best to keep people in the dark for as long as possible. This can help keep your critics at bay for a while, and it also gives you more time to process your feelings.
6. Be prepared for people to find out. Eventually people will find out you’re leaving. Gossip will spread, people will notice you haven’t enrolled in courses for the next semester or haven’t been given a teaching assignment, etc. Once they find out, they will ask you about it. They are probably well-intentioned, but being put on the spot can cause a rush of panic, anxiety, and other bad feelings. Have a response ready so you don’t feel caught off guard. How much detail you want to go into — and whether you want to explain yourself at all — is entirely up to you.
7. Get a masters degree. If you’ve completed all the requirements — or are close to completing them — consider getting a masters degree. Hopefully your university makes it easy to do this (maybe you already have a masters degree by the time you decide to leave), but unfortunately not everyone does. If you run into difficulties, you have my sympathies but this is not a battle you should walk away from. Circumvent people if you have to. Go over their heads. Don’t believe people if they say you can’t do it — get out the graduate handbook and read it yourself. There might be a graduate office that is separate from your program — talk to them. If people are non-responsive to emails and phone calls, camp outside their offices. Do whatever you have to do, because if you have completed the requirements for a masters degree, then you have earned it. Fight for it.
8. Don’t abandon your career goals. Walking away from your PhD can be especially painful if you equate it with having to give up your career goals. You probably won’t have to. If you want to teach, you can still do that — most community colleges only require a masters degree. If you want to do research and publish, you can still do that — a lot of industry and national labs have positions that don’t require a PhD. And if your dream is to have a PhD, you can still do that. It’s never too late to go back and get one later, when it’s a better time for you.
9. Don’t abandon your identity (or do it — and create a new one). Most people get their sense of identity from their job, so there’s a good chance that your field has become part of your identity. If that’s the case, walking away from your PhD can be difficult — or even traumatic — because it can feel like you’re losing part of yourself. This doesn’t have to be the case. You can be an expert in your field without having a PhD, and even without having an academic career. Keep this part of your identity alive by reading and studying in your spare time. You can talk with other people in your field, and as mentioned before, you can still teach, research, and publish. Alternatively, you could take this as an opportunity to do something completely new or dive deeper into something you previously didn’t have time for. Maybe you love fitness, or maybe now you finally have time to travel. Maybe you’ve always wanted to be a chef, and now you have the opportunity to do it. These things can become part of a new identity for you.
10. Take care of yourself in the long term. It might be the case that this will be the best decision you will ever make, and you’ll have zero regrets. This is true for me, and for a lot of other people I know. But it isn’t true for everyone — some people have pangs of regret every now and then. One of my good friends who left academia and occasionally regrets it suggests these coping mechanisms: 1) Realize that you probably also would have regretted staying. No matter what you decided to do, you might always be wondering what would have happened if you made the other choice. 2) Remind yourself of all the good things that happened since you left — especially the ones that would not have happened if you had stayed.

So where am I now? After I graduated with my masters degree, I packed up my apartment and moved to Chicago to be with my husband (our dog was pretty excited to see me too). A couple months later I began working as a software engineer at a tech insurance company, and a few months after that I found out I was pregnant. Today I’m the proud mother of a beautiful little boy, and I’m still with the same company. The work I’m doing is very similar to what I had planned to do for my dissertation — so I was able to find a fun, fulfilling, and interesting career without a PhD.

All the negative feelings that emerged when I decided to quit my PhD lingered for several months. But as time progressed and more good things happened, those feelings not only faded — they were replaced with feelings of pride and gratitude. Walking away from my PhD is one of the best choices I have ever made, and every day reaffirms that it was the right decision for me.

A million thanks to everyone who reviewed previous drafts of this story. Some walked away from their PhDs. Some stayed. Some stayed for their PhD but walked away from academia, which can be a similar experience. And some have never been a PhD student or had a career in academia. All of your advice and perspectives have been invaluable to me.

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