I’m Just Playing My Best Move
My experience switching research supervisors mid-PhD and how the TV series Mr. Robot helped with the decision
“Should I consider switching labs?”
I’ve been asked this question multiple times by students familiar with my PhD journey. It’s a difficult question to answer as each situation is unique. I once listened to an HR executive address this question by giving the following advice:
“Ask yourself the following question: Is there a lesson for me to learn by staying?”
In my view, the power dynamics between a PhD supervisor and a student introduce too much risk for a grad student to embark on that journey. I’ve had already experienced the survival instinct that pushed me into materializing the sentence: I need to move on. I wasn’t prepared to find out what could’ve happened had I stayed. However, I know students who opted for this path, and it worked out for them.
Exploring the decision
I was 2.5 years in my program, preparing for my PhD proposal defense and leading an ongoing collaboration with excellent faculty in a nearby medical school. I’ve sacrificed too much to get to this point.
Do I really want to start over?
These were the thoughts that naturally arrived while I explored whether to switch to another lab. Now I understand they were nothing but a dense trap in decision making — a type of sunk cost fallacy. Short of overcoming this trap, the second level of thoughts swarmed in:
What if I stay and the situation gets worst? Would I then consider ‘mastering out’ instead? Would I renounce obtaining a PhD just because of these circumstances?
Well, no. I will protect the goal of completing my PhD ruthlessly.
With the support of friends, advisors, and mentors, I considered the alternatives:
A) Speak up
B) Stay and learn something from it
C) Leave
Speaking up is an appropriate way to begin to address these kinds of problems. I believe it can lead to clarity, perhaps improved communication, or realigned expectations. That wasn’t the case in my situation. For several reasons, persist-in-place wasn’t a viable path either.
Mr. Robot and Decision-making
The mental burden of contacting potential advisors in confidentiality while overanalyzing the pros and cons in free fall almost had me paralyzed. My mind catastrophized the implications of such a decision. The uncertainty became an instant trigger for anxiety. It was frustrating.
In my experience, most students in this predicament can unlock the emotional permission to accept that they should consider switching labs. However, what interferes with a clear path to act is the stream of self-doubt that floods the brain. These are thoughts that naturally emerge from the lack of knowledge about the outcome. For example:
What if it doesn’t work out? What if I am the problem? What makes me think the same won’t happen in another group?
Fear and doubt cloud judgment. Continual doubts blurred my day-to-day. In fact, people I sought advice from kept invoking “the grass is always green…”, which inadvertently reinforced the lack of confidence in a viable way out. In this scenario, it was tempting to subscribe to a status quo bias, and just stay as-is.
With the help of some anxiety-flavored insomnia, I binge-watched the TV series Mr. Robot. Mr. Robot is a cybercrime drama that follows Elliot as he rebels and seeks to dismantle an oppressive corporation. A scene in episode 06 shows Elliot negotiating his way out of a direct bullet to the head. The dialog in that scene captured the state of my decision-making journey at the time.
Elliot: Let me free him. When I break Vera out tonight, you do with your brother what you want.
That’s the only outcome where you got the possibility of living.
It’s your best move.
Isaac: What makes you think I still won’t kill you afterwards?
Elliot: I don’t. I’m just playing my best move.
I didn’t know if switching advisors mid-PhD was going to work out. I didn’t know if things were going to be better in another group. But courage broke through the uncertainty. Based on the information I had at that time, I just played my best move.
So, how did it go?
It was messy. There wasn’t a blueprint for how to change labs in the middle of your PhD. Switching PhD supervisors is not rare at all, but the stigma that goes with it made the situation feel like I was about to orchestrate a criminal offense. Anxiety never subsided, but I did it. Halfway through my third year, I started again in a new lab.
The emotional state of defeat after hitting the reset button was like suffering a season-ending injury. Almost three years of work dematerialized on the spot. While I anticipated that hit, the collateral psychological burden attacked as an ambush.
I acquired the label of “selfish” from the lab I departed. I earned the badge of “lab refugee” from some members of the group that adopted me. I was also categorized as a “broken toy,” but I guess the intentions were in the right place with that one.
The first-gen PhD student designation was enough — I didn’t need all these add-ons.
Another layer of the PhD life after switching labs was engaging in the inevitable trap of comparison. My peers were publishing, going to conferences, and defending their dissertations — as 4th and 5th-year students do. Meanwhile, I was back at assembling a new thesis committee and writing a new thesis proposal.
Initially, I dealt with this comparison trap by implementing strict boundaries. For example, I disregarded department newsletters, symposium invites, and everything that would emphasize the feeling of being behind. There are probably healthier ways, but that was my way to put on the blinders and keep going.
Finally, I worried incessantly about how everything would look on my resume and CV. For example, will it be seen as a potential red flag? I agonized over writing personal statements and preparing for job interviews, thinking about how to address the situation most honestly and professionally.
After all, nobody cared. Nobody asked. Nobody brought it up.
In the end, it just worked out. It was tough… but it just worked out. I moved on, and it just became another line on my resume.
And now just another blog post.
