I just submitted a draft of my schools version of a ‘recovery’ plan to my advisor to get back on track and to try and finish.
I’m a 5th year who has a paper. Developing results for an at this point theoretical dissertation from a wonderful dataset I collected myself for a project I got funded. I do want to finish at this point and then do like a lot of people and get into industry.
The theme of my time at my program beyond around the end of year 2 has been struggle. I failed my first round of quals. Passed the second time. The first paper took a long time. I got a project funded and my committee was very concerned about my glacial pace of results development in Feb when my project was well under ways Etc. So I have had issues and not a ‘I am struggling with my research’ kind of way. In a more fundamental way where learning the process of research has been difficult. So things have taken longer and I’m up against time now to finish up. I’ve had issues with lack of direction, confidence, and procrastination. I do have things going for me. I just wish I didn’t spend those middle years farting around trying to center myself onto a path. I have one now, research questions, great data and possibly a path to finish up relatively quickly. I am going to file paperwork in June for my programs masters (course based of which I have been able to fulfill) so I’ll have something to show at least for my time in school.
In any case this paints a picture for sure. I am curious how you would handle someone like me. Struggling through my program like this. One of my committee members flat out told me I should likely just master out. And while I heavily considered that for about a week. I came back with some renewed desire to see what I could do and get a masters in the meantime.