The Best Way to Quit a PhD Program: Taking a Leave of Absence

The best way to quit a PhD program is to take a one-year leave of absence. During the year, you can try to put your life back on non-academic track. If, after one year, you want to come back - you are legally entitled to do so. Quite a few PhD students in our program took a leave of absence and came back to finish their degrees.

There are a few things you need to know in relation to taking a leave of absence:

• When you request one, don't burn the bridges by saying that you are sick of the program. Cite personal issues instead: health, the need to take care of your family member, financial situation, etc.
  
• Make sure you know the rules associated with leave of absence. For example, you need to find out whether you will lose one year of funding if you decide to do so
• Don't come back into the program because you haven't succeeded in finding a decent non-academic job. If you think that hiding out from real life for a few more years will solve the problem of figuring out your place in life, you are up for some serious problems in the future. You should only return when you are hundred percent sure you want to continue your academic career
  

When to Quit your Doctoral Program II

Here's one thing you need to understand in relation PhD experience. Having ups and downs during your PhD program (and especially during your dissertation stage) is absolutely normal. However, if one or more of the following is true, then you probably need to quit:

1. You suffer from depression (inability to concentrate, insomnia, feeling sad all the time, having no energy when you wake up in the morning, constant feeling of fear and anxiety, etc) for more than a few month
2. You did thorough research on the amount of time, money, and energy it will take to get a PhD and you think that, given the employment prospects, it's simply not worth it
3. You don't think you want to be a professor. Again, every researcher, no matter how successful he or she is, has some periods when he or she feels like quitting. However, if your attitude towards the profession doesn't change for more than a few months, then you should consider quitting.
4. You feel your work has an irreversible negative impact on your health. Trust me, losing your health to be a professor is not worth it. This career is not that lucrative and important to justify the sacrifice.
   

When deciding on whether to quit your PhD program, here are a few things I think you need to avoid:

1. Don't listen to your friends and family. Don't continue your PhD program simply because you feel obligated to them to get the degree. Despite having your best interest in mind, these people often have no clue what academia is really like. They are as naive as you were when you started your PhD program. They think that a PhD is a ticket to wealth and status, BUT IT'S NOT! I often meet quite intelligent people from outside of academia who think that a person with a PhD can land any high paying job he or she wants.
2. Don't be stubborn. I think most people who come into a PhD program are of the type who don't give up easily. They are used to finish everything they started despite all kinds of hardship. The thing is that you stubbornness may lead you to the same state of despair years and thousands dollars later. I would applaud a person who year after year keeps trying to become a millionaire, discover a drug against AIDS, or pursues some other big dream. But I would think that a person who is doing the same thing to get a hard, low-paying job of an English teacher is simply crazy.
   

On quitting PhD (some case studies)

The more I stayed in my PhD program, the clearer was my undersanding that quitting a PhD, especially in the first 2-3 years, is not such a bad idea.

Below are some case studies of people I actually new.

• Guy 1: Quit after his first year. Got out with a masters. Landed a 100K job immediately. He was a smart guy, that's probably why he quit so soon and got such a great job
• Guy 2: Quit after 3 years in the program. Immediately found a 80K job in the industry. He lives in a nice place and swears that he doesn't work more than 9 hours a day (and of course, doesn't work on weekends)
• Guy 3: Quit after approximately 5 years in the program. He wanted to finish, but since he had a family and funding had been lifted from him, simply could not afford to stay any longer. Found a 60K government job within a few month. Needless to say, works 8 hours a day max, great benefits, and has almost bullet-proof job security
• Guy 5: This guy was an independently wealthy retired businessman. A millionaire. Joined the program because he wanted to teach at a university. After he quit he told me he never worked so hard even in his glory days as a businessman.
  

When to Quit your PhD Program

The best time to quit your PhD program is no later than 1-2 years into the program. This is a perfect time to quit:

• You haven't wasted too much of your time and energy
• You are still healthy and motivated
• Your are still young and you don't feel guilty about starting all over (e.g. getting an unpaid internship)
• Usually, there a "golden parachute": you can quit after 2 years with a masters degree in hands. Some schools don't like students to get a masters instead of a PhD. This usually means that you got your masters for free. But there's very little that prevents you from doing so. What you can do is simply quit the PhD program and take a couple more classes to get your masters.
  

Many of my friends quit our program after 1-2-3 years and I think they made the right choice. All of them have high paying jobs in the industry and exciting personal life.

The longer you stay in the PhD program, the harder it becomes to quit. Here are some of the factors that make quitting hard:

• You feel guilty about writing off those 3-4-5 years... Actually, this may be a typical example of irrational economic thinking. Read about sunk cost in economics. The thing is that those years is a sunk cost. You will never be able to get those years back. If those years is a waste, there's no reason for putting more years into the degree. Here's a good analogy for your. Let's say you lost one million dollars in a casino. That money is a sunk cost: it's gone, you cannot get it back. So if you lost 1 million dollars, placing additional bets is not a good idea. Leaving the casino immediately is the best choice. Most PhD students are smart, but they can't understand this old and true principle. Emotions usually get into their way.
• The thought of staring everything over (e.g. getting an internship in your field) is very disturbing. Most people your age already have established careers, houses, families. You know you were smarter and more hard-working than those people. Yet you are forced to start working as their apprentice.
  
• You got brainwashed. You became persuaded that working long hours for minimum wage s the best deal in the world.
  
• You just don't want to change. You are afraid of the uncertainty. You realize that your life and career suck, but you are afraid of the unknown. You think it can be even worse if you quit.
  
• You have a low level of self-esteem. You had so much problems with your dissertation, you are not sure whether you can do well even working at a convenience store.
  

I think that many of these factors are simply irrational. Try sober yourself up a bit. Look at people around you. Many of them have cars, houses, boyfriends/girlfriends. And they don't have a PhD. You are probably not any worse than they are. You can live like that too. In fact, after so many hardships and sacrifices, you have become much smarter and experienced in life. You wanna work hard/play hard. If someone offers you a decent job with a decent pay, you will work much harder and smarter than people around you. You are hungry for life, which is a good engine for success.