/sci/ - Science & Math

Is it normal to think about dropping out of graduate school every day?
Not really sure what I'm looking for in writing this post. I'm towards the end of the second year of my Ph. D. program in a STEM field. I have felt like I'm really not doing anything productive since COVID shutdowns started. I was only out of the lab for about 2 months. Current COVID guidance makes me uneasy about going in - do I really need to be there right now? The postdoc who I work with has told me a few times when I've been in working with him that he would perform an experiment and I don't need to stick around. Due to the nature of the work we do it isn't really possible to perform more experiments even if I were there, though I could help with some cleaning or preparation. Is doing clerical work such as making equipment/reagent purchases, and working on my reading / written exam documents, good enough? I feel like I am hardly contributing anything, which is giving me doubt as to whether I should continue in this program. At our weekly meetings it seems everyone else in my research group has some update on some experiments they are doing. Between getting my B.S. degree and entering the Ph. D. program I had an industry job where I knew where I fit in to the company, and could easily see how my work was useful. I feel as though I am more or less a leech here. The department has documents saying to consult with them as soon as possible if you are considering withdrawing from the program, but I don't have an exit strategy... I'm worried that starting that discussion will remove my option to stay in the program.

Thanks for reading my blog post. Also fuck reddit r/gradschool, they autodeleted this shit probably because I don't have enough reddit circlejerk points.

Hey /Sci/ do you think you could actually Measure pain? With numbers

bump with more dog pictures