Chemjobber

A while back, Tehshik Yoon complimented the "I Quit Graduate School in Chemistry" pieces, but asked for stories where people indeed stayed in graduate school, they overcame a challenge and it worked out for them.

I am not done posting "I Quit" stories -- I still have four or five to edit and post. But now that @chemtips has gone and written about the series (for which I thank him), I feel duty-bound to invite success stories as Professor Yoon asked for them:

...So I’d really like to hear some success stories as well.  Tell me about times that the system worked: folks who had a hard time in grad school but ended up in good places; mentors who did the right thing by their students; stories of women, minorities, and LGBT students being supported by the field.

So, with that, I am asking for those stories, or any of them that you choose to post. E-mail them to chemjobber@gmail.com - confidentiality guaranteed. Also, I am posting the first two in that series today. 

All these stories people are sharing assume people went to grad school for the same reasons and got there on similar paths.  At least for me, the backstory is important in understanding why I “left” with a master’s degree.  (I think it is interesting to point out that chemists consider it “leaving” with a master’s degree, while the rest of the world considers it “graduating” with a master’s degree.) 

What was the plan going into grad school? 

I came out of undergrad in the mid 90’s with biochem and chemistry degrees.  This was pre-internet, so for you younger readers please keep in mind how much more difficult it was to get information back then.  I went to grad school because I’d had a “pair of hands” research job in undergrad at a government lab that showed me I’d need to take my education further to have a satisfying career.  I also felt like I didn’t know nearly as much as I should about either biochem or chemistry.  Much of that feeling stemmed from my lack of engagement during undergrad, mostly a result of me having a little too much fun while I was there.  Being interested in both biochem and chemistry, my plan for grad school was to learn more about what tied them together - organic chemistry - by getting a master’s degree.  My naïve perspective at the time was that people went to graduate school to get graduate degrees, meaning either a master’s or a PhD.  I would certainly find out later that chemists do not see grad school in that light.   

I applied to two large Midwest US schools which were in the top ten for chemistry grad schools, not necessarily because I thought I belonged there, but mostly in an effort to stay near my future wife, who would be at our undergrad institution for two more years.  Thankfully I got into the one closest to her and we’d be able to see each other most weekends as the drive was only an hour and a half.  I also would be able to see many of my undergrad friends on weekends, which I now realize allowed me to keep some perspective on life outside of grad school by maintaining a social circle that typical grad students can’t access.   

Why did you leave?  Your thought process in leaving? Was it deliberate (over a period of time) or sudden?    

Without going into a ton of detail, it was relatively apparent to me in my first semester that I was towards the bottom of the talent pool of the incoming organic chemistry class, but I was enjoying the experience.  The process of joining a group was something I was wholly unprepared for compared to my peers.  I don’t remember exactly when or who I had this conversation with, but I was asked by one professor whose group I was considering joining why I came to grad school.  When I revealed the plan to intentionally get a master’s degree, I was told “the way it worked in this department”.  I quickly started to limit disclosure of my intentions to potential advisors and peers in conversations, now realizing that I was there to do something everyone else viewed as a failure.  In my own mind though, I took a “let’s see what happens” attitude.  If I ended up liking it, maybe I’d stay for a PhD.  If I didn’t, I would leave.

1. Why did you leave? 

So a little background first.  I graduated from [small prestigious college] in Chemistry with a strong desire to go into theory.  I was awarded a [redacted] Fellowship to study for a year in [European country X] in [redacted], and I deferred my admission to [University of West Coast].  While in [European country X], I applied for and was selected for a 3-year [redacted] fellowship. 

While in [European country X] I had changed my focus, or rather, grown disillusioned with electronic structure theory.  So when I arrived at [University of West Coast], I wanted to join the lab of [Professor D], instead of [Professor G].  [Professor D] resisted, saying he already had accepted the three students he had funding for.  Me, being an idiot, said, "Well, I have an [fellowship], so you don't need to fund me."  I did not realize that he was saying "no." 

At [University of West Coast], theoretical chemistry students are expected to take graduate quantum mechanics in the physics department.  So I did.  The problem sets were incredibly difficult.  Midway through the second semester I discovered that most of my fellow students had copies of the answer keys, handed down from previous years.  Stupid me: I thought I was supposed to do the work myself.  This was a further disillusionment. 

At the beginning of second semester, we got four new [redacted] machines, two of which had to be set up headless because we didn't have room for 4 new stations.  I took this on and executed it competently.  I got no acknowledgement or thanks for this, except that I was selected to be the lab sysadmin.  Later that month, when there was a planned outage, I came in on the Saturday to supervise the restart of all the machines.  Everything booted okay, but there was a network outage due to a router in a locked cupboard we could not access.  I decided to go home until this was sorted out. [Professor D] called me to chew me out because the group website was down. 

This is all background.  The best part is later. 

2. Your thought process in leaving? Was it deliberate (over a period of time) or sudden? 

Despite all that I was still interested and excited about doing theory.  We were each assigned a project to present at group meeting; my date was in [the middle of the year].  I had worked as a programmer at a [larger corporate organization], so I knew a bit about software development and planning.  I planned out a development schedule, leaving extra weeks for troubleshooting and debugging, and two full months to run my (small) problem.  I explained my development plan at a group meeting [at the beginning of the year]. 

"Not good enough," said [Professor D]. "I want to see a prototype by Monday."
So I knocked together a prototype over the weekend.  It only had to be a proof of concept, so I wrote it in [redacted computer language], but it worked.  I enjoyed the work, even though I did not like the artificially-imposed deadline. 

On Monday I brought my code in to show [Professor D].  He was away, on a planned trip.  He returned Wednesday evening.  Thursday morning I walked into his office and quit. 

I believe that if he thinks about it at all, he thinks that it was because I couldn't "hack it".  In a sense that's true: I respected myself too much to be willing to continue with a toxic boss and unpleasant workplace environment.  I had worked in the real world, briefly, and earned good money and had decent working conditions and a 40-hour work week.
I mooned around [University of West Coast] for a couple weeks, looking for someone who might take me in, but I couldn't find anyone who wanted me (no surprise, in retrospect).  So I withdrew from my grad program and gave up the [redacted] fellowship. 

I started working as a contract programmer for a previous client and tripled my income. 

3. Where are you now? 

Happily married, with three children, with [12+] years of self-employment as a programmer, owning a nice house which is 3/4 paid off.  If I had stayed in the academic track, I would have a chance of being tenured now.  Of my cohort of [small prestigious college] alumni, I know of one who is now tenured faculty at a top tier institution; some who are tenured at lower-tier institutions; and many who, after completing grad school, are now doing work that does not use their lab/research experience and does not require a Ph.D. 

4. Are you happy after leaving? How does the decision look to you now?  

Very happy having left.  I think it was the right decision, especially considering that the chance of getting a tenure-track position at that time (entered grad school [post-1995]) had already fallen precipitously.

Thanks to "Sam" for their story.  

This story is from QH; their story has been redacted for privacy and clarity by CJ:

[Recently] I left grad school with my M.S. after [3+] years of trying to work toward my doctorate. Things got progressively worse over time and I kept telling myself "this is bottom. now I'll bounce back." but I never did.

When I started grad school, I had already begun a successful research career as an undergraduate. When weighed against having to fight to get an entry-level job with medical benefits, versus the generous recruitment package laid out for me and the chance to get the prestigious degree, it was easy to see why I started.

I got lost along the way, though. All of the what I considered to be ancillary details (mostly computer programming in [various languages]) became a large focus of my day-to-day and was a terribly mind-numbing experience. Also, I lost faith in what I was doing. I'm rather proud of my two papers, but it just seemed so very small, and it was hard to see how what I was doing would ever be of any real help to anyone.

As things went on, my thought process shifted from "I'm going to become a player in this burgeoning field and make a name for myself" to "I'm just going to get out some papers, get the degree, and then move on to something else" to "I'm going to try to not get fired today."

It became increasingly difficult to be in the office without having panic attacks, or even to check my emails. This was despite being in [redacted] therapy a week for my anxiety and depression. At one point last year I was hospitalized [for a number of days] because I kept having disturbing thoughts about hurting myself. Even then, I didn't think about quitting.

Eventually, I basically got fired. My boss told me should would not support me come [further]. Luckily, we had set up a full-time TA position for [for the following term] which allowed me to plan my exit. I don't know what it would have taken for me to quit; I've never quit anything or really failed at anything before, and my self-esteem was so wrapped up in being a success.

But, as soon as I started to talk to my boss about getting out, I started to feel better. Every day I am realizing how much I have given up, and how my imagination had atrophied. I realize that there are so many things that I can do now. A friend asked me recently "what is my dream job?" Now I'm working on finding an answer to that question, starting by applying for anything I think I might get hired for.

Thanks to QH for their story.  

This story on leaving graduate school is from "IL"; it has been redacted/edited for clarity. It is longer, but worth it, especially for the comments on the difference between interviews at the M.S. and Ph.D. level.

Why did you leave? 

This is a very difficult question to answer succinctly. 

I was a fifth-year, post-oral exam, post-cumulative, post-classwork doctoral candidate when I left at almost the 6 year mark. I was not just starting out, I was not a "failure." I worked for an untenured professor, starting in [their] second year. I knew the hours would be long and hard, and I was prepared to put in the time. My group was tightly knit and worked 6-7 days a week together. Our adviser demanded at least 60 hours a week in the lab in addition to teaching almost every semester. 

Sometime in my fourth year, everything changed. At the time, I was the go-to graphics guy in the group, and in charge of recruiting new team members. It had not been easy. My adviser and I had many long talks about if I was cut out for grad school in my first and second year. Once I had passed orals, I knew that I could do it, and steeled my resolve. This would have been my adviser's fifth year and [Professor C] was beginning the process of applying for tenure. We believe that [Professor C] was told we did not have enough publications yet for [they] to be awarded tenure. We had grant money, but [Professor C] had wanted each paper to be a full JACS-worthy publication so our group as a whole was sitting on a lot of data. 

[Professor C] began to put pressure on the group, and that is when things fell apart. [Professor C] began adding authors to publications with "high-billing" to get them enough publications to graduate. Often these people were awarded second author to papers that they had zero involvement with the team that did write the article. This began seeding animosity within the group toward each other, and toward [Professor C]. 

[Professor C] began to press those that [they] knew would react by working harder. I myself did not have a single, first-author paper to myself. [Professor C]'s treatment of me changed overnight. Over the course of the next 6 months, [Professor C] started with accusing me of working less than 40 hours a week, transitioned to taking intentionally omitting my name from publications I made large contributions to, to the eventual accusation of falsifying data. 

My own adviser, a person I had worked for for almost 6 years at this point accused me of falsifying data. There was an argument. It got heated, and the volume of shouting increased to a full-blown screaming match on both sides. Within a week, a letter was submitted by my adviser to the graduate school resigning as my adviser, stating that when [they] brought evidence of my data manipulation to me, I physically and verbally lashed out at [them]. 

There was a judicial meeting between myself and my graduate committee. My adviser was pushing for my immediate dismissal from the program, but brought no evidence of [their] accusations to the meeting, and admitted that [they] had "nothing concrete" to substantiate [their] claims. I had been working with a member of my committee whom I trusted, as well as a collaborator from another university in forming my defense, which stressed the facts of the case, my notebook. 

Because my adviser refused to cooperate at all, I was presented 2 options: I could remain in the program and start a new research project with a new adviser, or I could take my notebooks, and prepare/defend a master's thesis. I chose the latter, and defended a Master's thesis without my adviser's sponsorship, to my committee, which [they were] allowed to remain a member of. 

Your thought process in leaving? Was it deliberate (over a period of time) or sudden? 

The entirety of that last year is a bit of a blur to me. I am a fairly large guy, and I had lost over 50 pounds during the course of fighting. I had at least one breakdown that resulted in a call to my girlfriend (now wife) in the middle of the night, telling her that I was suicidal. I did not sleep more than 2 hours a night (if at all), I was sick constantly, and as therapy had adopted a pet because I realized that I would not be able to end my own life if something else depended on me. 

I tried for 3-4 weeks to find a new adviser, determined to finish what I had started. Unfortunately, having such a public battle with my adviser had negative connotations when asking new advisers for their help. I can not even remember what friend it was that I was discussing all of this with at the time, but someone asked me why I was fighting so hard, what did I hope to gain? I realized that I did not have an answer anymore. My original goal was to become a professor. I loved teaching. The experience had changed my views so much that I no longer wanted that life.  The final decision was immediate. I was done. 

Where are you now? 

I graduated in [2005-2008]. In the [7-10] years since, I worked in the pharmaceutical industry. I started with synthesis, since it was more applicable to my research, but eventually moved to analytical method development. 

I now manage a lab of [more than 10] people for an international food testing company. I rarely work in the lab. 

Are you happy after leaving? How does the decision look to you now? 

At the moment, yes. I am approaching my second year in management and find this work far more fulfilling. I changed my path after 6 years in Pharma because there is a level of what we always jokingly called "academic snobbery." For years, my opinion was invalid because of the lack of degree level and that was the most frustrating part. It can get better, and I made my own path to get there. Outside of work, I do have hobbies again, something that was impossible. 

I talk to one person from my group. She was the only person who backed me during the process. No one else wanted to risk their own degree by challenging my adviser. I have succeeded in my own way. I know that I have lost salary (I make less than members of my group made as their starting salaries at Merck or Dow or Rohm and Haas. I was forced to burn a bridge and interview for jobs where a large portion of the interview would inevitably focus on the question, "so five years, and you only had a master's? Can you explain what happened there?" 

I do not get to talk about science in my interviews, at least not nearly to the degree that a PhD does. I remember watching my friends brush up on their thesis defense before interviews because they were asked to present a talk as the main portion of their interview. I have been on many interviews, and was asked to give one presentation (I was offered a position). For years, until I gained enough experience to talk about my job's performance, I had to lie or avoid the question above like the plague. 

That is the shortest version of my story that I can present. It is far more complicated... Obviously. Was I a rockstar grad student? Did I publish 6 papers in 4 years and graduate? No. I understand this. I have notebooks upon notebooks that I was not allowed to take of failed experiences. I spent 5 years stumbling through what would not work, so that others could build off of what I did learn. 

My adviser has continued to exploit [their] group for [their] own benefit. The last I checked [their] group was all but dissolved, and [Professor C] had not only received tenure, but also had been promoted to [an administrator] of the entire chemistry program. 

I hold no pride in my program, or the opportunities my degree did present me. The system is different at every school, and that may be the largest problems. We had undergrads move on and go to other schools for grad school and complain that at their school students had so many avenues to appeal when at my school, the professors largely had all of the power. I applied for a "formal" judicial review, but the committee only met every six months and my adviser was only being forced by the department to pay until the end of the semester... well short of the judicial review process. I had a very limited avenue to fight, and at my school the prevailing attitude was that the professor was always correct and if you were having problems that grad school was just "not right for you."

Thanks to "IL" for their story. 

Why did you leave? What was your thought process? Was it deliberate (over a period of time) or sudden? 

It was sudden. I was in my fourth year in grad school, and I had a meeting with my advisor. He thought that I was not likely to finish my degree in finite time, and that I did not have the package of abilities that people would expect from a Ph.D. - primarily, the ability to prosecute a research plan from (almost) start to finish. I was surprised, and saddened, but it made sense. I talked to my parents about it, but they didn't have much to add, other than being parents. I didn't feel like I had much choice in the matter, but at the same time I could not escape the logic of it, because I felt that my advisor's judgment was accurate. 

I had had a harder time joining a research group than expected, for a variety of reasons; to start, I didn't really have enough experience in lab or perhaps enough skills there to do what I wanted, and a lot of other people my year did. I also don't think I thought about grad school in the way that Derek Lowe and lots of others understood it - as something to learn from and succeed at and leave as soon as practicable. I didn't understand what I was trying to do, other than learn neat stuff, and I didn't know enough about the practice of research to know where I ought to be going. My advisor's research group was large; I received help (as lots of people do) from my postdoc and others in the group. I have assumed that I would have been better off in a smaller group, but I am not sure what I expect to have gained from a different environment. I don't think I put in as much work as I should have. I had worked on some different projects and had not made much progress on any of them. My group tended to publish a lot, and I showed no signs of having publishable research in a reasonable amount of time. All these things should have been clear earlier, but I was somewhat oblivious. 

Where are you now? 

I started looking for a job; my job search went only slightly better than my research, although at least with my job search I had a goal (that I knew about). I was supported by my advisor. My undergraduate advisor helped a lot; I had talked to him about my situation, and some of the issues that had become (finally) apparent to me (my lack of facility in lab) had been apparent to him earlier. He thought that maybe I could work with chemistry outside the lab, and knew of people who were looking. I was nervous, but figured it might be interesting. I managed to get an interview at [a firm related to the chemical industry], and when I went there decided that it was something I could do. Fortunately, they decided that maybe I could do that as well. I went to work there and have been working there for almost twenty years. I had thought about trying to work in pharma, if I could, but my not-great research experience would have made that a poor idea, which is fortunate for me, I think. I have done OK at my job - probably not as well as my pedigree would suggest I should, but OK.  

Are you happy after leaving? How does the decision look to you now? 

I was happy leaving. I don't think grad school was slavery or anything like that; I was happy with the idea of getting paid to learn interesting chemistry, but I don't think I understood exactly what I should be doing, and I was not mature enough yet to understand what was going on, or even that something was going on. That made grad school much less fun that it might have been for others, and I was weary of my lack of progress and lack of development. I liked the people I met in school, and the chemistry going on around me, and I wasn't ambitious or hard enough to make my own mark in it. I didn't like failing. I was glad not to feel guilty over time not in lab. My job allowed to me to see lots of chemistry and to do some of things that I enjoyed and could do well from it. Eventually I made friends, and found some strength socially. I was timid at work until I found that I could be useful and do things, and that helped too. I am a lot different now than I was when I left grad school, but I don't know if being in grad school hindered my progress in these areas, or it was just a matter of having time and growing up.
While my maturity and ability at research were problematic, I still was interested in chemistry. I think I learned to appreciate the chemistry that was going on that I had not appreciated initially, and seeing people I knew find success doing chemistry makes me happy (I don't feel like their success is something I should have had). I have access to lots of chemistry literature. 

I don't have a good a picture of what was in my head at the time; I think I accepted it because I had to and got on with it. I think, though, that the conclusions my advisors made about me were correct. I think I might have done better at a smaller school and group, perhaps, though I might not have. I needed to have a better idea of how grad school worked and of my own chemistry strengths and weaknesses before I went on to grad school. It seemed like the theory that I picked up that it would be harder to go to grad school after working and making money (and getting used to having stuff), but the experience, of doing real chemistry, of the structure of actual research, and of trying to accomplish specific tasks to that end probably would have helped me more than hurt me. Having done more research before grad school (both in industry and in school) would have been a good idea, so that I could learn to do research and to (perhaps) find something I wanted to do if I could not.

 Thanks to "LSN" for their story. 

I quit graduate school (not chemistry but a closely related field) after 3 years, around the time I was starting to write up my thesis.

Why did you leave?
A combination of reasons:
I wasn’t enjoying my project. This had been getting slowly worse over time and I was at a stage where it just didn’t interest me at all.
I was already pretty sure that I wasn’t going to stay in academia long-term. Job security, pay, work culture were all rubbish.
I was offered a good job in another field on about the same money as I would have been looking at as a post-doc.

Your thought process in leaving? Was it deliberate (over a period of time) or sudden?
Pretty sudden. It happened over a couple of weeks, from job offer, approach, interview, then making the decision to leave. In hindsight I think the job offer was crystallised a number of things that I’d been thinking about in the background for some time.

Where are you now?
At the same place that offered me the job, now in a higher position.

Are you happy after leaving? How does the decision look to you now? 
Very happy. If you go by Vinylogous’ criteria then it was the right decision at the time, and nearly ten years on it’s looking like an even better decision.

It’s funny looking back at it, literally everyone who I talked to treated my decision as some sort of mistake and told me that, oh, I must write up my thesis and that I would regret it if I didn’t. No-one said anything positive about it or treated it as if it could have been a good decision under some circumstances. As it currently stands, all of these people were wrong. It is possible that my lack of a PhD might cost me something later on, but it hasn’t been an impediment so far. I am now happier, love what I do, am paid better and have way better job security than if I’d tried to stay in academia.

I hope that reading this makes people realise that sometimes quitting grad school can actually work out to be a good choice.

Thanks to "P" for their story.  

Why did you leave? Your thought process in leaving? 

A number of reasons come to mind in retrospect.  

First, there would be reasons what I now classify under environmental factors. I belonged to a small town in the midwest and moved to [California] for my PhD. [Big West Coast City] itself was hard to deal with---too many people with too much attitude, and I hardly had a group of friends/ acquaintances in the city, or even in California. House prices were expensive and I with the meager stipend (which was actually not that bad) I ended up with a rather s---ty studio in downtown [Big West Coast City] where going out late night meant trouble. Again, I enrolled in spring, which is rather rare for doc students. I was the only spring admit and that did not help since I ended up with seniors and juniors and no one of my cohort to crib to.  

Then there were other reasons---more important perhaps. I was brilliant in chemistry in my undergrad and ended up getting national scholarships for grad school. Which caused me to build up some hubris and made me think I could conquer everything. I had previously done research and published one solitary paper (though in a good journal) in inorganic chemistry. Now I heard that there were no jobs for inorganic and combined with my confidence (and a great talk by my future adviser) I 'changed' to total synthesis of large pharmaceutically relevant molecules.  

Total synthesis is hard and I sucked at it. Further our lab had a 'no one really wants to help anyone else' attitude which didn't help. I did not know all the techniques and getting it from others meant enduring a lot of crap (including the oft made suggestion that I should leave for a future elsewhere since synthesis was obviously not for me). The beating on my self confidence needed to end and I was soon looking for other stuff. I would have thought it was just me, but there were others later who endured the same and left.  

I first thought of changing labs, but my adviser was really supportive and had given me an RAship right from the beginning. I was grateful for that and wasn't sure what to do. Further, I thought that a career in chemistry is endless. A PhD and then a post doc would eat at least a huge chunk of my twenties. I wanted to change fields, and went on to do a MBA at a top school. I reasoned that a MBA will propel me to jobs (an undergrad degree in chemistry seems to lead nowhere) and I was correct. I announced to my adviser my decision to leave and he was rather upset (to be fair he had a lot invested in me) but I managed to get a MS (though not his recommendations). 

Where are you now? 

Perhaps not getting a PhD was a bit self defeating and I was keen to prove I was not a quitter (though quitting isn't bad in any way). After my MBA I worked a couple of years and went on to do a doctorate (yes a PhD!) in economics. Economics had no relation to chemistry and maybe since it was a non-lab based subject, I didn't have to rely on co-workers for support. I always seem to have good luck with supervisors and this time around I also had good mates and collaborators. I managed to overcome a new subject, publish and join the federal government though I hope to be in a tenure track position in a good university soon. 

Are you happy after leaving? How does the decision look to you now?  

I am glad I left, but I am also bitter. I had invested just 1 1/2 years in my PhD and sometimes I feel I did not stick around to give it my best shot. Some other times I feel thankful that I left early and did not get stuck in a mess as some of my peers did (one of my labmates left without a pub in [their] 7 1/2 year PhD, another quit after 4 years. However one of my seniors, an international doc student from China left with over 5 pubs including a Nature just to illustrate both sides of the story).   

Yet during other times I long to go back and finish my PhD, perhaps at a different school. I am so much older and more mature and I feel I have the ability to do a PhD in just about anything now.  

But I also have a job, a wife and a whole host of animals and a tiny farm--- a second PhD would mean giving all that up. Some nights I think about how different my life might have been, but in the mornings I am back to building stochastic frontier models, a far cry from the Heck couplings and Wittig reactions and TLC plates which used to rule my life back then...

Thanks to "LB" for their story.  

CJ and I exchanged a couple tweets of the other day, in which I expressed a bit of ambivalence about his #IQuitGradSchool project. Tweets, of course, are a terrible way to capture complicated feelings, so CJ reached out and offered me the opportunity to explain what I meant in a guest entry on his blog. 

So first of all, let me say that I essentially like the project.  What I like most about it is the same thing I like in general about chemistry blogs and Twitter and so on: I think it’s valuable whenever we speak openly and honestly about our experiences in graduate school.  Everybody struggles through the difficult transition from undergrad to grad school, and I think it helps us all feel less bad about it when we realize that this is true. 

In the stories that CJ has posted so far, I like the fact that so many respondents say they’ve landed in good places after leaving grad school, professionally and personally. And I think that’s a really important thing to acknowledge: leaving the PhD track is sometimes a good decision.  An MS is not some mere consolation prize, and it would be a mistake to consider it a personal failure. 

On the other hand, it’s also true that leaving graduate school is not the right decision in every case.  It would be great to get a little balance in the stories that are getting told here. 

So I’d really like to hear some success stories as well.  Tell me about times that the system worked: folks who had a hard time in grad school but ended up in good places; mentors who did the right thing by their students; stories of women, minorities, and LGBT students being supported by the field.

I set out on this project to learn from people who left graduate school and that's what I feel I've been doing by blogging about this. I still have at least 4 or 5 stories yet to edit and I plan on writing more about what I've learned.

I like Prof. Yoon's suggestion that I solicit stories from people who feel they succeeded in graduate school in chemistry, especially those who feel they overcame a barrier. I am committed to hearing from (and telling my readers about) as many stories of graduate school in chemistry as people want to tell. Thanks to Prof. Yoon for the suggestion. 

Today's story on leaving graduate school is from "E"; it has been edited for clarity and privacy.

Why did you leave? 

I came from a small undergrad school [in the South] and joined a medium sized grad school [in the Midwest] to do some synthetic organic research. My advisor was very hands-off and laid back, and didn't have me really working on anything until after my first year of classes were done. I began my initial research in my second year with the help of a [redacted] exchange student. Even though the research wasn't going well at all, I ended up becoming great friends with the guy. 

By the time he was ready to leave, we looked back at the number of failed reactions, out of service instruments, expired/impure reagents, and our dwindling hours spent in the lab. I realized after he left how bad it was. 

I started getting severely depressed before the two year mark. I wasn't hanging out with anyone. I wasn't talking to anyone. I was reading stories of suicide online. I met my roommate's friend and we stayed up all night talking about my situation. She told me to consider quitting and going back home. But as Vinylogous wrote, I thought "I've already put in 2 years, so it would be a waste of time to quit now". 

But things were getting worse. One night I went to the lab around midnight and recrystallized a large vial of KCN and sat there on the verge of tears. If things didn't get better, I was going to just end everything. I cannot tell you how close to suicide I was. I had failed everything and everyone. I would never have my dream job.  

Your thought process in leaving? Was it deliberate (over a period of time) or sudden? 

I talked with my peers that had been there for 5, 6, 7 years. I could not handle this that long. I asked my advisor what I had to do to end with a master's. He replied "you're done when I say you're done". 

I took my bike home and started applying for every job I could find back home. I called everyone. I flew home for 3 days for two interviews. My friends and family were very supportive. When I got back to [the Midwest], I went in for a week and the depression came back. One night i went in again at midnight and cleaned up my desk and lab space.
I stayed home the next week. I didn't leave the apartment. A few days in, around 10AM, people were banging on the door. My lab partners, my advisor, and the police were all knocking and yelling for me to come out. I didn't answer the door. I packed all my stuff in boxes that night. A couple days later, I woke up early and put everything in my car. It was snowing, and absolutely miserable outside. As I was finishing, the 7th year student saw me and said "Where have you been? Everyone is looking for you!" and in the snow I replied "Tell everyone I'm sorry. I'm going back to [my home]." 

I cried for most of the ride home. 13 hours later, I met with my family and was overwhelmed with the support and relief. I was going to get back on track. 

Where are you now? How does the decision look to you? 

Two years later, here I am. I work for a [large pharma] and I wouldn't have it any other way. I have a great salary, great pension, great friends, and I live close to the beach. Life could not be better for me. I am so glad I got out when I could. The depression was so real - each time you refer to quitting grad school in one of your posts I am reminded of my decision.

Thanks to "E" for their story. 

Our latest submission in "leaving graduate school in chemistry" is from "G"; it has been edited for privacy and clarity.

Why did you leave? 

I left graduate school (organic chemistry) with a Master's degree after 3 full years.  I had been doing semi-successful research for nearly that entire time and received praise from my advisor for my research and laboratory technique.  I had passed all of my cumulative exams, and I was working at a top school. 

Leaving early was not an easy decision.  I had entered graduate school 110% determined to earn a PhD, no matter what.  [This perhaps stemmed from my failings in childhood; quitting drum lessons and the junior-high basketball team had left a scar on my psyche, and I was dead set against ever quitting anything again.] 

I've since learned not to deal in absolutes.  I had to adapt to a changing situation. 

Eventually, clinging to my desire to earn a PhD actually made me miserable. I had joined my group under the premise that I would be allowed to work on a synthetic project.  I had devised the synthesis independently.  It was interesting and very challenging work.  But everything changed when this primary project was canceled, despite making significant advances over the course of about 18 months. 

My advisor wanted me to take up a methodology project in its place.  I had little interest in the work and voiced my concerns.  Nevertheless, due to my laboratory skills and the importance of the work, my advisor assigned me against my will. I asked the department head about changing groups, to no avail.  I tried to work on the new project diligently, but I could not get excited about it.  Results were unspectacular and barely publication-worthy.
 
Ultimately, it became very clear to me that earning a PhD while working on this particular project was not going to pay off well.  I would be forced to do at least another two years in post-docs before I would be considered a good job candidate.  As landing a job in industry was the end-game, I made the tough decision to leave. 

Where are you now? How does the decision look to you now?   

I have never regretted the decision.  As a Master's-level organic chemist, I find it much easier to find interviews and jobs than PhD chemists.  I can usually find at least three interviews (5-7 in the "pre-Chemjobber" days) any time I want to change jobs (or get laid off!).   

I have built a solid reputation as a hard worker, and I have the ability to perform independent research.  As such, I have always been promoted to PhD-levels of responsibility and salary with each employer.  I have found it virtually impossible to progress beyond entry-level PhD positions, but I make a good salary and I'm completely satisfied where I am.  Besides, I don't have the work-related burdens of the PhDs I work with, and I leave my work at work every night.  I feel blessed. 

That's my story in a nutshell.  I don't recommend anyone enter graduate school lightly (I pondered the decision for at least a year and sought a lot of advice from elders), nor do I recommend that one leave flippantly (it took me almost a year to decide to leave early). 

But each person and each situation is unique, and "quitting" grad school may work out in your favor.

Thanks to "G" for their story. 

Our latest story on leaving graduate school is from "KT"; it has been edited for privacy. It is longer, but absolutely worth it, with such good themes (transitioning from smaller schools to grad school, irreproducibility problems and PI issues) and worthwhile ending thoughts.

1. Why did you leave? 

2. Your thought process in leaving? Was it deliberate (over a period of time) or sudden? 

I'll answer both of these at the same time. I got started off on the wrong foot from the beginning, and made some mistakes that are clearer in hindsight. I didn't hit it off with my cohorts who started in the same year and subdiscipline as me, and was slow to make friends until I joined a lab. My first few months, I'd go to class, go to my TA assignment, and then go back to my apartment. It didn't help that I had foolishly chosen an apartment in a heavily undergrad-populated area avoided by grad students, so even though I was close to campus, I didn't live near any of my classmates.  I regret that I didn't join some clubs and activities when I first arrived on campus - having come from a small undergrad where everyone knew each other, I didn't realize the importance of joining clubs at a big university. 

In November of my first year, I joined my advisor's group. I was taking a graduate course he taught at the time and enjoying it, so it seemed like a safe choice. The grad students in his group were friendly, and said nice things about working for him. We had some known slavedrivers in my department, and he wasn't one of them. Things seemed to be looking up for a while, as spending time in the lab building put me in social contact with others, and I soon began to make friends. 

My project was supposed to build on the work of two students before me. [Grad student A] graduated shortly before my arrival on campus, and was the group's golden child. [Grad student B] graduated the spring of my first year, and was widely considered to be a marginal grad student in both ability and work ethic, although our advisor liked him more personally than academically. I had trouble reproducing work from both of them, and things started to go sour sometime around the summer of my first year. Every meeting with my advisor turned into a verbal beat-down, and my well-meaning labmates told me that they had to endure it too, it was just part of getting a PhD, and he was only doing it to help me and make me a better scientist. Even as it gradually became clear to everyone but me that he didn't want me around, I kept believing what I had been told, that this was some kind of boot-camp experience that would make me a PhD chemist if I endured it. As my second year went on, I bit the bullet through an increasingly miserable life of verbal beatings from an advisor I had become terrified of. 

Outside the lab, my social life had improved considerably. When my lease expired the summer of my first year, I moved to an apartment complex loaded with grad students in my department. We spent many happy evenings at the local bars, drinking away the stress of long days in the lab. During my second year, my friends started to notice I was drinking too much (even for a grad student). I never went to lab drunk, but I came in hung over on weekday mornings increasingly often, and several times my friends were upset with me for drunken behavior that I didn't remember the next day. 

Sometime during my second year, my advisor became frustrated enough with my inability to reproduce work by "B" that he took that part of the project away from me and assigned it to a new grad student. I was unable to get rid of an impurity peak in a spectrum, no matter what I tried. When asked about it in an email from my advisor, "B" assured him that he seldom if ever saw this peak. After the new grad student was also unable to eliminate the peak, our advisor went through "B"'s files, which revealed that he always did see this peak, and the spectra in his thesis were cropped to avoid showing the troublesome peak. Even though I was vindicated, I was already beaten down to the point that the quality of my work had become poor, and my advisor was constantly hollering about how perfect "A" was and demanding that I be more like her. 

In the fall of my third year, I was gritting my teeth through one of my meetings / beatdowns with my advisor, and he told me that he thought I should cancel my prelim exam and leave with a master's. I was shocked at first (of course no one else was), but soon relieved to be leaving. My advisor offered to let me leave with a thesis master's, and the alternative would have been to sign up for classes in the spring semester to leave with a coursework master's.  At that point, I was so mentally worn down that I was barely able to come up with an acceptable thesis, but I managed to write up and vacate my lab workspace just before Christmas of my third year. 

3. Where are you now? 

I'm in my mid-thirties, and I work in industry.  One benefit to having a master's and not a PhD is that I can choose where I live. Many of my friends from grad school see their parents once a year at Christmas, even if they aren't dealing with the two-body problem. I'm back in my hometown and I have a good job, and at least one of these probably wouldn't be the case if I had finished my PhD.  

Additionally, I was able to find a new job after a layoff without having to move - not an easy feat for someone with a PhD. The job I do is an interesting blend of bench chemistry and business responsibilities that a PhD would probably be considered overqualified for, but still at a high level of scientific challenge - not the beaker-washing drudgery that people go to grad school to escape. 

4. Are you happy after leaving? How does the decision look to you now?  

Leaving was clearly the right decision for me, but I regret not doing it sooner.  It was hard for me to admit failure to my family, friends, and undergrad professors back home, and I tried to force myself to stick it out long after it was obvious things weren't going well. In my mind, I was no different than the partiers and potheads who dropped out of high school or flunked out of undergrad.  It took me a long time to realize that to anyone outside my field, I graduated with a master's rather than failing grad school.  In hindsight, if I hadn't been so fearful of letting people down, seen that things weren't going well in my second year, and signed up for classes to get a coursework masters, I could have been done sooner and at less cost to my sanity. 

I contemplated suicide many times in grad school, and this scares the hell out of me looking back. I had heard whispers about past grad student freak-outs, but in the early days of the Internet, stories like Jason Altom's were little more than rumors. I'm glad I didn't do something like that, and I think today with Facebook, it's more likely that a grad student going off the rails would be noticed by family and friends back home. I did have some good friends in grad school, but they didn't know me before, and didn't have a baseline to see the changes taking place in me. 

My drinking went back to normal (at least what could be considered normal for a guy in his mid-twenties) once the stress of grad school was removed.  Aside from this, it took me a long time to recover after I left. As an undergrad, I had made great strides from being an awkward, nerdy high schooler, and was gaining confidence with dating at the time I graduated. I didn't regain the self-confidence my 21-year-old self had until I was about 30, several years after I left grad school. This is the biggest regret I have - I'm feeling good about myself now in my mid-30s, but I could have been feeling this way throughout my 20s if I had never gone to grad school, or had left sooner. 

Looking back, I'm glad I didn't leave the field. When I left grad school, I was so fed up that I never wanted to see the inside of a lab again, and I only applied to chemist jobs because they paid better than the kinds of entry-level cubicle-farm jobs that hired humanities majors. I didn't really want to be a chemist anymore at the time. Once I was out of the toxic environment of academia, my love of science slowly came back. 

One thing that made me feel vindicated was meeting the spouse of golden child "A" when we worked at the same company for a time. [They] had worked for a different PI in my department, and like "A" had graduated shortly before my arrival. I was shocked to discover that the group's golden child hated and feared our advisor as much as I did. 

One change I would like to see in academia is HR departments with teeth, more like those in industry. An industry boss would find himself in hot water for delivering verbal beatdowns, no matter what someone did to earn one. In academia, everyone looks the other way when this happens.  I'm not sure whether this is because university HR departments confine themselves to dealing with the payroll/tax/paperwork aspect of HR and stay out of topics like workplace behavior and sexual harassment, or if they do get involved in such matters, but only for people who are unambiguously unversity employees such as support staff. Others have commented on sexual harassment and mistreatment of female grad students, and I recall there weren't any consequences for this sort of thing, in sharp contrast to industry. If my advisor thought I wasn't that good, that's his decision, but he could have gotten rid of me a lot more humanely.

CJ here again: thanks for KT for their story. Readers, what do you think about the concept of a HR department in academia that would look after graduate students? 

This entry on leaving graduate school is from "Z"; their submission has been edited for clarity and privacy.

1. Why did you leave? 

My life in the [Professor X's] group at that time was not very pleasant. [Professor X] has a reputation as a demanding hard-ass, and it's true that he expected everyone to put in a lot of time at the lab, and let's say he was sparing with his positive feedback. I don't hold it against him (anymore) because he put basically his whole life into his work and simply expected his students to have the same commitment. Some people did quite well in this environment, but I was not one of them. At some point I started to ask myself if I really cared enough about chemistry to be miserable for several more years, and I realized that the answer was 'No.' This was in [pre-recession times], when the common wisdom was still that it was easier to hire an MS than a PhD, and I thought I might as well take advantage of that. 

2. Your thought process in leaving? Was it deliberate (over a period of time) or sudden? 

The decision itself was rather sudden, but I'm sure it was bubbling in my subconscious for several months. I remember distinctly that I was at home late one night reading In the Pipeline, and some commenters were talking about the job market for MS vs. PhD students. It suddenly struck me to take the idea of leaving with an MS seriously. I talked about it with some friends in the group the next few days, and not long afterwards I decided to talk to [Professor X] about it. He was actually quite positive and it marked a slight thawing in our relationship. 

I said that I started taking the idea seriously that night and discussed it the following days, but I think the reality is that as soon as I had that idea, the decision was made. 

3. Where are you now? 

Shortly after I made a solid decision to leave with an MS, I finished up a project with a post-doc in the group (which led to my only publication), started the job search, and started writing my MS thesis and the exit process. I got a job in the process chemistry department at [large pharma Y], just before the market crash. I worked there for a little less than six years, then in [recently] my wife and I decided to quit our jobs and travel for a while. So at the moment I'm unemployed, but in an alternate universe where I make responsible life decisions I would still be at [large pharma Y.] 

4. Are you happy after leaving? How does the decision look to you now?  

Unquestionably it was the right decision for me. I felt liberated after making it, and much happier with my life after leaving. Like I said before, I simply don't have the passion for chemistry to put up with grad school long enough for a PhD. I also don't feel a particular need to prove myself capable of it; in fact I'm more than happy to admit that I'm not capable of it. Obviously I'm not very ambitious about my career so it never bothered me that not having a PhD would hinder me. 

I like doing lab work and working on technical problems and have no interest in moving into management, of projects or of people. 

Now, bear in mind that my experience comes from before the employment market became truly dismal. There's a good chance that not having a PhD now is going to screw me when it comes time to look for a job again. But I still don't regret leaving. It sounds paradoxical but it actually felt like making an active, positive decision with my life.

Thanks to "Z" for their story. 

This entry on leaving grad school in chemistry is by "W"; it has been edited for clarity and privacy:

Less than a week after passing my quals, my advisor came into my office, and just said, "I think it would be better for everyone if you went on to new things." He apparently had no intention of (and never did sign) the papers for my qualifiers, although he volunteered to write recommendation letters for me: the letters also never manifested. I talked with my co-advisor, and he said that I just wasn't going to cut it. When I went to talk to the rest of my committee, they were stunned and didn't know that this was part of the plan.

If I had just flat-out failed that first presentation and been asked to leave, I'd completely understand why I'd been kicked out of the program: I had done a horrible job. But since I was given a second chance, I assumed that meant I was actually being given a second chance.

So there's the long version of why I left. It was involuntary, and I was mad. (Clearly, I'm still a little mad.) I was given a token 3 months of stipend to finish the semester and find my next steps (as well as getting a non-thesis MS degree).

I had also just broken up with a long-term boyfriend, so my personal life was lacking. And I never liked the city I was in. I quickly determined that I was leaving, and going as far away as I could (geographically, politically, and socially).

While being mad at the world, I realized that while doing research was okay, I really liked tutoring, and had been doing so since middle school. I started looking at teaching programs, and applied to several. I earned my MEd.

What I realize now is that I would have been miserable if I had actually finished that degree. My advisor was correct: I'm not a good researcher. However, he could have been far more effective in his actual advising, including talking me out of the PhD.

I now teach high school chemistry and general science, and I love it. It's hard to call myself a "chemist" anymore, and am only (in some people's eyes) a chemistry teacher. There are times where I miss the academic nature of grad school, with the calls for data-driven education, and keeping up with discoveries. But for now, I get paid to make silly putty and blow things up, and I get to see the light in kids' eyes when I show them new things. I hope I give them far more encouragement than I ever received in that program. 

Thanks to "W" for their story.  

1. Why did you leave? 

It came down to physical and mental health.  I battled anxiety and depression, [constant medical problems], and probably more.  Our insurance at the time was a joke and I ended up taking out loans to pay medical bills.   

In retrospect, the stress wasn't all project/dissertation related, although I was working an unfunded project and constantly battling contaminated or broken equipment when I did get the instrument time I needed.  My boyfriends's (now husband) project was funded and progressing very quickly, and we faced potentially several years in difference between graduations.   

The big kicker... My advisor was having an affair with a graduate student in our group. They were very secret about it, but everyone in the department suspected.  So we were constantly fielding questions from interested parties.  It was very uncomfortable, and I didn't realize it was a form of sexual harassment until I attended a training a few years ago and found myself running out of the room crying at these memories. 

2. Your thought process in leaving? Was it deliberate (over a period of time) or sudden? 

For months, I could not eat breakfast until I had cried my nerves out while hiding at my boyfriend's desk. Then I would return to my lab/office and try to get work done.  I loved teaching far more than my research and established an exit plan with the graduate program in education.  I abruptly told my advisor in tears, stayed [some time] to finish up some loose ends, and started in education [the next term]. 

I suppose I could have switched groups, but I was facing a two-body problem and my advisor was [involved with student grievance procedures].  I had no idea who I could safely talk to without making my life more hellish than it already was (I'm not sure if the contaminated equipment I faced was deliberate or incompetence). 

3. Where are you now? 

I earned an M.Ed. in [redacted], along with my teaching certification.  I have taught as an adjunct or instructor at [many] different colleges and universities because of my chemistry coursework [which was completed in its entirety] and the teaching experience I gained in grad school.  I am healthy again. 

I currently teach as an adjunct in chemistry part time, mostly teaching labs, but I also teach [other fulfilling courses on occasion].  I spend most of my time with my [children] but get out into academia enough to not go stir crazy.  I use my education background to collaborate with my husband and contribute to my department.  We (not so jokingly) say that he does the work of two people, and it's practically necessary for me to do all of the cooking and such AND do things like revise his teaching philosophy so it includes actual educational terms. 

4. Are you happy after leaving? How does the decision look to you now? 

Financially, I'm not happy about the decision and the student loans I had to take on when I switched departments, but I cannot think of a more realistic choice I could have made.  I consider my teaching certification and the investment in it to be "insurance."
If something were to happen to my husband, I could move closer to family and take the required tests to get the state's teaching certificate and hopefully not have too much difficulty securing a job.  It certainly gave me a unique skill set that I bring to my department in contributing to student assessments or evaluating our labs for disability accommodations.  I don't do as much of those projects as I like, though, because I'm not paid to do them. 

I do like being able to work part time and still be at home enough to minimize the need for child care. I wish I had a more secure job though, and I wish I wasn't relegated to teaching general chemistry labs. 

I think what I hate most is having to explain over and over that I am not to be addressed as Dr. (to both students and faculty) because I am so often in positions where I am the only adult without a Ph.D.  That hurts.

Thanks to "S" for their story.  

1. Why did you leave?

First, I wasn't in a chemistry program but a pharmaceutical sciences program at Big State School. I had started working for a new professor who'd only been there a year - I was [their] third grad student. While a PharmSci department, our lab was an unabashed synthetic lab with a "med chem" veneer.  

After my first year the boss ran into a family situation: [their spouse] and kids moved across country for a very well paying job and [they were] stuck. [Their] frequent week long visits to [their] family led to some friction with the department which culminated in [their] summary termination. And that was that.  

The lab was dissolved, one grad student left the school and the two more senior students were unceremoniously shuttled to other labs to start over. I kinda lucked out in that I was given off to a collaborator in the department who was looking at the biosynthesis of my target molecule. They basically just cut me loose to continue working on my molecule knowing I’d have little help from anyone else if I found a serious chemistry issue. This wore thin very fast and six months after the change I told my new boss I was giving them a six month warning and then leaving with a masters. 

2. Your thought process in leaving? Was it deliberate (over a period of time) or sudden? 

I was very devastated immediately after being told that the lab was dissolving. The chemistry problems began to stack up and I became very disillusioned with the field in general. Reading the blogs didn’t help. This was a few years after the big market crash so my future seemed pretty bleak. I stopped working weekends and started keeping more normal business hours as I began to phone it in.  

As I said above, I chewed it over for about 6 months before telling my boss I was leaving. At that point I started finishing up what I could, which amounted to very little, wrote up my thesis, and began applying everywhere and anywhere. THAT was especially soul-crushing. Nearly 100 CVs sent all over the country for anything related to the field with nary a response. At the same time I seriously considered just leaving the field and began applying to jobs at different craft breweries. I had way more callbacks for those jobs but an offer didn’t materialize before I had a very tempting offer at Big Pharma. 

3. Where are you now? 

I am a medicinal chemist at a big pharma company. My job has changed several times since I started working here from a more, support/optimization chemist to a full blown med chemist. 

4. Are you happy after leaving? How does the decision look to you now?  

I think leaving was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. If anyone asks if I’d go back my answer is ‘no’. Full stop. No debate.  

While the decision was good, I would not consider myself overly happy right now. The job pays well and has excellent benefits; I however, find myself almost completely ambivalent towards chemistry. I enjoyed my first position a good deal since it dealt with just synthetic chemistry, no biology or SAR. I’ve come to realize I am not cut out for this and just CANNOT find the interest in the actual fundamentals of med chemistry. If I had been offered a job in a brewery post grad-school I would have taken it in a heartbeat. Even with the inferior pay I feel I would have been happier. I don’t see myself sticking to chemistry for the long run. I’ve burned out too badly and have been mulling options for a while now.

Best wishes to "Brett" and thanks to him for his story. Want to tell the world about leaving graduate school in chemistry? E-mail me at chemjobber@gmail.com  

1. Why did you leave?  

Quite frankly, I failed my first committee meeting. I've never felt confident in my background knowledge in chemistry (had to take all 8 cumulative exams to pass - most others finished in 5-6). After failing the committee meeting, I felt deflated. I couldn't imagine going through the process again a couple more times (successfully or not). 

2. Your thought process in leaving? Was it deliberate (over a period of time) or sudden? 

After my first committee meeting (in Sept), I avoided talking to my PI about rescheduling another one until he cornered me in January. We sat down in his office and it was right there and then that I decided I didn't want to continue. This was my third year of grad school and I no longer was a TA but I realized that I wasn't satisfied without the teaching component of the job. I was frustrated with research and couldn't get results that I wanted or could make sense of. Teaching those first two years were the most enjoyable part of my time, so I wanted to continue with that. Perhaps I had been thinking about leaving in the back of my head after the failed CM but I didn't actually commit to the idea until my meeting in January with my boss. 

3. Where are you now? 

I left with a master's and worked full-time as a lab instructor at another institution for four years before moving. After my husband finished his PhD (we started at the same time but at different schools), he was offered a job out of state, so I followed him. He had moved for me when I began my prior job, so I felt that I could return the favor. I am now an adjunct at the same university he is employed at. 

4. Are you happy after leaving? How does the decision look to you now?  

I am very happy. After deciding to leave, I felt like I had something to look forward to. Even though I could have left with my master's after making the decision, I stayed in the lab to work the rest of the semester (since I was under contract) and of course, my research progress started to go forward. I don't regret my decision - I think it would have be difficult if my husband and I were on the market at the same time. Given that our academic fields are very different from each other, it would have been unlikely that we could have landed jobs in the same university or town. I have been extremely fortunate to be hired at the same school he is fully employed and I think that not having a PhD did not matter in my employment. I'm also lucky that we are able to teach a course together as part of a unique learning experience at our school.

Thanks to "Y" for their story.  

I spent five years getting no results.  My supervisor was hired to be the director of a research institute at my university after spending years in industry and government labs in the States, and I was his first grad student.  The first year or so was lost in setting up the lab and waiting through renovations.  Another year was lost chasing a compound that a collaborating group had published (turned out later that the results they got were actually due to the steel walls of the pressure reactor and not the compound - and they got another paper to correct this). 

My difficulties were not entirely due to circumstances.  Synthetic research and I are not a good mix.  I've said in the past that I suck at research, and my supervisor told me not to be so hard on myself, because if the project had involved measurements or anything other than air-free metal complexes I would have had a much easier time. 

After banging my head against the wall for five long years, during which time I tried to write up and discovered my work filled 32 pages, including introduction and literature review, I admitted that it wasn't going to work.  My project was dead and never going to produce results, and while I had some momentum going on a side-project, I was just too burned out to carry on.  An hour after I sent my withdrawal notice, I got an email from the university telling me they were giving me the boot because of an unsatisfactory grade at a presentation six weeks before.  Efficiency has never been this school's strong suit. 

Rather than being crushed, I was actually relieved that the slog was over. The unwritable thesis was no longer hanging over my head, and I was so worn down at that point that I didn't really care my life's ambition had dissolved.  I had a sessional gig at a second-tier regional university, and they didn't seem to care that my promised credentials weren't going to appear.  After that, my current position fell into my lap.  It's a postdoc, but they knew they entire story and hired me anyway.  I've been far luckier than I deserve.

 Thanks to Steve for his story. 

From "N", their story of why they quit graduate school in chemistry:

There's a pervasive thought--"I've already put in 2 years, so it would be a waste of time to quit now." (Or however many years). But time already invested is a sunk cost. It doesn't matter how much time you've put in if you're not going to get anything out of the degree. Only three factors should matter when deciding whether to quit grad school: 

1. Am I happy right now? (Am I mentally healthy? Are there variables I can change about my current situation to make myself happier?) 

2. What is the future benefit of me getting this degree in comparison to not getting it? (is it necessary for your career? Is it limiting?)  

3. What am I missing out on by following through with grad school? (This is known as "opportunity cost" and includes the salary you could collect at a different job, time spent with friends, family, and your SO, traveling while young and unencumbered, etc).  

If the answers to those aren't positive, there's no reason to stay.

I don't feel qualified to talk about these questions and answers at all. Because of that, I would really like to hear from people who left graduate school in chemistry. I'd like to hear:

1. Why did you leave?
2. Your thought process in leaving? Was it deliberate (over a period of time) or sudden?
3. Where are you now?
4. Are you happy after leaving? How does the decision look to you now? 

While you're welcome to put submissions in the comments, I'd be happier to take e-mails for posts later. You know the e-mail address: chemjobber@gmail.com

UPDATE: Me, being an idiot. Confidentiality guaranteed, of course. Publication not until you say "yes, CJ, it is okay to publish."

(I feel like, someday, the blog should have a phone number and a voicemail box. That'd be awesome.)