Over the course of my grad school career, many of the people who started school at the same time as me have left the PhD program and pursued other endeavors. I feel a slight decline in morale every time I hear that someone (particularly someone I know well) is leaving the program, but the past year has been different because one of my labmates decided to leave grad school. She left at the end of May of last year.
I also had a series of frustrating technical difficulties last summer, which, combined with a loss of motivation, pessimism about my project, and the departure of my labmate who worked hours as odd as my own, led to a rapid decline in data output. It got to a head last November, when I was seriously considering leaving grad school and getting a terminal Masters degree; the only thing stopping me from doing so was the prospect of having to explain to potential employers why it took me over five years to get said degree.
The urge to leave struck again in late January, although I started exploring more options and found that I could take a leave of absence and come back afterward to finish. I also considered switching labs, but in the end, neither option would work well because (a) the project doesn't stop for me and (b) switching labs and starting over would mean it would take even longer before I got a doctorate.
I've talked to both current and former grad students, and my impression is that everyone in any sort of post-college education hits a wall sooner or later. Med students are "lucky" in respect that they can take time away from school, pick up where they left off, and graduate with the next class. Unfortunately, if I left for the summer, my advisor doesn't just have my project sit there until I come back. From November to January, I wondered what I got myself into, that this was not what I signed up for when I made the decision to go to grad school, and why I couldn't find it in myself to keep cranking out data at the same rate as before. I was almost convinced that I made the wrong decision and that I should have stopped earlier and gotten a Masters. But in the end, I knew that although I didn't want to write grants for the rest of my life, I wanted to teach at the college level, which required that I earn my doctorate. My advisor and I had a series of talks about that goal, and while he would revise his expectations of what constitutes a sufficient PhD, I would seek help and do what it takes to complete one.
I talked to one of my friends in med school recently; she told me that she had a string of bad luck over the past few months, but it straightened out somewhat in the end. We talked more about hitting the wall, and having that experience of questioning your life choices and panicking when you suddenly wonder if you made some terrible mistake (i.e. going to more school). At this point, neither of us feels like we're banging our heads on a wall, and most of the self-doubt is gone, although we would like a guarantee that what we're doing is the right thing. But for that, only time will tell.
