Struggle to regain lost passion in physics

Question

I am a PhD student currently in my second to last year. Last year something weird happened, my supervisor forced me into projects in which I was not interested. He forced me into collaborations which I didn't want. Actually, I had already written some papers in collaboration and was trying to work independently on my own ideas. But he didn't pay a lot of attention to my ideas and calculations and asked me to jump on projects which he felt could result in a paper really fast. I did it but it broke my spirit. Having to work on things I had no interest in made me lose my motivation.

I came into physics from another field. I could have gotten a wonderful job but I left it all for physics because I love it. But after being forced to work on things that didn't interest me multiple times and not letting me do my own stuff and not paying attention to them, I lost all interest in the field. Everything felt like a waste of time. Actually I always had this idea in my mind that PhD is the time when you are supposed to learn to become an independent researcher and this situation made me feel that it was a waste of time. Also, my supervisor is obsessed with the number of papers, which resulted in average papers that could have been far better if he wasn't so hasty. I was ready to risk spending a long time on projects but he wasn't. Afterall, how can you expect to publish good results if you do not risk losing time on dead end directions? Anyway, since then I have been struggling to regain my passion and it has been a year now. I am finally allowed to do my own things but it feels useless now since I lost my drive so badly that I am finding it hard to get back on track.

Therefore, my questions to academics here: can you provide some suggestions/methods/ways to regain my lost passion since right now is the crucial time in my PhD and I feel I am wasting time because of my disrupted mindset?

Answer 1

I won't say that "passion" is useless, but it is not a switch you can turn on and off. Nor is this a bad thing. I am somewhat older, and I have felt a passion for pure mathematics, but this was a feeling that came and went. I would say this is the normal order of things. At first when you get into a new subject (either physics as a whole or a subdiscipline, or sub-subdiscipline) you feel excited, but it wears off. Familiarity breeds contempt, and thorough mastery of a subject will lead inevitably to a kind of jadedness. I can feel a kind of spark when I explain something that I once found exciting to someone for whom it is unfamiliar. But this is an interpersonal thing, and I actually always feel I must warn them not to fall in love with intellectual constructs too soon.

In any case, passion will not sustain you in the long run. It is true for marriages, and it is also true for academic pursuits.

Answer 2

Good supervisory practice should not kill the student's passion for the subject

If you'll indulge me, I'm going to give an "answer" here that is actually directed to supervisors and is tangential to your question. This is important to add because your question raises some important issues about good supervisory practice. My answer won't necessarily solve your immediate problem (though it might help you have a productive conversation with supervisors), but hopefully it might diminish the prospect of it occurring to others.

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When supervising a PhD student, there is sometimes a trade-off between two desirable goals you want to help the student achieve: (1) establishing a publication record that will lead to entry-level career prospects in research; and (2) allowing the student freedom to explore ideas of interest to them to develop their passion for the subject. Established academics are cognisant of the reality of "publish or perish" and we know that the competition for research positions in academia and elsewhere is fierce (and there is a huge overproduction of PhD graduates in the market). Therefore, many well-meaning supervisors focus heavily on (1) at the expense of (2), knowing that they may be short-changing their PhD students if they don't push them hard enough to produce publications and help them gain entry-level academic positions after graduation.

This approach is okay if you are dealing with a student who is committed and disciplined and whose interest in the subject is solidified, particularly if the student's goal is to land an academic research position after graduation. However, it is counter-productive to use this approach if doing so destroys the passion/interest of a student who could otherwise have been able to learn and practice the subject in some capacity. Ideally, the trade-off between (1) and (2) should be formed based on explicit discussion between the student and supervisor about the career goals of the student, what they hope to get out of their PhD program, the realities of the academic market and broader research profession, and any other relevant issues. Supervisors should teach their students the realities of what academic research looks like and how to go about getting a position in the field, but they should let the student make an informed decision about what they actually want in their life after graduation and what they want to get out of their candidature. My view is that it is even good practice to explicitly tell the student about this trade-off, and that your supervisory approach will involve trying to deal with this trade-off, and that your approach can be varied if the student thinks there is too much emphasis on one end.

Some would argue that "testing" the passion of the student through heavy emphasis on (1) at the expense of (2) is actually a desirable thing, since it acts as a filtering mechanism during the candidature --- any student who is insufficiently happy with the harsher realities of professional research and the "publish or perish" culture is dissuaded from continuing in the field and directed towards some non-PhD activity. This view assumes that the only value in a PhD is to secure and practice a professional academic position, which I reject. There are students who will do their PhD and decide that they don't wish to practice in academia or any other "publish or perish" field. For these students, a smaller number of papers in areas of passion for them is far more valuable than a larger suite of paper to pad out a CV for a job application in academia (and again, the student should make an informed decision on this).

Answer 3

To recover lost passion in a subject, I cannot recommend anything more highly than the "plate story" from the physicist Richard Feynman. (I also highly recommend the book this comes from; it is wonderful!) Feynman talks of having lost his passion for his subject for the exact same reason as you --- because he was focusing on "important" problems instead of playing with the things he wanted. He decides to go back to playing with problems of interest to him with no concern for their importance and it brings back his passion.

Answer 4

Just take some time to rest from physics. It's burnout. More walking on open air, especially on sunny days, take vitamin D and good sleep. And desire to work magically will return sooner or later (can take half year though)

Answer 5

Passion is not useful in physics. Hard work is.

If you are not enjoying your work, you should not be a PhD student. Find a job you would like better, and if you cannot do that, find one that at least pays more, so you can use the money for something you like.

You say your mindset is "disrupted" but it is more likely you just learned what a PhD is really like.