I am currently enrolled in a PhD programme in a north American university and I am considering quitting my current PhD and applying for a PhD in another institution.
The reasons for me doing this are:
- My advisor (Who is excellent in his research area) has very little knowledge in my research topic and avoids technical discussions with me in the group meeting because of this.
- Assigned me multiple time-consuming projects. One of the projects is just performing measurements for a company from which he is getting funding. The measurements are time-consuming and the results are not publishable and will not be part of my thesis. Our group is heavily understaffed.
- When I mentioned that this project is not a research project and is more of a job and does not interest me, my advisor used my stipend as a leverage to make me continue working on it and that the project brings funds to the group. This was not in my "Research" PhD admission offer. This makes me feel like a cheap labour rather than a researcher which I do not accept.
- Asked me to write journal and conference papers with a very little contribution. For my advisor, quantity matters more than quality.
- My advisor is not open minded to any ideas I come up with. Forces me to work in a direction that I think will lead to project failure. It takes me months to convince him that the ideas are not valid and do not achieve what is required, and when I make my point clear eventually he still wants me to work on that because he promised funding agencies to pursue that direction. This resulted in more than one heated discussion with my advisor. I also found that some claims in the previous publications of the group related to my research are not correct.
- I mentioned that I am interested in working on a certain topic and he used me interest as a leverage, that I need to "make him happy" in order to allow me to work on that topic and that I have to finish other projects.
- Poses unrealistic deadlines for which I worked extremely hard to achieve very little and with little return. He thinks by doing this he is making me work harder, however, this led to lower work quality which annoys me.
My question: Are these reasons reasonable for quitting the PhD and starting somewhere else? Will the fact that I left a PhD programme and applied somewhere else in a better alignment with my interest negatively impact my appication? I am motivated and I want do good research and a PhD.
Note: Changing advisor is not really an option. I am not able to think of an advisor with whom my interests align.