Disillusioned With Grad School

No.10794992 ViewReplyOriginalReport
Physics PhD student here, I was wondering if anyone here has felt unhappy with their grad school experience?

I initially pursued this degree out of a simple love of physics and some general idealistic sense of helping humanity. However, as time went by, these feelings faded, worn away by an ever growing list of things that bothered me:

>Environment is hostile/cuthroat
There isn't just rivalries between different groups at varying universities, which is its own disappoint, but people in different subfields in our own university treat each other like shit. I've seen AMO profs argue against CM labs getting more funding, for no defined reason.

>Work overtakes life
I know people who work 12 hours a day minimum, and come in on Saturday. Its not even a matter of profs imposing it on their students, it's so ingrained in the culture that if you don't work like this then others will assume you're lazy and mock you.

>No/few relationships to make
People don't even want to talk to you unless you can help advance their career or help them in making a paper. That's not even to mention how it's deeply implied that you shouldn't try to get married or start a family (as it'd be a "waste of time")

>No love of research
This one hurts me the most. People don't seem to give a shit about the physics or anything besides getting published. It all seems like a career game.