Shekhar Singh: The Never-Ending PhD Tunnel (and the “What Next” panic)

If you’re a PhD student, you already know — doing a PhD isn’t just about research. It’s a whole emotional and mental marathon that tests your patience, confidence, and even your sense of self. You start full of excitement and curiosity, ready to uncover something meaningful. But somewhere along the way, between endless experiments, paper revisions, and supervisor meetings, you realize this journey is a lot more than just “studying.”

Some days, you feel unstoppable — your data finally makes sense, your experiment works, and you feel like you’re changing the world. Other days, you question every choice you’ve ever made. You stare at failed results, drafts full of red comments, and wonder if you’re even good enough to be here. That’s the truth people don’t always talk about: a PhD doesn’t just cost you time — it costs you emotionally too.

You lose a lot along the way. You lose sleep, social life, and sometimes key part of your life. You miss family events, birthdays, and simple joys because you’re always “almost done.” You lose confidence at times, and even pieces of who you used to be before this journey began. But strangely enough, you also gain things. You gain patience, resilience, and a kind of quiet strength that only comes from surviving repeated failure. You learn to stand up after every setback, to think deeply, and to keep going even when no one else understands your obsession with your work. You lose and gain parts of life — and in the process, you change.

And then comes that big, haunting question near the end: “What’s next?”

Do you stay in academia — that familiar chaos of research, papers, and grant chasing — or step into industry, where there’s structure, weekends, and an actual paycheck? Academia gives you the thrill of discovery and freedom, but it also gives you instability and stress. Industry offers stability and balance, but it can feel like stepping away from your passion.

It’s an emotional tug-of-war — between curiosity and comfort, between ambition and peace.

But here’s the thing: there’s no single right answer. The PhD itself teaches you how to survive uncertainty, how to think critically, and how to rebuild yourself every time things fall apart. That’s something no degree title or job can take away. Whether you choose to stay in academia, move to industry, or even reinvent yourself completely, you’ve already done something extraordinary.

So if you’re tired, confused, and standing at that crossroads — take a breath. You’ve already proven your strength. Finishing a PhD changes you forever; it takes parts of you, but it also gives you a new version of yourself — tougher, wiser, and more aware of what truly matters.

Because after surviving the emotional, mental, and personal cost of a PhD… honestly, you can handle anything.

Shekhar Singh works as a doctoral researcher in the Neuro-Innovation PhD Programme. His research focuses on epilepsy in patients with CSTB mutation. Read more about Shekhar’s journey here.