PhD Discussion Forum

hi. i have nearly finished my first year and i am having doubts about my thesis topic. i choose it while having very little knowledge in the area because of deadlines and could not settle on one and i now feel out of my depth. it would seem more sensible to me if an expert in some field gave me a promising proposal to look at and guide me in it but i am told this is not how a phd works by my supervisor. is anyone else in the same situation? i feel completely lost. :-(

I only vaguely know what I'm doing and I started a while ago. I'm still trying to prove that my technique will work. Not exactly sure how I'm going to achieve what I hope to do. So I don't think it's that bad - very few people have tightly defined projects. Can you change the focus of your project to an area where you know more about? I find when I do reading I get more ideas and it suddenly hits you. Good luck.

Cheesy quote (I don't normally do this but it seemed quite relevant!) Someone said that doing a PhD was 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration!

Is this the real issue of your malaise? Do you actually enjoy the project or field? If you enjoy the work, it is more impostor syndrome and that is incredibly common. You have just started your PhD and I would be worried if you didn't feel out of your depth.