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It’s excellent you have such foresight and introspection. I have three family members (including myself) who were “dishonorably discharged” from a PhD with a masters.
Probably for the best. Usually “I quit my PhD” stories are people who spent 6 years and got fed up, but if if the author can’t last 6 months it sounds like they had the wrong expectations going in.
Your advisor is playing the 'grant-reward' game, and in most circumstances that enables you to play your 'ideal' PhD game. However your ideals are not the same as your advisors, your PhD-mates, or your school.
The sooner you recognize you are the standard-bearer for graduating, the sooner you realize it's time to take off the kid-gloves and start directly but professionally confronting your colleagues and advisors until you find what you are looking for.
If you don't find it in six months after you change, write what you did and you can collect a masters. It really is that simple, they need you to graduate.
PhD is a choose-your-own-adventure in real-life. No two PhDs are the same.
> I started my PhD in Quantum Computing. Even though I basically didn’t have any previous knowledge about it How does this happen?
> I started my PhD in Quantum Computing. Even though I basically didn’t have any previous knowledge about it How does this happen?
As a comparison imagine if VC funding only went to the highest scoring new grads and the business proposal was asked for after the invitation to take on VC funding. That's pretty much what's been happening with PhDs. You get the marks, you get invited to take on a PhD and then you look for projects. A totally inorganic process that leads to a gross misallocation of resources.
> I started my PhD in Quantum Computing. Even though I basically didn’t have any previous knowledge about it How does this happen?
In Physics it's not unusual to start a PhD in a sub-discipline that you've got little experience in (I realize the author works more on the information theory side of things). When I started my PhD in experimental quantum computing I had experience with superconductivity and low-temperature physics but none with qubit design or high-frequency RF system design. It's the point of a PhD to learn about these things and g…
That's how I feel about this. Chances of success are not as high as one would like, however, case affirmative, honour and recognition. A lot!
Publishing and disseminating work is a skill that (imo) is almost entirely distinct from researching, but you must have this skillset to succeed in research. If your research group is succeeding by picking low hanging fruit (in your eyes) then this is a great sign. You should learn from them. Your talents will not go to waste through learning these new skills.
Lastly, if you like TA work then you should definitely continue because you can then look for lecturing positions after. To my knowledge TA roles generally require postgrad/PhD.
You don't believe your supervisor or your research group and so you quit, great. It's great that you have the critical thinking abilities and confidence in yourself to make such a decision.
However, I think it's extremely unprofessional to write a blog post saying that your supervisor is superficial or your research group is performative art. I don't say this because I think we should just take the venerable professor's word for it, but because accusations in general, if they're vague enough, are impossible to defend against. I think if there's enough substance to make your comment specific, you should. Maybe even write a paper explaining why what they're doing is nonsense. If you're right, this would genuinely be a contribution to the field.
If you can't be specific enough to be scientific about it, just keep it to yourself.