Dismissed from Grad School, What's Next?

[cloudyfromsteam]

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Hello everyone,

It's my first time ever posting! Unfortunately, I am in a bit of a crisis... I've run through all my silver linings with my advisor, and I am now getting dismissed from my graduate program.

Despite how bad this is, I don't intend to stop my pursuit of becoming a scientist physician, but this is quite the obstacle. For those wondering why or how I'm even still interested after flunking out of such a program. Truth is that it’s been a slow and very painful crash out from a combination of closed doors, self-doubt, academic loneliness, ego, and depression. The depression portion of which I finally accepted the help I needed for it, making it a bit less of a burden, especially in this moment. I should also make it clear that I am extremely passionate about this field, but many things about the program at least initially were not working out for me and with more and more time that passed, I was never quite able to get through to someone willing to take me under their wing. Through my start and end of first year, I couldn't find a single person in my cohort that I could resonate with. After crashing out a bit and repeating a class, I found that this other cohort was a lot more down to earth and focused on really learning and wanting to advance science. (Hopefully that doesn't sound pretentious, but a lot of people in my initial cohort just wanted a degree, but with the least amount of effort possible) It's sad that just now when I find my tribe, ironically enough, through my own failures am I going to get pushed out.

To a large degree, ego is what caused my downfall here. I begged to skip ahead of the curriculum and got lost in the information sauce (the sauce being graduate-level statistics). Speaking with my advisor, we both agree that I am more than capable of succeeding, but the circumstances I put myself in triggered the slow-motion crash out.

My advisor has even expressed interest in me possibly joining an alternative program within his department, but while working through some of the school policies, there may no longer be a way for me to even reapply to my university.

Now, what? So far I've decided that the next couple of months, I need to take a step back and make sure I don't end up in the same pitfall again. Another thing I've been battling is the ability to find other computational biology programs that might fit my life circumstances. For those that do, that self-doubt is kicking in again and I don't know how to sell myself past this red flag.

Sorry the ranting, but any advice or guidance means the world.

*Crossing my fingers that my career isn't completely cooked*

 

[RockClimberMed]

Were you already in an MD/PhD and flunked the PhD part? or was this like a masters degree before med school?

 

[cloudyfromsteam]

Were you already in an MD/PhD and flunked the PhD part? or was this like a masters degree before med school?

Masters program. Where I was intending to apply to MD/PhD programs after.

 

[RockClimberMed]

Masters program. Where I was intending to apply to MD/PhD programs after.

Never a good look to flunk anything before med school. Especially for highly selective MD/PhD.

 

[cloudyfromsteam]

Of course not, but we push on. I'm smart, capable, and I'm not going to let this get in the way of what I want to accomplish.

 

[Lifeblood_20]

Now, what? So far I've decided that the next couple of months, I need to take a step back and make sure I don't end up in the same pitfall again. Another thing I've been battling is the ability to find other computational biology programs that might fit my life circumstances. For those that do, that self-doubt is kicking in again and I don't know how to sell myself past this red flag.

Sorry about your dismissal. Unfortunately, MD and MD/PhD admissions are an unforgiving process, I'm sure you know that. What you do next depends on you -- if you're still dead set on becoming a physician scientist, you'd have to put in the effort to show you are capable of finishing a PhD and MD and an academically rigorous (meaning largely you can pull in funding) career. Let your drive towards that goal motivate you to seek the next steps. However, nothing wrong with no longer pursing a physician scientist career either. Many other fulfilling paths out there.

Through my start and end of first year, I couldn't find a single person in my cohort that I could resonate with. After crashing out a bit and repeating a class, I found that this other cohort was a lot more down to earth and focused on really learning and wanting to advance science. (Hopefully that doesn't sound pretentious, but a lot of people in my initial cohort just wanted a degree, but with the least amount of effort possible) It's sad that just now when I find my tribe, ironically enough, through my own failures am I going to get pushed out.

To a large degree, ego is what caused my downfall here. I begged to skip ahead of the curriculum and got lost in the information sauce (the sauce being graduate-level statistics). Speaking with my advisor, we both agree that I am more than capable of succeeding, but the circumstances I put myself in triggered the slow-motion crash out.

So why exactly did they dismiss you? for failing a stats class? for not getting along with your cohort? for pissing off an advisor? You may get asked what happened that caused the dismissal and you'd need a clearer explanation (and show you won't let it happen again).

 

[cloudyfromsteam]

Sorry about your dismissal. Unfortunately, MD and MD/PhD admissions are an unforgiving process, I'm sure you know that. What you do next depends on you -- if you're still dead set on becoming a physician scientist, you'd have to put in the effort to show you are capable of finishing a PhD and MD and an academically rigorous (meaning largely you can pull in funding) career. Let your drive towards that goal motivate you to seek the next steps. However, nothing wrong with no longer pursing a physician scientist career either. Many other fulfilling paths out there.


So why exactly did they dismiss you? for failing a stats class? for not getting along with your cohort? for pissing off an advisor? You may get asked what happened that caused the dismissal and you'd need a clearer explanation (and show you won't let it happen again).

Appreciate the advice! So yeah, in regards to why I failed out of stats was because I chose to start in the spring semester as I had chosen to take an extra semester to finish undergrad after adding a lot of classes to make sure I graduated with a BS and not a BA. And when that time came it just felt like the next continuation, so enrolled into the program, but right after paying all my tuition money, my advisor comes and tells me, "hey, you can't do the statistics track, you need a sequence of stat 1, stat 2, advanced stat 1, advanced stat 2. Courses for stat 1 are only offered in spring." Me being arrogant, and spending too much time in the math department in the past semester or two convinced him to put me into a course listed as stat 3. I take the class, get a pretty good grade.

Everything is good so far, now I just need to take advanced 1. Turns out that stat 3 was more a special topics on novel statistical methods and bayesian statistics. Advanced stat 1 was definitely not that, so that's where the spiral started for me. At that point my options were to keep pushing and see if I can make it through advanced stat 2 or graduate in 3 years at a school where I wasn't having much luck with finding research opportunities or friends for that matter. So, yeah that's what happened, I should have probably cut things off around that second semester, you live and you learn.

On a more positive note, I generally had a lot of positive rapport with close faculty during my time in the masters program. But I think I just had a bit of looming negativity from some of that pain I was experiencing, which didn't help me in truly breaking through in any meaningful way.

At the same I did have a couple of really really negative experiences trying to connect and get involved with certain professors. One of them called me a fascist for wanting to build an app during undergrad to help students find areas of research that they were interested in by aggregating abstracts in a TikTok scroll format, as if I was trying to destroy the fundamentals of peer review or something. That wasn't cool and had me questioning a lot about myself at a pretty important part of my undergrad career.

And another was during the masters with the previously mentioned stats 3 class. When I asked to get involved with my professor's research which was about computer vision and image segmentation, he straight up said that I would never have the talent nor work ethic to work with him. Ouuf... And this was right after presenting what I thought was a fairly in depth and practical image segmentation and image classification project for his class. I did submit it late, which is indeed my fault, but the quality was there so... Yeah, that also did not help with my depression. lmao. Imagine like these are the things you love to do in your free time and you're a top performing students who wasn't just GPTing their way through class and a guy you respect says some **** like that to you... Wow. Some people just have no clue as to what you might be going through.

Sorry for the trauma dump, I've found the help that I really needed and am no longer letting bs like that define me or my self-worth.
Even amidst this current crash out, I am still hopeful about the future, I am enjoying the present and still attending classes and meeting people from this new cohort before I get dismissed at the end of this semester. I think with my new found experience I'll find a place with a better fit to keep me motivated and filled with a sense of purpose, which was another thing I felt I lacked the first-go round beyond developing personal projects.

On another positive note here, in talking to a couple people I trust within my department including my advisor whom I asked to be brutally honest with me, he advised to possibly pursue a Phd. I'm not sure if they're just trying to be nice, but they're saying I'm not completely cooked. They never said it was going to be easy either, so yeah... Again, any advice from anyone is greatly appreciated.

And for anyone in the future that may go through something like this, it's ok to ask for help. Especially for guys, it's not weak to accept help, mental health or otherwise. For me, it took a really deep conversation from a mentor I respect very dearly to understand that even some of the people you look up to the most have their struggles. Denying myself that sort of intervention for so long is part of what led me here, don't be like me. I made my life 10x harder thinking I should, figure it all out by myself 🙂

 

[Neuronix]

Getting kicked out of a master's program is a serious red flag.

I've been involved with several programs over the years, and I've never seen someone be dismissed without there being a serious problem.

You're writing these long posts trying to justify what happened, but regardless this is going to be viewed very disfavorably.

Your advisor is being very kind to keep you on as a PhD student. That might be the best path forward. If you can do a strong PhD, I wonder if you can make it seem like that was always the plan on your later applications to medical school as a way to move past this problem in your master's.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I came to this post rather late. What is striking to me: why did you fail out of your master's program? I don't understand how your inability to connect with your class cohort but not other students is relevant. In fact, the research community is as diverse as this; you'll be welcome in some and not welcome in others. I don't want to sound like your mental health challenges are irrevelant, but was an LOA not possible once you started your master's? Did you not find help from the university counseling center? I'm just not clear of the circumstances why you are being dismissed, and these will be the questions that must be answered to lift the concerns an MD admissions committee will have.

I am aware of a few MD/PhD professionals who did not do MSTP. Francis Collins comes to mind. Be aware that scientists very rarely stay with their initial field of study. The critical thinking and communication process is still the most important thing you will learn in a Ph.D. Learning to control your urges to advance the field by yourself is something most researchers develop; you aren't in charge of a startup, but even if you are, you have to learn to pitch your ideas to get benefactors and sponsors to support you.

Back to the post, it sounds like you got dumped from your master's because (gasp) you were curious about something outside the scope of your original master's program, right? Did you talk to your advisor about this to see if a collaboration is possible? In short, most people who take master's courses gain deeper insight and knowledge about their special area; it's not like undergrad where you can shop around and add an elective. Graduate school should be viewed more like a job/apprenticeship... professional development, not like undergrad where you can still be a generalist.

You probably could be a good fit for a Ph.D. This will give you a shot to have a group of faculty steer and focus your passions. If you are good, you can assemble a thesis committee with that stats professor advising you about a project that could integrate all of your general interests. (My Ph.D. committee was definitely an example that I was able to assemble based on my own interests to do clinically-relevant research.) I don't think getting an MD will give you the time or freedom you want to shoot down the rabbit hole of your curiosity, but I don't know what is making you wake up every morning about a project.

I can't speak for your mental health, history of support, or the generational challenges of Tiktoking research projects that aren't your own (the research is your PI's), but I can comment you need the courage to look at what lifestyle you really want to have. You say you want to be a physician scientist, but why? Most physician scientists become academi administrators: look at your deans, CSO's of companies/start-ups/hospitals. You're in the right SDN forum to discuss these topics, but what is your focus/your niche? If you don't have a singular area, it might be more difficult to stay focused for 10 years of MD/PhD training. It's challenging to change areas once you start the MSTP clock, unless something has changed...

 

[mszzeta]

Getting kicked out of a master's program is a serious red flag.

I've been involved with several programs over the years, and I've never seen someone be dismissed without there being a serious problem.

You're writing these long posts trying to justify what happened, but regardless this is going to be viewed very disfavorably.

Your advisor is being very kind to keep you on as a PhD student. That might be the best path forward. If you can do a strong PhD, I wonder if you can make it seem like that was always the plan on your later applications to medical school as a way to move past this problem in your master's.

I agree this is a serious red flag, especially that the reason for dismissal is related to a personality issue. MD program especially cares about this, as physicians need to work in a cross-disciplinary environment for patient care. Any personality problem may pose a patient safety risk. Also, MD-PhD admission is much more competitive to either MD-only or PhD-only programs.
Pursuing a standalone PhD program is still possible.

 

[anon2]

N=1 with major caveats

I flunked out of my fully-funded top 3 PhD program in comp bio. I also spoke to advising and mental health who told me if I had came months earlier there are things that could be done differently.

Scrambled to transfer back to my undergrad school (and I transferred the NSF), and finished there in applied math, with an extremely interdisciplinary dissertation (my committee had a computer scientist and an economist).

10 years and an entire career later in tech, I retired and went MD (M1 now). I still had a (after repair) 3.5... and a 521 + 20 pubs with international press attention.

The "success" part of the story is a 13-year track record after the red flag.

There will always be malignant personalities, and they're concentrated in status-obsessed fields such as academia and medicine. A PhD is literally an apprenticeship for the professoriate, so pick very carefully who you'll be spending some 5 years of your life with. My advisor (who I call my academic parent) from 15 years ago still writes me reference letters.

That said, if you keep meeting toxic people, start looking into the mirror, as well as your socialization practices re:walking away. Something I've theorized extensively with clinical psychologists over decades.

 

[cloudyfromsteam]

I came to this post rather late. What is striking to me: why did you fail out of your master's program? I don't understand how your inability to connect with your class cohort but not other students is relevant. In fact, the research community is as diverse as this; you'll be welcome in some and not welcome in others. I don't want to sound like your mental health challenges are irrevelant, but was an LOA not possible once you started your master's? Did you not find help from the university counseling center? I'm just not clear of the circumstances why you are being dismissed, and these will be the questions that must be answered to lift the concerns an MD admissions committee will have.

I am aware of a few MD/PhD professionals who did not do MSTP. Francis Collins comes to mind. Be aware that scientists very rarely stay with their initial field of study. The critical thinking and communication process is still the most important thing you will learn in a Ph.D. Learning to control your urges to advance the field by yourself is something most researchers develop; you aren't in charge of a startup, but even if you are, you have to learn to pitch your ideas to get benefactors and sponsors to support you.

Back to the post, it sounds like you got dumped from your master's because (gasp) you were curious about something outside the scope of your original master's program, right? Did you talk to your advisor about this to see if a collaboration is possible? In short, most people who take master's courses gain deeper insight and knowledge about their special area; it's not like undergrad where you can shop around and add an elective. Graduate school should be viewed more like a job/apprenticeship... professional development, not like undergrad where you can still be a generalist.

You probably could be a good fit for a Ph.D. This will give you a shot to have a group of faculty steer and focus your passions. If you are good, you can assemble a thesis committee with that stats professor advising you about a project that could integrate all of your general interests. (My Ph.D. committee was definitely an example that I was able to assemble based on my own interests to do clinically-relevant research.) I don't think getting an MD will give you the time or freedom you want to shoot down the rabbit hole of your curiosity, but I don't know what is making you wake up every morning about a project.

I can't speak for your mental health, history of support, or the generational challenges of Tiktoking research projects that aren't your own (the research is your PI's), but I can comment you need the courage to look at what lifestyle you really want to have. You say you want to be a physician scientist, but why? Most physician scientists become academi administrators: look at your deans, CSO's of companies/start-ups/hospitals. You're in the right SDN forum to discuss these topics, but what is your focus/your niche? If you don't have a singular area, it might be more difficult to stay focused for 10 years of MD/PhD training. It's challenging to change areas once you start the MSTP clock, unless something has changed...

Hey, sorry for the late reply. I've been taking a bit of a mental reset after that experience. You definitely hit the nail on the head. Aside from financial reasons which made the entire program harder than it should've been for me a huge component of the crash out came down to what you said about steering away from what the program was supposed to be about. I definitely tried just doing things myself in hope of getting some sort of validation and when I didn't get that it really just kept making the problem worse.

Ultimately, I was unfocused. Yet, as you ask, what gets me out of bed in the morning is trying in whatever capacity to make the world a better place and doing so in novel ways. And to me, I've worked in numerous different domains ranging from finance to robotics, what I find is that nothing really intrigues me and seems more important than the pursuit of extending human life. It sounds corny, but genuinely that's what I believe and that is my purpose in life and in some ways the core of why I do all the other things in a pursuit to fund, understand, and ultimately make sort of positive change in the world. And maybe I hadn't mentioned it, but the program I was in was for Biostatistics, which on the surface I figured would have a lot of other faculty and students. On the topic of a LOA, that is what I should've done, I was just too stubborn to take that break. I think being in a city away from home and barely getting by with my day-job also pushed me in that direction of just trying whatever I could in the hopes of recovery. Unfortunately that did not end up being the case and I flunked out of my graduate statistics, but I did do well in my last and final biochemistry course.

Circling back to the validation portion and the potential of pursuing a PhD, I think where it really went wrong was not having connections or people close to me that could vouch for my ability to do things. By not really getting under anyone's wing and continuously attempting to offer myself up as free labor, I just lacked purpose and tried to get that by trying things myself in the hopes of making some progress towards my goals, but also in wanting to be recognized and given some sort of mentorship. Without that, I always felt like I was going to end up finishing and being dead on arrival without any sort of career trajectory, nor anything meaningful to show for the time I spent in my program, which definitely boosted that purposelessness and depressed feeling.

Now, moving forward, I am taking a year off of school. As of now, I'm prepping for the MCAT, which may seem a bit silly in my current circumstances, but to me, it's more than a score (of which I still plan to do the best I possibly can). Instead, it's a mental obstacle and an opportunity to learn how to really study (of which I was definitely guilty of not having the discipline to do at the time.), while also ensuring that I brush up on fundamentals, which at times I think hindered me in my master’s (mainly in statistics, but also at times in biology). While that is happening, I'm looking to see where I can get a fresh start again now having in mind what really went wrong, so whatever I do going forward is set up for success, which for me means staying close to my connections and also ensuring that whatever it is that I end up doing I will have guidance and purpose.

I appreciate all the feedback from you guys. I honestly didn't come back to look because I was just so embarrassed, but I appreciate you guys listening and offering sincere and honest feedback.

Attached is a project I had proposed working on right before getting dismissed, which I am still working to implement right now in between work, studying, and whatnot. It's not perfect and severely incomplete, but it might give ya'll a decent idea of where my head was at. As you'll see and as you pointed out, it has virtually nothing to do with biostatistics except in being a tool that could be used by biostatisticians and academics at large to protect their work. Also please ignore the date overleaf updates it regularly, this was done in October and I chopped up my name a bit to save just a bit of face.

 

[cloudyfromsteam]

N=1 with major caveats

I flunked out of my fully-funded top 3 PhD program in comp bio. I also spoke to advising and mental health who told me if I had came months earlier there are things that could be done differently.

Scrambled to transfer back to my undergrad school (and I transferred the NSF), and finished there in applied math, with an extremely interdisciplinary dissertation (my committee had a computer scientist and an economist).

10 years and an entire career later in tech, I retired and went MD (M1 now). I still had a (after repair) 3.5... and a 521 + 20 pubs with international press attention.

The "success" part of the story is a 13-year track record after the red flag.

There will always be malignant personalities, and they're concentrated in status-obsessed fields such as academia and medicine. A PhD is literally an apprenticeship for the professoriate, so pick very carefully who you'll be spending some 5 years of your life with. My advisor (who I call my academic parent) from 15 years ago still writes me reference letters.

That said, if you keep meeting toxic people, start looking into the mirror, as well as your socialization practices re:walking away. Something I've theorized extensively with clinical psychologists over decades.

Thanks for sharing! And congratulations!

Definitely, I had to step back and take a look at myself in the mirror. I think accepting that I had been struggling with depression for the better part of 15 years was something that's given me clarity as to my personal flaws and sufficient energy as well as stability to make progress towards becoming a better version of myself without getting bogged down with emotion. It's utterly debilitating, especially when you've got to give the fake smiles when you're really going through it.

Something that should be said too is definitely the circle I was around. Since the end of my undergraduate study any and all of my heady intellectual friends came and went their separate ways, and I just didn't find those people in my cohort unfortunately. The few friends I did have left, were most definitely onto other endeavors and in a different arc of life, which I understood as they were always a bit younger. Not having more mature figures and people with similar or adjacent life endeavors really robbed me of my development. When starting again, this is definitely going to be a key thing that I look for wherever I go.

The "popular loner" of having friends on paper, but not having them actually having them see you or be on the same page as you almost felt like covid all over again. And yes, I most certainly did not always make the bet choices in socialization and I recognize that, but mostly avoided it. (Like not going to parties) But I definitely went to couple during my year and a half, problem being again that it wasn't really my "group" of people.

Also my advisor, building a relationship earlier on and understanding that he did have my best interest at heart would've made the journey more fruitful. Jumping into a program like I did on an off semester, was definitely not a good idea and it's important to slow down sometimes and take the emotion and anxiety out of the decisions we make. Great guy my advisor! Unfortunate that I hadn't seen that sooner!