Second Year Ph.D. Life: Should I Given Up?

It feels like I've been procrastinating on writing this blog for a long time. Now, in my final week interning at Adobe, with the office completely empty except for me, I suddenly decided it's time to finish it.

The sunshine in the Bay Area has been a relief from the struggles of my second year. I meet many old and new friends and eat lots of delicious food. But the NeurIPS rebuttal over the past three weeks has only driven my anxiety higher. This is my first time participating in this open-discussion style rebuttal, and I have to admit it's been torturous. For every response, we had to double-check every word and make sure we fully understood the reviewers' questions. Of course, the most frustrating part was the "ghosting" reviewer who never replied during the entire discussion. Every morning, I woke up early hoping to see a new response. Yet only a week after the deadline passed, that reviewer finally appeared and gave a hidden final rating. His (seemingly random) decision might end up determining the fate of my paper.

Over the past year, I've received three rejections. The most heartbreaking one was when I got rejected despite three accepts and one unreasonable (but still borderline) reject. I had to console myself by saying my work wasn't strong enough for a clear accept, and I needed to do better next time. So I tried—but it's hard to make every reviewer happy in this "lottery game". I know there are many papers that are truly excellent and get unanimously accepted, but mine haven't had the quality and luckiness to reach that level yet.

This lottery-like process has left me burnt out. The fate of my paper can hinge on a fleeting thought in an AC's mind, yet it feels like it defines my entire PhD life. If accepted, I'll be relieved from depression and re-energized for the next submission. But if rejected, I don't know how I'll pick myself up and keep going. Even after the rebuttal ended, I couldn't stop myself from checking whether the "modified" timestamp on my reviews had changed. I kept replaying in my mind—what if this paper is rejected again, as I've already dreamed about at least twice? My anxiety grows, making it hard to focus on my current project, especially when it also has obstacles. And even though I know the review process is partly a lottery, repeated failures still make me start doubting my ability to do research at all.

As my third Ph.D. year quickly approaches, I find myself asking more and more often: am I not suitable for the game and should I just stop playing?