Hello,
My question my be perceived as unecessary worries by the people here and I know I am a quite neurotic person, but this is keeping me busy for a while now and I hope getting some input here can help me decide how to move on.
A little while ago I have started a Phd in a field within the Social Sciences, somethign I have wanted for a long time.
Already during my interview I noticed that my supervisors seemed to have a quite different attitude towards the topic of my project than me.
And after reading a ton of literature the past 3 weeks I can see that theirs is the prevailing attitude of the field as a whole on the topic.
I don't know how much I can share without doxxing myself, but let's just say that in my perception the researchers working on this topic currently are (carelessly) optimistic and the field as a whole is moving much too fast currently.
My topic itself is evolving and changing incredibly fast at the moment, and there are already critical gaps in knowledge from my viewpoint that noone seems to (be willing) to adres.
Not only that but the optimistic attitude seems to be seen as synominous with good and a great amount of knowledge on the topic, and a critical attitude seems to be seen as bad or (too) little knowlede.
I could go into more detail but I think that is not really necessary for my post.
Point is, in my opinion in order to really produce effective and usable "results" with my project there would be multiple, if not many studies necessary first. Problem, my project is for a good deal already pre-determined and certain "products" are expected from those that financed it.
I know that I am an idealist and that I have to compromise because that is not how academia and publishing works, especially not as a phd-student.
Ultimately, I am currently uncertain how much of this struggle I should even bring up with my supervisors.
Should I still try to get as much out of it as I can? As in, if there is some part of missing knowledge I can contribute before the pre-determined parts of my project, should I try? Even if it is something that my Supervisors my perceive as unimportant or to far removed from the topic (though it is not in my opinion, but again the field seems to not perceive it as such currently.)
Or should I just stay quiet and produce what is expected of me to produce even though I am of the opinion that there is a high chance the the product will, to be frank, basically be useless if we move forward without adressing certain things.
Though I am worried what consequences it could have if I am too openly about my perceived grievances with the state of my topics literature. I am worried I might be perceived as too difficult or that supervisors start to think I might not do things like financers/the project demands and such worries might get so big that I am cut from the project.
(I am aware that I must sound incredibly arrogant, I reall am not or mean things as such, the literature of my field is great, the only thing is that very recently there has been a very crucial change that has fundamentally changed what is the core my my projects topic (Broadly speaking Human-Machine Interaction). And as I said, noone seems to really see that change, or rather its consequences as relevant yet.
I am already very thankful for any and all advice! One of my other weaknesses is beign longwinded, so I hope me giving so much context is useful and not just annoying.
Tldr: What to do if my perception of a topic is quite far removed from that of my supervisors (i.e.: Me being much more critical seemingly).
Bring it up, or be quiet and follow along?
Again, thank you.