I was a PhD student. I finished the classroom study. I moved on to the research and promptly left the program at that point. The research was Nonsense. Not because I picked it but because my adviser was out of touch with the world. I told him and proved that his work was crap. We promptly had a huge argument and we split. I now work in industry doing research. It is where I wanted to be anyway. I never wanted to be a professor. I do like to teach. But, I like to teach what people want to learn and not what is esoteric to get a label of PhD. I don't blame my former adviser. He was just doing what he needed to do to survive in the system. The university perpetuated the problem. It is very apparent who has done the better work now but I had the better environment after leaving the program. He is stuck with the program and will never do meaningful anything there. Good luck academics.