I am currently one and a half years into a PhD, but I'm worried my supervisor and I may not be on the same page.
First the backstory: my intention is to head into industry with my work once I have completed the PhD rather than move into academia. Through a combination of a huge gap in knowledge for the industry I'm studying and a need to take a new degree to adapt my first degree to the field, I pursued and was fortunately accepted for a doctorate, which from my perspective continues to be tremendously worthwhile, and I am very pleased with the findings and progress I am making – as too is the industry I plan to move into. From my work in the first year alone I have been offered a number of jobs in the field this past year, so I feel I am in a strong position right now. Whilst I could abandon the doctorate and head into the field, I strongly want to stay with it to complete my research (both for my own enrichment, and a sense that it will really have an impact on my industry, its practice, and its academic study), something that I wouldn’t be able to do if I entered employment.
Because of that goal, I have consistently repeated my desire (through many jumping-through-hoops papers to faculty boards and the like) to keep my project interest where it will have practical application to my field, and I first approached my (then potential) supervisor for her experience in this. However, for my supervisor, I’ve found this experience comes second to her own pet area of high level theory (read: intelligent and interesting for explanation, with very little practical value).
For the past year I have pursued this line of approach hopeful that it would provide insight, but over the past few weeks I've come to accept that it will not be useful for me. Yet I think my supervisor considers it the core theory to my work, something I think has only recently become clear to me. Just as Bruce Willis watched a montage of clues whizz past his eyes that he's been dead all along, it seems so too have I had re-revealed to me the clues that my supervisor and I weren't meeting eye to eye without either of us realising it. I should say I do not have any ill-will towards my supervisor, I just think we’ve ended up in a bit of a mess.
I’m not entirely sure how to deal with this problem. I don’t know whether to run with my supervisor’s theory, which will risk me losing relevance and employment prospects with my industry, or to reject the theory and risk losing the PhD. Not to mention the awful anxiety of simply discussing the situation with my supervisor.