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A PhD is about you. Not about your environment. Not about others. Not even about your work. It's about you. What story do you want to tell to your future employers? That you were fed up with your environment and unmotivated to continue? Hell no! You want to tell you a tricky problem, analyzed it thoroughly and fuckin' fixed it! You got funky publications, an interesting network, a smashing thesis (no one's gonna check) and now are ready to take on the world!

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Great point. A sad reality of the career game is that you win not by being most truthful, but by building a coherent story.

My moral stance is this: "fudging" is okay-- if you were fired, turn it into a layoff-- as long as you're not representing yourself as having skills you don't have. If you do, you might end up in a job where you're incompetent. It's not only morally wrong and costly, but you're the one who ends up most severely punished, because being that far out of your depth sucks.

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