Can I tell my advisor I want to finish my PhD in 6 years? I am international student, studying PhD in Electrical Engineering at UNC and just finished my first year.
My employer gave me full scholarship to US. So, I have 6k monthly salary while they cover all tuition fee and medical.
I would like to take my time to finish it in 6 years. No rush as I am enjoying staying in US and very fortunate to have my children study here.
However, my advisor is pushing me to work harder, he plan to graduate me in four years. How can I tell him my opinion? I am afraid it will give him bad indication that I am not serious while I am interested to do good but at longer time.
Thanks
I suggest, fairly strongly that you go along with the professor and make four years your target. There are a number of reasons for this.
First, you want your advisor happy with you and with the opinion that you are making progress toward a common goal. They may actually need your results as part of a larger picture.
Second, there is no guarantee that any doctoral student meets their time target. Things happen in research that can't be predicted. Some of these lead to additional time. You have a cushion that you can fall back on in this case.
Third, if you do finish in four years, there may be additional opportunities that arise are not visible now and that might make sense at that time. Perhaps you can find a way to just stay on with additional research if your funders are happy. And you may find that you can find something suitable elsewhere, but still in a place you want to live.
Things happen over six years that aren't predictable. Who would have guessed six years ago that the US and the world would be in the current state it is? We hope that in six years it will be better.

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” ~~Albert Einstein