Comments for The Tao of Grad School

Comment on I choose to stop shoulding on myself by Shoulding all over myself

Shoulding all over myself — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 00:16:20 +0000

[…] I’ve told myself I should be doing–enter cognitive dissonance and guilt. (Do note that shoulding is an actual psychological term to describe a type of cognitive distortion or false […]

Comment on Grad school is where you go to suck at the only thing you’ve ever been good at (i.e., school) by sotrue

sotrue — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 01:27:49 +0000

I couldn’t agree more with your most and with all of the comments above. I’m in a prestigious phd program and I also feel like I don’t belong. People here are very extroverted, competitive, and have the goal of becoming star scholar. Everyone compete to publish more, regardless of what kind of question they are asking. They want to form good relationship with the PIs (which is of course not bad), but all for career purposes and to lengthen their CVs.
I don’t want to blame those who are ambitious, but what I found was that I’m not ambitious enough. I’m more interested in finding a good research question, and a question that really contributes to the field and the world. I feel like an idealist in here, too slow in processing thoughts, too slow in proceeding with any research there is.
The only solution I came to was to ignore all those thoughts. I am who I am, and if I have a goal, I’m going to be happy with it. I’ll have to stop being depressed about not making smart remarks all the time, I’ll have to live with the boredom sometimes I felt while doing coursework (although coursework is soon over). I’m going to be happy with my own goal of not aiming to be the star scholar in my field with hundreds of research. If I settle to live the way I want, I’ll have to stick to it and be happy about it. It’s not as easy as it is said, but that’s the conclusion I reached after 2 years of grad school.

Comment on Grad school is where you go to suck at the only thing you’ve ever been good at (i.e., school) by Angelica

Angelica — Sun, 14 Sep 2014 15:02:42 +0000

I can definitely relate. I just completed my Masters in drug design and I have to admit I’m pretty disappointed. While I got an A, the work I produced and the things I learned are no where near my expectations when I first joined the program. I felt like I didn’t fit in a lot of the time because while I was an external student, others where already teaching assistants in the academic field pursuing Master degrees, and I was juggling my Masters with a full time job. I think a big part of the disappointment is not researching the work I would be doing well enough. Pure drug design was a new discipline and I was the first in my university to do this kind of work so there were very little available resources to help me. Also another aspect of disappointment I would have to say is my supervisor. Pretty old school and very resistant to my ideas.

I’m still pondering over enrolling in a PhD program or not. On the one hand, I want to learn more and I want to do research work that will contribute even in the slightest tiniest way to science. But on the other, what if my PhD is as disappointing as my Masters? It’s going to take me 3 times as long – time wise and effort wise – and I’ll also be risking a career in a reputable company. But something tells me if I don’t take the step now I’ll always wonder why I never did .. but I don’t want to jump into it to later regret it half way through!