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Attention conservation notice: A PhD student complaining about academia
Sometimes I wonder whether doing a PhD now a days is worthy enough? Particularly, when there is so much disparity in society including economical conditions. Ofcourse, the classic arguement "One should not do PhD to be rich" is valid but when the duration of PhD is only controlled by the supervisor, I wonder, how long one can live a life without enough money?
Most of the science geeks--like me--grow up listening to stories of "great" scientists. Among them some decide to take the responsibility of humanity to advance in science (LOL), therefore join a PhD program. A bright-PhD-student goes to lab, publishes ground breaking papers and finally win the Nobel prize, or at least dream about it. But then someone wakes him up to remind that you are laying down on your work table, head down, and not working hard enough to succeed in academia. The reality turns out to be way cruel than the imagination of a bright-PhD-student.
You might be feeling that the story of this student sounds familiar because it is actually the story of every second PhD candidate. In my case, beating the odds, I am now in 5th year (unofficially 7th) and currently going through a painful process of writing "monograph" form of thesis. Considering myself a bright-PhD-student, I started an ambitious goal of writing in Jan-2024 and was targeting to finish before Nov-2024. But--surprise surprise--I am still doing it with an illusion of finishing it soon. Many other students who joined after me have already finished but here I am being just a not so bright-PhD-student.
It is not easy to find whom to blame as I am considerably good-PhD-student and my supervisor is very helpful and easily available. We had a really good time doing physics for all these six years and I have learnt a lot from him. But the climax of my PhD is going similar (crying now) to the last season of "Game of Thrones". The main reason, in my view, is the disparity among university programs that few students get PhD way faster as they are allowed to defend based on articles (new way) compared to the others who need to write a full "monograph". My supervisor also had the later idea as he argues that to be a good scientist one should learn to write. Now I am trying to survive between being a good scientist and being alive and healthy
I will let you know, If I survive.
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Posted at: Mon, 20 Jan 2025 20:43 GMT
category: /weblog/posts