Powered by
Attention conservation notice: A student ruminating about his future.
Today, I sent a draft of my thesis—I lost count of the version number—to my supervisor with two unimplemented comments. I could have sent the draft a week ago, but I thought if I give myself some time, I would be able to address those comments. However, more than a year of everyday writing and regular correction of a 100 pages long document (my thesis), have depleted my energy so much that my mind simply is in inaction mode, or one can say that it does not care anymore. On top of it, to find my next job(postdoc), I need to regularly write applications, which further consumes the remains of my mental resources, including the small amount weekly recovered with the help of my family and loved ones.
Surprisingly, it is the same mind that used to have a lot of energy for doing research, but now it has become so miserable that the thoughts of quitting are not abnormal. What prevents the action is the hope that this situation will not last, that I will soon be free to do research and that I will take the next step on my path soon. However, this hope is also struggling due to self-induced (maybe socially-induced) humiliation where a bright PhD student could not finish his PhD after the hard work of six years which were productive, but not necessarily for everyone. The next employer might see it as a problem as the usual time for a PhD, nowadays, is four to five years. So, seven years could be considered a red flag. In that case, who will defend that I fulfilled all the requirements of PhD in five years, but the thesis writing/reviewing/correcting took two more years? Finally, if he rejects my application, I call it a failure, an utter failure.
Very often, I wonder why a career in science needs to be so miserable. If it is not, then I am not a very suitable candidate for science, or maybe I lack that mind that can cope with a lot of stress, or I simply do not have enough talent. In other words, I might be a modern-day loser. However, similar to the ideas of Einzelganger, I do not feel bad calling myself a loser. On the contrary, it's relieving, and it sets me free from all the expectations of success. This might also be the reason that I am still waking up every day—with ups and downs—and trying to finish what I have started. Life is full of paradoxes, where the end leads to the beginning. When you give up, you feel motivated to try once more. So that is what I am counting on now.
Reply via email
Posted at: Tue, 18 Feb 2025 16:59 GMT
category: /weblog/posts