The other day I met one
of my friends online…. We were in graduation together where we made our
dreadful choices of continuing with education and enroll in to a PhD program. I
have gone through the phase of my life, wherein when I used to let people (Especially
my parents) know that I am going for a PhD, the questions I used to get was
Is it studying further?
How many years more are
you going to study?
Are you going to get
paid?
Are you going to get
married?
At this point of my
life after spending so many years in PhD I understand why these questions were
raised. It’s not just because compared to people who made alternate career
choices are on a boost with their brand new cars, brand new houses, having
babies all like a happy family; it’s also because for 5 years of life we have
nothing to show as an improvement in life….. Not with the income, not with the promotion
or ranking, sure you might have few publications in some journal people have
never heard and care.. but frankly who gives a crap.
So the question is what
we do for 5 years… frankly the answer is I really don’t know. I feel as if I
joined in yesterday. What brings me here is that I read a science book and I
get heavily motivated and we feel…oh my god I should be totally doing this cool
stuff discovering new things and it will be amazing. What we don’t realize is
the discovery that is written in one line has taken almost decades to reach
over there. Like on movies people think, that they see new phenomena, they
report it and they become famous…. But in reality forget discovering the new
things.. we do the same thing people know already and try to find something new
in that (that’s why it’s called RE-SEARCH).
So you will be actually working on the tiny-miniscule-microscopic-not so
much of problem of the major ground breaking research along with the millions
of the intelligent people working on the same topic. And the money we get for
this is barely enough to eat food…
So the question is why we
come into research, what the problems are and how to get over it….
First of be absolutely
clear that you are getting into the research because you are in love with it (only way to find out is to have an experience before)…
not because you didn’t have anywhere to go after masters and you got dragged
in. I have seen people like latter one… and let me tell you it’s a horrible
journey for them. If you are here because you are getting a Dr before your
name… frankly again a terrible mistake… you could have got it by doing MBBS and
could have earned a good amount at least after the degree.
PhD is a struggle… it’s
not a kind of struggle you expect. There is sometimes no movement of body at
all, there is sometime only waiting, and there is some time no progress to
report in your work months together, of course sometimes its failure of
experiments. You need to understand that failure and frustration is there in
any job. You kind of have to deal with it one way or another. Speaking about
the mind numbing time you have when nothing is moving at all.. realize that you
have the most important thing in your hands which other high paid friends
doesn’t ….TIME… it’s a waste only if you
do nothing in it. So when my PhD friends say to me like “I really don’t have
time to do any extracurricular stuff man.. like I have all the experiments
planned up for nest 18 hours”… I think-ya I know your 18 hrs experiment …put
some work for like 15 mins…. then 3 hrs waiting …. Add some solution… 5 hrs
waiting and there it goes your 18 hrs (3 hrs work and 15 hrs waiting). What I
meant to say is you don’t have to do some academic stuff in this waiting
hours.. do something you like… read a novel… watch a movie.. go workout.. but
do something instead of taking a nap. Most people feel frustrated because they
feel they have achieved nothing at the end of those years other than few extra pounds.
So please do explore your creative side. The only thing that you could avoid
from your side is procrastination. This happens when you let your creative side
carry you away when you have actual work to do or worse when you do nothing
even when you have work to do. But it’s a phase of life where you may
procrastinate during the initial stages if PhD and as time approaches near and
you feel like you have done nothing… you stop procrastinating
People who complaint about their supervisors
giving them a big pain, imagine if you joined as some employee for 9 to 5 job,
that person easily could have been your boss. Atleast here you have the right
to fight for the research, the topic you like, and the work you do (If you feel
you don’t have that right then please change the supervisor). And the other
category who feel that their supervisor is not bothered, you should be happy
that atleast you have all the freedom to do the work you like (if you have no
clue what to do.. then please join the supervisor of previous category).
So usually my advice to
the people who are finishing their graduation and coming in to phd is don’t come
here just because you don’t have anything better to do in life and you are
simply been dragged. Go do an MBA for god sake and have a normal life if you
think that is what it is. Come here if you really want to know what science
means. You won’t get paid right away but yes if your intentions are right you won’t
regret that you made this choice in life.
And yes, I would like
to conclude with a dialogue from the movie KICK-ASS 2 -“Try to have fun.
Otherwise, what's the point?”
