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Science Education and Careers
STEM Academic Advising
Think I made the wrong choice of PhD
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[QUOTE="Christopher Grayce, post: 6149358, member: 658133"] Actually, to be honest, when I look back at the 35 or so years of my career, what I wished I'd done much more often than I did was quit. There were times I wasted huge amounts of time and effort proving I wasn't a quitter, that I can do it, when it would have been far more sensible to stop, re-assess, and go in a new direction. Spending giant time and effort on a losing cause, on something that isn't really fun, isn't really going to pay off, is just endless amounts of very hard work for very little reward, is just a waste. It delays discovery of what you really want to do, what is really fun, what will really pay off. I'm not saying don't do physics. By all means do it if you love it (and if you decide your discouragement right now is just a temporary rough patch). But [i]definitely[/i] don't let fears of seeing yourself as a quitter stand in the way of making a rational assessment of where you really want to spend the coming years and decades of your life. It's nobody else's life but yours. You have to be satisfied with it, and the applause of others is no substitute for your own conclusion that what you do matters to you, seems important and satisfying to you. Since an issue is not knowing what it's like to do the research, maybe seek out a research opportunity, even a small one. Maybe talk to some PIs and see what their life is like. How much time do they spend doing various things (writing grants, supervising students, teaching, thinking, traveling, talking) and how do they feel about it? Probably your instructors would be quite happy to have a talk with you about what it's like to do the work, and at least one should be willing to get you going on a small project of your own. I can't think of any real scientist who wouldn't be glad to help you out if you told him honestly you were trying to get a feel for what real research is like, to decide if it's something you really want to do. They're human beings, they'll understand. It would be surprising if they haven't had moments of doubt and reconsideration themselves. If you have to plow through the exams to get a chance at this, then set that as a goal, but promising yourself that after you acquire some experience doing actual research, you'll reconsider the whole thing fairly. [/QUOTE]
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Think I made the wrong choice of PhD
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