Last Thursday I had a long talk with my advisor. I went in planning to discuss how overwhelmed I've suddenly become by trying to plan experiments, get access to equipment, get trained, etc. (I also had to mention that some of the lab's waste is radioactive, or at least classified as such, and I wanted to know if she could identify some mystery bottles that have been in the freezer since 1997, but that's another story). After we checked out the frozen goodies, she mentioned that she thinks I'll be ready to graduate next spring.
Upon reflection, I can see where she's coming from, and she might well be right. But it was quite a shocker when she said that (rather casually), since I'd kind of vaguely assumed I'd be here at least another 18 months. I'm at an interesting point: I feel like I've rolled a really heavy ball almost all the way up a hill, and if I can just push it over the edge, all of a sudden lots of things will start working, I'll collect a flood of data, and before I know it, I'll be at the bottom of the hill writing my dissertation. But I've been pushing that ball uphill for more than a year now, and I don't even have enough data today to write an abstract that's due on July 31.
Meanwhile, I suddenly need to stop coasting on my 18-month plan and start thinking about what I want to do with my life. If I want a postdoc, I should start looking now. If I want to leave the Bay Area, I should figure out where I might go. It's weird for me, though, because this is the first time anyone has told me I'll be ready to finish before I felt like it was time to leave. I decided to ditch high school a year early because I couldn't stand it anymore. I thought about graduating Hopkins early - I had all of my requirements finished by the end of the fall semester of my senior year - and I chose not to because I couldn't find a job for the spring and summer, before grad school started. Now, in grad school, I feel like the point isn't to finish requirements; it's to learn everything I think I'll need later, to get all of the experience I think will help me professionally, to do everything worth doing now that will be hard to do later. If I want to go into academia, I should teach more, try to write a real grant, publish as much as I can, and present at professional conferences (and give a podium talk sooner or later). I should also start thinking about what I really want to focus on in my own research, since it'll likely be quite different from what I'm doing now. If I want to go into industry, these issues aren't really pressing, but I have a feeling that even if I start out in industry now, I'll end up in academia eventually, and now is my best opportunity to do all of this. I'd hate to shortchange myself now for the sake of graduating a few months earlier and come to regret it later.
Of course, this is all predicated on my experiments working and the data rolling in, and I don't exactly have a great track record for that...It's almost like me and traveling: I usually get there eventually, but somehow I never get to take the fastest or simplest route.
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